FTD Events

s ironically been the most stressful part of planning our wedding. In December 2022, my fiancé and I reached out to Monica on The Knot about full wedding planning for our Chicago event. Our initial conversation with her was promising and we were excited to have Monica on the ground in Chicago (we’re planning remotely from Seattle). She shared her pricing with us and even offered a discount if we booked before the end of the year; in retrospect this sort of pressure tactic is a red flag. With the contract signed, we were motivated to get started, but unfortunately the issues were immediate.

Our first order of business was choosing a venue, we had even narrowed it down ourselves to three we really liked. We asked for help weighing the pros and cons of each venue and what the approximate total costs might look like. Monica promised to follow up with details. Unfortunately, what we could’ve done ourselves, took weeks to deliver and came nowhere near answering the questions we asked. We gave this feedback to Monica and hoped to see an improvement going forward. While we continued to wait for what we were promised, we were under increasing pressure to make a decision and ultimately we had to make an uninformed decision and move forward with a venue. Before signing the contract, we shared it with Monica to see if there was anything we should take note of, but she replied it was fine. After we read the contract more carefully we noticed several issues, including discrepancies in cost and stipulations we weren’t made aware of. Had we taken Monica’s word, we would’ve overpaid and been surprised later in planning. We discussed whether we should cut our losses and forfeit the contract, but Monica assured us things would improve. This, sadly, was a theme throughout the rest of our experience. Despite much patience on our part, we repeated a similar experience selecting a caterer. Communication was slow, often going days between email responses, and even then the replies were rarely sufficient to make progress. We felt like our wedding planning was creating more work and stress for us than alleviating it. A final attempt to share detailed feedback and expectations, did nothing to improve the situation and so we finally agreed to part ways. As part of severing our ties with Monica, we agreed to receive a partial refund for the time spent up until this point. A full two weeks, and several unanswered emails later, we were asked to wait an additional two weeks for the refund. Despite wanting to put this behind us, we're understanding, so we agreed. Unfortunately the agreed to date was missed, our emails and texts ignored, and it wasn’t until two months later we received only 1/3rd of the agreed to refund with a promise to return the rest ASAP. We’ve continued to reach out to Monica for the balance of $1500 and have yet to hear back. We’re sad that it’s come to the point that we have to travel to Chicago to take Monica to small claims court to resolve this issue. This is perhaps the worst experience we’ve had with a professional in any industry and all we can hope to do is recover our money and warn others to avoid falling into the same trap we did. Our experiences with our new planner has been spectacular. Please do yourself a favor and look elsewhere. 


We were very happy with their services and everything was beautiful! Our wedding day was exactly as we imagined. Thank you Monica & team!

big day. She even had some of her own inventory for some decor we needed and made the day worry free from setting up, making sure all details went as planned and cleaning up. She reassured us that everything would go as planned and our day was more than we could have imagined.

orientated and resourceful. When you contract her as your wedding coordinator, not only do you have a skilled professional guiding you through the whirlwind that is wedding planning, but you ALSO you have access to her amazing inventory of table centerpieces, decor, etc. She always kept our wedding and our very large party organized and on track. Even when a few things out of our control went wrong on our big day, Monica always remained calm, cool and collective. She reassured us it would all workout and made magic happen for us by booking last minute replacements from her own list of professional resources. We cannot thank her enough for making our wedding planning experience and day so special. Monica is going to be our event planner for any future events we have.