DEWITT PLANNING

g together, and new methods for us to communicate more effectively were established. Working in this industry, I work alongside all different minds, type A, creative.. people that prefer meeting in person, people that prefer phone calls... emails...texts etc, so finding a way to match my working style with every client uniquely is something I actively work towards.  Some clients don't want updates unless there is something to update, some clients talk to me daily, and coming to me with your conversation during planning was so helpful for me to adjust what works best for you personally. The moment anyone brings any issues to my attention I want to make absolutely every effort to create a better partnership and I genuinely thought we did that successfully as I never heard of any displeasure post wedding.  It was also in this call that I mentioned + clarified the package in which you had booked with us that was partial planning services. As there was some confusion + expectation of us to provide all the services of a full-service planner with the package you both currently had booked, so we went over expectations and attempted to clarify our roles moving forward so this issue wouldn't arise again.  One of the main priorities in planning that was communicated with us, was the rehearsal dinner which was being planned by the father of the groom. The FOG wanted an entirely custom menu, and in many circumstances the rehearsal dinner planning took precedence over the wedding planning process at the time. The rehearsal dinner itself nearly surpassed the wedding in planning time + budget. We had faced many delays in working with the venue, and had to wait over 9 months to get the menu created as they worked with their catering team to even come up with a price. This did create a lot for many lulls in conversation, and response times were lower as I would spend weeks + even months calling nearly every three days to the venue for answers. Moving forward from our conversation, I looped you both in on the waiting game, even if I had no answer to report. I also offered to do weekly/bi-weekly update calls even if we had nothing to report, just to touch base as well. In our email kick back as well, there is a link for our clients to set up a time to speak with us at any time as well, and the majority of the time when you would send an email, you would utilize this to set up a meeting for the following days immediately after sending your email. In the meeting notes, you mentioned the your email is what you wanted to go over, so we would wait for the day of the call to go over the information rather than an email response as I thought that is what you had preferred. We had over 15+ meetings over that period of time, met in person at the venue, and up to the date of the wedding had nearly 10+ texting group chats.  For the package you had booked, I was involved in every meeting involving the rehearsal dinner with FOG, wedding + brunch with MOG, and moving forward from this experience I have been a lot more firm in drawing the line on where my services start + end, as my intention of course is always to be kind + helpful, but the expectations moving forward get skewed and the line gets a lot more murky and I never want any confusion on what services I am contracted for. The fault in that is entirely my own, and something we have been very active in correcting + bettering myself on in being firm in the packages we offer. For example, for you two, you both contracted me for the wedding, and with the involvement of family, I allowed myself to move my focus to areas that I knew were pressing for you both + family, and I knew it was important for you both that your family was taken care of so that's where I put my energy and focus. At the end of the day, looking back on texts from the family after the wedding day, saying "good job" on rehearsal dinner or brunch are not my main priority, and the importance for me will always lie with my clients + their wedding day. I genuinely, wholeheartedly did everything in my power at the time to tackle all of the outside stressors and adjust myself in any way I could to be who you needed and I am really sorry to hear we still did not hit the mark. As for "copy and pasting" vendors' timelines, we did create a timeline for the event, and then we also received the timeline from the photographer that she had created on her own. I had coordinated with her as well on the timeline as I did not believe she allocated enough time for photos + I didn't want us to fall behind. Other items from her timeline were inputted into mine on honeybook as she had photo times laid out differently so I wanted to match, as well as updated in the shared google doc of the timeline you had created as well. On the day of the wedding, I was in group chats with both sides of the wedding party, and family members communicating the timeline.  We sourced + recommended every vendor for all events including lighting, video, two seperate hair + makeup artists, as well as meeting with the venue/catering 15+ times, and photographer on the timeline.    As for my qualifications in planning larger events, I have been in this industry for over ten years and while some of the weddings I do are micro-weddings + elopements.. I have worked well over 60+ weddings in my career from the 120-300+ range, in addition to working trade shows and events which have attendance in the thousands. Moving forward, we are not involved in planning events outside of the wedding day that we are not paid + contracted for to assure our main focus is where it needs to be. We have also utilized a new system called slack for us to have group chats with our clients to completely remove text communication altogether. This allows our clients to have direct communication with us like texting where we can send weekly updates, offer a "text-like conversation", and maintain our main communication being our couples. With every wedding we work with 8+ vendors, so that adds up to a lot of incoming emails daily, in this new system, only our clients are in it so it makes getting to + responding to their messages a lot quicker. We do have our email kick back to our office hours + our response times are listed within 48-72 business hours just to set expectations, but always work to respond sooner than that. We are in office Mon-Thurs, and at events Friday + Saturday, so emails sent at the end of the week or after hours have a longer response time in our policy.  Thank you so much for taking the time to review your services with us. As for your review on the creative + floral side, I truly appreciate your recommendation + appreciate you adding that to your review.  It was great to be able to create something I thought you would love. Wish you all happy holidays!  Kindness + love,   Jess

! Jessica

andemic, you are such a wonderful, caring soul. You're my hero! Kindness & love, Jessica DeWitt

Jessica DeWitt

world to me that you took the time to give us a review, I really appreciate that. <3 Cheers to many wonderful years together! ‘ Kindness & love, Jessica DeWitt Owner & lead creative