Events On A Budget

would be wary based on my experience. They were not the best fit for us, and it was a very stressful planning experience. 1) Lack of design support: I wanted a planner who could offer great design ideas and paid for a full planning upgrade in the wedding in the box package with this in mind. Whenever I asked about design help, they told me to go on Pinterest and they would just go off that. I showed ideas and everything I liked was an up charge so I asked them what are examples of things that would be within budget and didn’t get clear answers. I ultimately turned to friends and a new florist for design support because they were not able to help me. 2) Evasive about their portfolio: I booked based on what I saw on their IG and their status as a preferred vendor at my venue but when we started planning meetings and I asked for specific photos of the weddings they did at the venue, they said they lost all their photos in their computer system. This seemed questionable so I pressed and they admitted that the photos they had were old and not reflective of their best work so they preferred not to show them. I found this very off putting. 3) Poor quality vendor recommendations: We were planning from out of state and really needed help with vendor selection. Their suggested vendors were not well matched for our needs. They suggested vendors based on their relationships, and not based on what actually made sense for our wedding. We flew in from out of state for a set of vendor meetings and I ended the day in tears. Their caterer prepared the wrong menu for our tasting (e.g., pork, beef, cheese appetizers and entrees, instead of our requested chicken, fish, and vegan options. We are lactose intolerant and couldn’t eat some of the food prepared). When we asked about the vegan entree, the caterer asked, “what’s an example of what that could be?” Why would my planner recommend him if he didn’t know how to prepare vegan food when she knew it was a requirement for us? Why wasn’t this clarified in the months or weeks before we arrived? We submitted our menu in June and our tasting was in September. EOAB placed the full blame on the caterer and just said that “he messed up” and they would help me find another one but I was concerned. Their in-house florist did not have a portfolio and most of their weddings on IG have been done by other florists. We were not happy with the quality of the arrangement at our mock up and she didn’t seem able to offer suggestions to improve the look. I had to make a decision to either terminate the contract (and lose our $12k retainer while still needing to hire another planner) or negotiate new terms and figure out the rest on my own. We decided on the latter and the EOAB agreed to adjust. We transitioned to a partial planning package and I found the vendors I needed (caterer, florist, saxophonist, rentals, hair and make up, photo, and video) on my own. This added a ton of extra stress but my husband and I just worked to get it done. Month-of coordination ended up being the EOAB team’s strength. They communicated clearly when it came to logistics. My biggest regret of my wedding was signing up for the WIAB package because of how stressful and expensive it was to pivot, but we ended up having a great day. Ask lots of questions before booking!