DBY events & invitations

Our wedding was at the Chicago Cultural Center in Feb 2018, and it was absolutely amazing thanks to Kasey and her team! We were so lucky to have randomly found her. We found her while searching for invitation companies, and while creating amazing custom invites with her, we realized what an asset she was to us! I'm super organized and no doubt a "type A" technical person attentive to the details. I quickly learned that the Chicagoland area is the third most expensive and competitive marketplace for the wedding industry. What does that mean for the bride? It means that you have to do so much research on every single vendor, read lots of fine print (vendor contracts can be multiple pages long), just to make sure you know exactly what you are paying/signing for. And you may not even have the perspective to know what is missing from it...unless you've planned a large scale event before. It is a matrix. This industry is insane and can quickly drive anyone trying to navigate it without experience mad. Kasey killed it in this department for us! She dots every "i" and crosses every "t." She dissected vendor contracts for us...explaining to us what we THOUGHT we were getting and what we were ACTUALLY getting. She even renegotiated several contracts we already signed before consulting her. What took me months, took only a two-minute conversation with Kasey. And with 15+ years of experience in this industry, she knows everyone and everything in the entire Chicagoland area. Not only is she literally a wealth of knowledge, but her negotiating power is much stronger than yours can ever be as a new bride. She leverages her knowledge and relationships wholeheartedly for you. She is hardworking and loves what she does, which really shows in how much effort she puts into everything she touches. Her fee paid itself (and then some) in what she saved us from other vendors. No doubt Kasey is worth it alone from the financial aspect and an asset during the planning process, but come the day-of, her talents truly shine! All the months of planning hinge on ONE day, so there is a lot of pressure to execute and here she just thrives! I was able to enjoy literally every minute of our wedding day - my mom and I didn't have to do anything! Kasey ran the entire behind-the-scenes show. She also made sure that our vision that we had worked on for months was executed exactly as planned by the other vendors involved. She really made our vision come to life in a way that I will forever be grateful for. A wedding day is a big investment and I cannot imagine who else I could possibly trust to do this (again, I am a type A person so it was difficult to hand over the reigns). I want to end my review by offering some insight regarding the few negative reviews I read here about Kasey. Some people have commented that she is rude. When I first met Kasey, I have to admit I was a little bit overwhelmed at first. She has a very positive energy, but just a very powerful energy that can be intimidating to some people depending on your personality type. After working with her for more than six months on my own wedding, I got to know Kasey very well. She is a straight-shooter, no-bullshit, fast-talking, get-it-done and get-it-done right person which also sometimes can be misinterpreted as rude to some people. Please do NOT let this deter you...she is absolutely the personality type you will NEED in your corner for wedding planning and even more so come the day-of!

I cannot say enough good things about Kasey and DBY Invitations. From the day I met her at the Bridal Expo, I knew I had a good feeling about Kasey. She is warm and outgoing, and is well versed in all things wedding related. I originally met with Kasey for my wedding invitation stationery, but quickly realized what an asset she would be to my "wedding team." Kasey not only handled all of our stationery needs, but my mother and I decided that we wanted to hire Kasey as my day-of wedding coordinator. Well let me tell you - that was the BEST decision we made when it came to wedding planning. We received so much more than just day-of coordinating! Kasey alleviated SO much stress for us throughout the planning process and on the day of the wedding, we were as calm as could be!! I am a person that likes to be in control, and wedding planning was no different. I had a specific vision for my wedding, but was easy going when it came to the small details. Kasey understood my vision and ran with it. She not only aided with my ideas, she had fantastic ideas of her own! Every single detail was thoughtfully planned, and it showed on my wedding day. I do not "hand over the reigns" very easily when it comes to planning, but with Kasey, it was different. I knew I was in good hands and that Kasey's assertive personality would be fighting for the best for us every step of the way. I should also mention that my mother and mother-in-law ended up hiring Kasey for my bridal shower. They threw me the most AMAZING, over-the-top, Betsey Johnson inspired bridal shower that I could ever imagine. It was an event straight out of Pinterest and it was all thanks to the wonderful collaboration between Kasey and the moms. I could go on for hours about Kasey and her team, but instead I will let you check them out for yourself. I promise you it will be the best decision you can make for yourself when it comes to wedding planning. I not only was able to have a stress-free wedding, but I left with a friend in Kasey. I will be returning to Kasey and DBY Invitations for any and all stationery needs in the future - I cannot wait to enlist her help in my future party planning! Kasey, we cannot thank you enough, and we love you to pieces!!

Our invitations were show stopping! Kasey made a design based on a swatch of fabric we used our my decor. They were absolutely perfect and worth every cent! All of our guests raved about them. Kasey was right, the invitation sets the tone. I would use DBY again and again for any event! Be sure you have that guest list nailed down before going. We definitely over ordered, but that is on my husband and I, not DBY.

We absolutely loved our invitations!! They were exactly what we wanted!

Kasey added a lot of unnecessary stress to the wedding planning process. We assumed that Done By You Invitations meant that we worked together with Kasey to come up with the final product. When we met with her to see the rough draft, we assumed that was the time to make some modifications in font choices and design. Wow were we wrong. Instead she snapped at us and scolded us during the rest of the appointment over any changes we wanted made. Even so simple changing orange dots to pink since orange was not one of our colors. The final products were so-so. For all of the stress working with her brought, it was definitely not worth it. I wish we would have either spent a little more money to go somewhere else with someone not so rude to her clients, or just made them ourselves and printed them at FedEx.

Not going to be too long winded but Kasey was awesome. Menus and programs were amazingly stunning and we were blown away with how they turned out. Kasey is not for the thinned skinned or sensitive type. She has a strong personality and is very direct so be prepared. We had a rowdy bunch and Kasey was able to keep them in-line and focused which was incredibly important for such a big day. Communication leading up to the day of our wedding could have been a little better but she came through for us when it mattered most. She utilized an assistant the day of and both handled every aspect of the day covering all angles. Our wedding day was how it should be, completely worry free! Overall very pleased and would absolutely recommend Kasey.

5 stars isn't enough to describe all this storefront has to offer!!! Kasey, the store owner, is amazing!She went above and beyond to help make my daughter's wedding day all that we imagined. She helped us design the most beautiful invitations without breaking the bank, as well as coordinate all accessories along along the way. Kasey always had a smile on her face, and the ability to do several things at once along with tons of original ideas while I stressed out over church programs, menu cards, table numbers, specialty drink signs and beyond. She did it all! When I felt overwhelmed she stepped in to organize and contact all vendors, made the hotel thank you boxes, and spoke on our behalf with the venue in order to organize the reception space,the photo booth, band and a very difficult florist. She singlehandedly kept everyone on track at the rehearsal, wedding and reception. I recommend her so highly, and I wouldn't want anyone else beside me to help with any future weddings. She was most definitely the reason the day was so stress free.

I could not be happier with the invitations Kasey designed for us. She listened to what we wanted and we ended up with a product that was personalized, beautiful, and so much more than we had first envisioned. We also used Kasey for day of coordination. Hands down going with DbY was the best money we spent on the wedding. Kasey made it so easy. I didn't have to make a single confirmation phone call, and I could really enjoy the day while not having to worry about a thing. Kasey was a huge part of why our wedding was so special.

The only redeeming quality about this company is that the invitations themselves were beautiful. I didn't have any trouble designing or ordering the invitations when first meeting with Kasey, but problems started to arise when the invites were finished. There was delay in when they were supposed to be done, which she blamed on an employee ordering the wrong size envelopes. No problem, she added on a free return address printed on the envelope flaps. However, when the invitations finally were completed, she kept putting me off about when I could come pick them up. "Oh, I'll get back to you in 10 days." Two weeks would go by, then, "Oh, yes we'll schedule a pick up time soon." I wanted them early so that I would have plenty of time to address them, but she put me on the back burner because she thought I had "plenty of time" to get them out. But that wasn't the worst of it. I also ordered thank you notes, which were not ready when the invitations were. This was fine, as she wasn't sure if I wanted to put a sentiment inside. I never heard another word from her as my wedding day came and then passed. A couple of weeks after the wedding, I emailed her to find out the status of the thank you notes. Kasey said she had expected me to reach out to her in August (the month of my wedding) to finalize the order info. As I was a little busy getting married in August, I didn't, but she didn't take the initiative to reach out to me! We finally got the order straightened out and she told me they would be ready in 10 days. A couple of weeks went by, and I was concerned because I again hadn't heard a peep from her. I had my husband contact her only to find out she just expected us to show up 10 days later to pick them up! Without informing us that they were actually done! I've completely washed my hands of her at this point, and we can't get our money back. I finally went to Target and bought some beautiful thank you notes for $30 just so that I could be sure of getting them out in a reasonable amount of time. I already feel terrible that my thank you notes are going out so late. The work Kasey does is beautiful, but not worth the trouble and energy of dealing with her. Do yourself a favor and STAY AWAY!

I recently just got married and choose DBY for all our paper goods and day of coordination. This is first time I write a bad review but felt the need to with this specific vendor. Out of all the wedding vendors I dealt with, kasey was by far the hardest one to work with. Kasey does do very beautiful work but was just way to rude and not professional. I felt many times I had to hold back my thoughts because of what she would have to say. She also never provided us with our items on time and misspelled many things on several items and then blamed it on us. It was brought to her attention many times but again she always was on defense and would find an excuse. Getting married should be very exciting and if your wedding experience is being spoiled by the person doing paper goods this should be a red flag. I believe that she carries on way to many tasks that she can handle. Coming from someone who deals with customers daily, I know how important it is to provide excellent quality work and this is certainly not what I received.

I chose Kasey Larson and DBY Invitations to design and print our invitations, and I am so happy that I did! I found Kasey and DBY at a local Bridal Show not long after we got engaged, and I fell in love with her designs right away. I scheduled a meeting and after talking one on one with Kasey and seeing the quality of her work in many, many samples, I knew DBY was the right fit for our wedding. We hired Kasey and DBY to do our Save the Dates, our Invitations, our programs, our escort cards and two items for our welcome bags (we had a destination wedding). I wanted to have a cohesive and elegant look and feel for the printed matter for our wedding, but I didn’t want anything cookie cutter or just like everyone else’s. Kasey WOWED me. She took my color scheme and helped me choose papers, and she guided me to a design style that fit my budget and then she went to work, customizing the individual pieces and making them unique, special and beautiful. Kasey asked the right questions, and got right to the heart of what I wanted and gave it to me, perfectly! Every single piece she designed was beautiful and special to our destination and to us. The whole suite of completed items look beautiful together, and definitely achieved my goal of a cohesive and classy overall look of the wedding. The invitations are the centerpiece of the collection, and they are truly a work of art. Kasey was able to take some stained glass images from pictures I’d taken at our venue and used them in the invitations in an unexpected and beautiful way. They turned out so personal and so gorgeous; I have gotten so many compliments on them! Kasey was very easy to work with, and when I wanted changes, she immediately understood what I wanted and made the changes very quickly so my timeline would stay on track. DBY Invitations does extremely high quality, hand crafted work. They really work to understand your vision and to make sure you achieve it. For the quality, custom designed finished work we received; I felt that the value provided by DBY Invitations and Kasey Larson was OUTSTANDING. I could have saved money by going with a do-it-yourself option, or choosing something boilerplate out of a catalog…but I would not have been as happy and my guests would not have been blown over, as they were with Kasey’s work. The save-the-date and the invitations set the whole tone of the wedding with your guests, long before they see the venue or the flowers…I couldn’t be happier that I chose DBY Invitations and Kasey Larson to design the major printed matter for our wedding. Because I had a smaller budget and couldn’t afford to have DBY do other items like menus, table numbers, etc. Kasey even helped me order matching paper product so I could do some DIY projects that would still go with the look and feel of the professionally done printed matter. I cannot express strongly enough what a great vendor Kasey Larson and DBY Invitations are to work with. The completed products were an excellent, high quality value, and really added to our wedding.

I am over the moon about our invitations and paper items for our wedding. Kasey knew exactly the vision i had in mind to go with our wedding at Starved Rock Lodge. There was one small issue with the printing, and Kasey worked with me and was very professional and so nice in getting it resolved! i am so SO pleased with the results. The invitations were stunning, and our guests loved them. I will definitely be using DbY in the future for other events!!!

The invitations were beautiful. DbY was very helpful in making the invitations affordable and elegant. My only concern is that a mistake that was caught in the proofing stage was not corrected on the final invitation. It was not a big deal, at least.

Kasey, I wanted to make sure to reach out to you and thank you for the wonderful job you have done with all of our wedding stationary. Working with you and your team has been a pleasure and the final results were just stunning. The wedding invitations were so beautiful and I cannot thank you enough for holding them away from me till the right time as I wanted to send them right away. As we are now sending our thank you cards to our guests, I am thankful again for reaching out to your company. Please feel free to use us as your recommendation for your future customers. With the warmest regards

Kasey is a really outgoing, but nice person. Our invites and programs turned out really lovely and everyone loved them. However, I had a very hard time getting things by the deadlines. They were never ready when I came for meetings or to pick the products up. I ended up waiting up to an hour for my invites to finish printing. I also ordered favor boxes through Kasey, and those were a complete fight to get. She never informed me of their progress and I was stressing two weeks before the wedding because I had nothing to put my favors in. They came in eventually, but were bigger than I had been told, so I had to go buy more candy to fit in the boxes, which ended up costing a lot more money.

Kasey Larson at DbY Events and Invitations was a dream to have coordinating my wedding. My now - husband and I had two completely different ideas as to how we wanted our special day to be. I wanted just a casual celebration and he wanted to take a more traditional route. After I had told Kasey this, she didn't even hesitate to start throwing ideas out on how to tie both our styles together. Her creative eye is one of a kind. She is incredibly organized and gets the job done making it look easy. It is obvious she loves her job and I think that is important in creating your day that you will remember for the rest of your life. She's on top of all the details at all times. She responds quickly when you have a question and suggests ideas that I could have never thought of. She was amazing and I recommend her with the highest regard.

Future customers must be made aware of the owner of this company. Kasey was the most condescending rude woman I have ever met. We hired her company to print our invitations, personalized menus, wine bottle favors (that also served as place cards) and ceremony programs. We had 150 guests at the wedding. Our total cost for these services was about $4,000. INVITES: When we went to her shop to proof the invites she had my (now) husband last name spelled wrong. She brought out a new proof and the name was STILL spelled wrong. My mother advised her it was still incorrect and Kasey snapped "OK NAN! GOD!". Printed a new proof with the proper spelling. A week later we went to pick up the 100+ invites and sure enough, my husbands name was spelled wrong and all the other changes we requested were not done. Again, she snapped on us trying to say we approved the wrong proof. Luckily my mother and I are organized and put the signed copy in front of her face. Then she blamed her workers and said it would be corrected and ready for pick up the following Friday. The final (correct product) was very nice. PERSONALIZED MENUS: Turned out correct and nice with the exception of two guests she forgot to print for. WINE BOTTLE FAVORS: Were absolutely horrible! They were printed on standard AVERY labels and looked as though her printer was running out of ink. The proof I approved had the guest name in a thin script font. We received them with the names in a runny black bold. On top of that she forgot to make labels for two of our guests so we had to hand write in their names and table number on the blank copies she supplied. PROGRAMS: Turned out nice but she used a cheaper paper than what we paid for and never credited us back. We received the invites first and it was a complete nightmare leading up to getting the wine labels, programs and menus. When we finally got everything we were all completely done with Kasey and her disgusting attitude so we just signed off and walked out of the store with less than stellar product. When we got home and saw that she did not make labels or menus for two of our guests (lines 37 and 147 on the excel list) I emailed the excel list and asked her how she would correct the situation. She never responded. There were multiple times she had both my mother and me in tears with the way she spoke to us and literally bullied us around. I feel sorry for any future bride who has to deal with this woman!

Kasey and DBY did all of our paper goods for our wedding this month. We couldn't have been happier with the way our invitations, programs, menus, and escort cards turned out. All of them were absolutely spectacular! Kasey is a busy lady, and she does have a big personality. However, she is EXTREMELY nice, well-meaning, and engaged with her clients. I felt she spent far more time getting to know us and and the wedding we were planning than most of our other vendors. The company has gone through several staffing changes since we booked them, and although this did lead to some minor miscommunications, I felt that Kasey handled them extremely professionally. I never waited more than 12 hours for a return phone call from her, and I never felt like I had to remind her who I was. Kasey does have her own ideas, but that's part of what you're paying for. She is happy to change anything about her designs to meet her clients' needs. Our invitations were the first items we received from DBY, and I can't tell you how many compliments we received on the design and craftsmanship. The colors were perfect, and Kasey was happy to help incorporate the logo a friend of ours designed for us as a wedding gift. I felt like she really had a great understanding of what we were looking for, and she did her best to make our half-formed ideas come to life. When I was disappointed with how a sample invitation looked after it went through the mail, Kasey came up with a cost-effective solution that solved the problem, and I think actually added to the overall look and feel of the invitations. The remainder of our paper goods were delivered on time, and when I went to pick them up the Wednesday before our wedding, I discovered that we had told her two different colors for one of the escort card categories. Kasey had actually printed this category of cards TWICE, at her expense, once on the color we had picked out previously, and once on the color I had given her. I was astounded that a vendor would go to this kind of trouble to make sure her bride was happy! DBY is expensive, but you are paying for more than just paper. You are paying for a creative process, printing, assembly, and production of your items. We were so pleased with how everything turned out, and feel lucky that we had Kasey on our side to help with details (like color coding) when things got crazy! And the quality is exceptional, with all of the paper flowing seamlessly throughout the day. We were extremely happy with our experience at DBY, and we definitely recommend them!

This is what I should have done. After much research of staionary vendors, I chose Kasey because of convenience and the display products in her showroom were lovely. The Kasey you deal with prior to signing the contract and paying the first installment is far different that the Kasey you deal with after. While “abrasive” is a good term to describe her pre-signing personality, I thought I could deal with her personality just fine if the product output was as good as it seemed she was capable of. However, upon paying the deposit, she proceeded the get into an argument with my fiancé about something completely non-wedding related and I knew then we had made a terrible mistake. In trying to have an optimistic attitude, realizing we were stuck with her, I had hope the product would be worth the headaches I had just bought myself. My fiancé, on the other hand, would nothing to do with her going forward. Keep in mind, Kasey's “contract” only protects her. You will likely not receive what you think you are ordering contractually from her—and there is nothing you can do. When I picked up my final items as we were headed out of town for our wedding I was shocked to discover she had not followed the color scheme indicated in the contract--and it was far too late to do anything about it now. She chose to use colors which we not in my scheme and then proceed to make the situation worse by saying "that was as close" as they could get. A bold face lie. The week prior she did meet deadlines SHE outlined in her contract and it was abundantly clear our product was not a priority to her that week. When confronted about missed deadlines, she indicated she "had been running around like a chicken with her head cut off" for someone elses event and would get to it when she could. A prior missed deadline was met with the excuse her intern had quit on her. The programs were also printed off center and looked completely unprofessional. Following the disappointing pick up of our items, rather then spend precious quality time with our families, my fiancé and I scrambled to find another vendor who re-made everything in ONE day, in quality work which far exceeded what we paid for from DBY. Karey Larsen of DBY made my life much more difficult, not easier and I cannot express this emphatically enough—CHOOSE ANOTHER VENDOR --which is what my instincts told me to do in the first place.

I got a ton of compliments about my invitations. The owner is a bit abrasive at first, so you need to get past that. Also took some creative license for our place cards, which changed how we knew what guest was getting what meal choice.

Kasey (owner/operator) is a very abrasive, gruff person. I can totally see why other reviewers said she was "rude." My husband has a much better outlook on people with such attitudes, so he did most of the dealing with this one. However, here's what I can say... We provided her with all the artwork for the invitation and told her exactly what we wanted and how we wanted it done. She delivered on that, but she had to be poked/prodded to do so. Also, she will procrastinate down to the last possible second. (I would imagine that's why she left the other reviewer waiting for a half hour--she was probably desperately trying to finish up someone else's order.) When it came to the rest of the paper goods (menus, escort cards, ceremony programs, etc.), she still had our art to use, but we left the design in her hands. She did a good job with it. Again, Kasey will do a nice job, but the only way to move her to action is to be ON TOP of her at all times. Be prepared to stop by in person & spend a lot of time with her in order to get what you want. Prices may seem outrageous, but my husband and I did the "save the dates" on our own to see if it was feasible to do for all the other paper goods. It's WORTH IT to pay more to have a professional do it. Doing the "STDs" on our own did not save us any $ or time.

I was very happy with the way my save the dates and invitations turned out, but the journey getting there was a nightmare... and way over priced! I paid to have custom invitations done for me, and I wound up doing most of the work. The designer picked out some pictures, I never approved them, and then when I wanted to change them, she want to charge me extra so I had to find and crop my own background pictures! And then when she screwed up and shorted our invite count, which we had changed in person the week before and saw her right it down after she had asked us in the first place, she charged us an extra $100 to rush the order when it was her mistake. If you can deal with the headache and price gauging they do a good job.

Kasey did a magnificent job finding our right colors and helping us with the design of our invitations. We received rave reviews from our guest regarding our invites. "Never seen anything like them" "Love the color scheme" "Great fall colors"

Our experience with this shop turned into a horrible one! When we first went in, we were just looking for ideas and really liked what they had to offer. The owner was a little rude at first, but started to warm up once she knew we were serious. We made a design, which was excatly what I had been looking for. When we went to look at the proof, that's when things went way wrong. First- we were a little early because we came straight from work. The owner refused to see us until 6:00 on the dot, so we were sitting in the store for 30 minutes while she hid in the back. We she finally appeared, the proof was all wrong! Date wrong, my last name spelled wrong, looked horrible! We should have just walked out at that point, but felt like it was too late to find another vendor. We picked up the invites, and about a week later went to assemble and mail. We were dissapointed to see the print quality on about 80 of the invitations was terrible, looked worse than a home printer. When we called to complain she was extremely rude and defensive saying that is was our fault for not looking through each invitation in the store. When we arrived that day, she had everything sealed up, with her company logos so we assumed she had looked through them, she cut them!! She was also rushing us out anyways. Bottom line is, this woman is extremely rude and unprofessional. She was not helpful, and when she made a mistake, yelled at us. I would never in my life recommend her based on her horrible attitude, despite the fact that she does do some good work.