We are very disappointed with the overall quality of the service for such an important and expensive day. We are not really the type to leave reviews but feel our experience is important for other brides and grooms to be aware of.
We were not ...from the Miami area so we thought it would be a good idea to have a wedding planner who knows the venue and the vendors to make it easy for us.
When we started working with Bobbie, we did the vision board which is one of the selling points of the service. From a design and creativity standpoint, we were really excited to see what our wedding planner could do with our vision. There was very limited support here as she copied and pasted the work we had already done and put it into a different PowerPoint.
For the first few months, we had to keep reminding Bobbie what our wedding date was, our color palette, and pretty much all the details of the wedding. Throughout the process, it felt like nothing was written down, cared for, or cared about and that without our follow-up, we are not sure things would have gotten done. There was very limited proactive communication to us and it felt like we were in it alone. Anytime we struggled to communicate with her she would say she was very busy because it was “wedding season”, but used this excuse year round leading up to our wedding.
For example, we asked for a transportation quote from some vendors in the area. After over 1 month went by, we followed up to see about the quote. They provided 1 quote from a vendor we had told them we already spoke with while on a call, the price was more than the quote we got ourselves. We ended up finding many better options and went with our vendors. After a few instances of lack of effort, we started to lose trust in the planning process and thought the day of coordination would be where the value would come in.
We could not have been more wrong. We were not doing a champagne toast and asked to have wine on the tables with dinner for guests to serve themselves if they wanted. When we came in for the first look at the reception space there were no wine glasses and champagne had already been poured for a toast. We had purchased tiny pineapple shot glasses that were to be filled with a mixed pineapple/tequila drink to make the clear glass yellow to resemble a pineapple, but they were filled with straight tequila. Many of our guests did not drink them. We had purchased our wine/champagne/liquor from Total Wine with the notion of returning any unopened bottles, needless to say these were very expensive mistakes. The disappointment on our face was captured in our photos.
We had set up a dedicated time prior to the wedding to meet with Bobbie and the florist to select the flowers for the arrangements. We met at Bobbie’s office after work and expressed concern that the flowers did not match the color palette we wanted and that it was too dark. Bobbie assured us that it was just the lighting and that the flowers would look different in natural light. She showed us a photo from earlier during the day and we cautiously agreed to the arrangement but stated that we did not want any red anthurium in the bouquets. We even sent a follow up text message after the meeting expressing how important this was in hopes that she would get this one detail right, but low and behold on the wedding day, the red flower was in everything, including the bridal bouquet. Instead of apologizing, she told us that a pink or yellow anthurium wasn’t in season. The men were supposed to have tiny pineapples for their boutonniere, but they received a basic flower. We received no heads up prior to our arrival on the wedding day from Bobbie even though this was her preferred vendor.
On the day of the wedding, we the bride and groom had to raise our voice with Bobbie because the same level of organization and care that went into the planning was the same as wedding day. I vividly remember saying, “thats your job, Bobbie!” because we were being asked to do things that a wedding planner should certainly be doing on wedding day.
Bottom line, very unorganized, lack of follow-up in communication and deliverables, does not listen, write things down or follow through. If you do not consistently follow up, nothing will get done.
We are really trying to figure out if this is just the level of service intended, or what happened. The review is already so long but we could provide 20+ more instances. Really so heartbreaking.
Bobbie and the team left the venue as we, the bride and groom and friends, were breaking down and cleaning up the bar area. Very unprofessional. We would not recommend the services of Bobbie and Fortuna Events at all to anyone for any reason. Our wedding day was still the best day of our lives thanks to the DJ, good drinks and our friends and family but dang from a wedding planner/business side of things, we felt extremely let down.