Events By The Bay

e and I wanted from a good wedding coordinator was to have someone to handle setup, and when things went wrong, to handle them without involving us. Janette (and her team at Events by the Bay) largely delivered this, and we appreciated her support with our wedding. There were enough weird moments that this teeters between 3-3.5 stars. The good: - Janette was super helpful in planning, helping us make decisions, figuring out our reception layout, creating and running a timeline. It was so helpful to be able to bounce ideas off of her, get advice, and check that our thoughts and plans made sense and were feasible. - Janette and her team mostly got everything (including tables, chairs, floral installations, and other decorations) set up and arranged without us or our families needing to handle it, which was a huge load off and allowed us to relax and be present. - she got us a FANTASTIC discount on rented items from Chairs4Events - likely saved us around $1,000 between her vendor discount and lower delivery fees by having her handle delivery instead of C4E - Janette and her team mostly handled the couple of day-of snags that happened during the wedding and reception, without us having to get too involved. - Her florals were gorgeous, matched what we asked for, were delivered effectively, and were very competitively priced. - Very competitive pricing for planning services as well. The left-to-be-desired: - Janette didn't answer her phone at all on the day of the wedding. Understandable not to be taking calls from other clients while working, but at two separate times times we (the couple) or our families needed to reach her because something was going wrong or we needed her assistance, and she just didn't pick up, even after multiple calls. Not the biggest deal, but we really expected to be able to reach our coordinator during the wedding if we needed her, especially since she gave her phone number to our families to reach out if they needed anything. She also apparently left the reception early without telling anyone (except maybe her own team), we just noticed that she'd gone. - Decor packup was chaotic and frustrating. First, Janette's assistant, Izzy, tried to pressure us to take our decor home at the end of the night, but we had already confirmed multiple times with Janette and her team that her team would pack everything up and we would pick it up from her the next day. To her credit, Izzy eventually did figure out a way to take our items back with her so we didn't have to. But then, it turned out they left almost a quarter of our decor items at the reception venue, and they made no effort to facilitate getting them back to us. Instead, it was on us to go back to the venue to pick up the rest of our items. - There were a few uncomfortable moments for us as a queer/LGBTQ couple. One planning document we received misgendered my spouse repeatedly throughout (though Janette did apologize for this after I pointed it out), and there were a number of times where we felt like Janette's expectations of wedding norms were pushing us into gendered boxes that didn't fit us very well. We asked at the start of the planning process to generally avoid terms like "bride" and "groom" for both of us, and that was only sometimes respected.

ns of disorganization. In one of her first emails, she even addressed my husband by the wrong name, and I had to correct her. She also repeatedly messed up our requests to the rental company and kept pushing for a company she preferred instead of the one we chose. She initially told us she had 20% discounts with certain vendors, but when we asked for quotes, no discounts were included. I had to specifically request that she apply them. One of the most stressful moments came when two different rental companies showed up at the venue—even though we had clearly finalized just one. She had helped us get quotes from both, but somehow both were scheduled to deliver. The week of the wedding was the worst. On Monday, she emailed saying she would not attend our wedding due to a [redacted illness] but would send replacement staff we had never met or spoken to. I later saw her at the flower market that week, and she did not acknowledge me at all. The day before the wedding, she emailed asking for the second half of her payment “if we wanted staff to show up.” Per our contract, she was supposed to handle décor setup that day, but she never arrived. On the actual wedding day, she continued calling, emailing, and leaving voicemails asking for money. Shockingly, the Monday after the wedding, she emailed again, saying we still owed her payment “if we wanted the planning staff at the wedding.” Overall, this added unnecessary stress to what should have been a joyful experience. I cannot recommend her services.

for a month of coordination package and only days away from our wedding had not connected with them all, including our ceremony location. The most proactive work she did was reaching out to the 3 vendors she had contacted to tell them she was no longer working our wedding. 2) Was rude and performative (but usually not helpful) when she did respond to any communication from us or our vendors while also liable to drop some mildly racist comments. Once we fired her, our vendors that knew her said they had had horrible experiences with her in the past or she didn't show. 3) Is an embezzler (https://westsideobserver.com/pdfs/WSO-Apr19.pdf) 4) Sent us receipts that weren't for our wedding and tried to overcharge us for items that were so low quality we couldn't even use them. 5) is clearly running a scam where she collects half her money upfront and then either doesn't show or gets fired but doesn't return the money. 6) after she was fired for embezzlement from the Forest Hill Association, she started a new business and probably got a bunch of fake reviews - I'd direct anyone who is considering hiring her to look at the 1 star reviews on the Forest Hills Yelp page that all specifically call her out by name (https://www.yelp.com/biz/forest-hill-association-san-francisco-3?osq=Forest+Hill+Association&rr=1#reviews).

nning. Her crew was extremely efficient in setting up and taking down the florals. We were able to keep some of our florals for the brunch the following day and they lasted beautifully. Events by the Bay is also extremely reasonably priced and easy to work with.