Exquisite Weddings & Events

ot married back in October 2023. We met Jill about a year and a half before our wedding at a wedding fair in Concord. We wanted a day of coordinator and she seemed really nice so we set up a meeting with her. We had a phone meeting where she talked up her business, basically how she would coordinate our wedding day of and also coordinate all our vendors and make a timeline the month prior to our wedding. She also had some décor we could use which was a plus for us so we could save some money. We signed a contract with her and then didn’t discuss much with her until before the wedding. The first red flag was, in our contract it listed out the dates of our payments. Jill would never reach out about the payments, and I always had to message to see if I needed to make the payment. On top of that, she was very difficult to get ahold of. I would email, call, and text and it would take days to hear back, usually through email. We had an issue with our venue a few months before our wedding and had to completely change to a new venue. I let Jill know about this change and she replied noting the change and said about a month later she would get started on the timeline and everything and to send over all our vendors. I set up a phone call meeting with her about a month prior to the wedding and twice she did not call me for the meeting or when I called she did not answer. I began panicking around this point and she would usually reach out via text or email apologizing and setting something else up. I should have cancelled working with her at this point, however we had paid the majority of what we owed and didn’t want to be out thousands of dollars. She also set up a zoom meeting with me and did show up, and from then on she showed up for meetings we had scheduled so I thought things would be fine. After the meeting she emailed our vendors, and she used a generic message and didn’t change the names in the email to my and my husband’s names and there were spelling and grammar mistakes. I had already done a general timeline with the help of my photographer and sent that over to Jill. She also gave me access to the website she uses to make the timelines so I can make any additions or changes. While she imported everything, I was the one who mostly input the information for the timeline. At this point I also had two zoom meetings with Jill and her assistant Elise. We went over the entire timeline, décor, vendors, catering, dessert, literally everything for the day of the wedding. We went over all the information multiple times, such as they would be putting out bubbles for guests before the ceremony and giving bubble guns to the children at our wedding. I even drew up pictures of how I wanted tables set up for the dessert table, guestbook table, centerpieces, everything. At our rehearsal, I met up with Jill and Elise who were standing off to the side by themselves to introduce myself in person and give them my binder with everything for the day of. We had a lot of people there for the rehearsal and instead of taking charge as the coordinator, both Jill and Elise kind of stayed off to the side while we had to figure out what to do. Jill finally brought everyone to the ceremony site to talk to us, however she didn’t really explain anything properly or do anything to help. Our Officiant ended up taking over to help us rehearse while Jill and Elise stayed off to the side talking to each other. They also ended up leaving the rehearsal without talking to me or my husband. On the day of the wedding my husband let me know that Jill showed up late, even though Elise was there. They did help with setting up here and there, but the majority was done by my husband, groomsmen, and family members. I had also given Jill pages with all of our décor and what needed to be set up where, as well as everything was in labeled boxes with where they were supposed to go. However, multiple things were either forgotten and not put out or things were put in the wrong places. When I arrived and we did our first look and photos with our bridal party, the only thing Jill would do is come over and tell us the time. We were running a little behind in finishing up photos prior to the ceremony, but the way Jill would go about it made us feel more stressed and rushed. I felt so stressed and rushed that I ended up not putting my veil in properly and it came out when I got to the ceremony so I did not get to wear it. Additionally, during the ceremony both Jill and Elise were supposed to signal for each group to walk and which music should be playing. Elise stopped directing people when walking that our ring bearers started walking with our flower girls and I had to call them back to wait. I told Elise at this point that she needed to pay attention and do her job as I was getting increasingly frustrated with them. After the ceremony and family photos I learned our lawn games were not properly set out for guests during the cocktail hour like Jill and Elise were supposed to so they did not get used. After the cocktail hour I talked to both Jill and our caterer since Jill was once again stressing us out about being slightly behind on time from our original schedule. At this point our caterer saw what we were dealing with and she stepped in and actually started coordinating for us. From this point on I don’t think Jill or Elise did much, though I did see Elise put up our floral backdrop and polaroid table for the reception which I appreciated. Our caterer basically did everything else from this point, including calling table by table to dinner, going to the DJ to introduce us for our first dance, bringing us dinner and drinks, checking up on us and other people to make sure everything was okay, setting up the dessert table and calling everyone over for the cake cutting, etc. At the end of the night Jill and Elise did help clean up a bit, but most everything was done by our friends and family. We also had multiple people notice the issues with our coordinator and everyone was confused why they weren’t doing their jobs. Jill and Elise once again left without saying goodbye to us and that was that. We paid thousands of dollars for their services and we did not get what we expected. I am upset about what we had to deal with, but at the end of the day our wedding happened and it was still the best day of our lives. Overall, this wedding did not happen because of Exquisite Weddings and Events, Jill, and Elise. It happened because our friends and family came together to make sure everything got done and our caterer who stepped up to act as our coordinator.