Holden Michael Events

for 'best of' on the Knot. This was the only regret I have in the entire planning process. Our wedding was a beautiful and wonderful event, but this was in spite of Holden and his team, not because of them. To start with, I felt misled about how willing Holden was to work with me remotely and around my work schedule because after I gave him the first non-refundable check he was no longer willing or able to schedule calls when I could actually talk to him. One of the reasons I was excited to hire him was he said he would absolutely be understanding of my busy schedule and odd hours as a health care worker. There appeared to be little research done into the different options for rentals and services. Every time I actually had the opportunity to look into the rentals and services myself, I found a better deal elsewhere. Unfortunately sometimes this was too late to avoid the higher service fee that had already been contracted and he wasted a lot of my money. He tried to refer us to a caterer who didn't do vegetarian food ('you can eat the rice!') when I follow that dietary restriction. Fortunately, we didn't listen and found an amazing caterer ourselves. He didn't rent enough chairs for our ceremony and we ultimately had to find additional chair rentals ourselves, because he couldn't figure out any other vendor who offered similar style chairs. He wanted us to rent different chairs for twice the price. It wasn't hard for us to find 20 additional chairs in the same style, for less than the rental company we had been using. He and his team were absolute disasters on the wedding day. There were conspicuously absent and every wedding party member who had ever been involved in a wedding was confused about their behavior. He gave my MOH the wrong schedule for the day. His staff kept trying to make her run things for them and do their jobs, which was absurd. He kept telling our MC to play the wrong songs for cake cutting, bouquet toss, etc. He mis-timed everyone in the processional (made all the groomsmen run up the aisle) but luckily my bridesmaids didn't listen to him and saved the timing. During the reception, there was miscommunication about items such as Polaroids and sparklers, and whether they had been transported to the reception venue or not, which led to frantic searching during the reception for 'lost' items. The only competent things he did were arrange shuttle service and hang disco balls, which we loved. The decor he arranged looked good but in many cases could have been purchased for less than it cost to rent. He arranged a good hotel block close to our venue but when we suggested that he arrange a second hotel block at a different price point, this never ended up happening. He blew off my concerns about how walking in heels would work on soft ground and dirt at an outdoor ceremony with likely rain before. He told me any sort of runner would not work and he refused to look into it further. I ultimately bought Astroturf and a large rug so my heels would not sink into the ground during the ceremony. My ideas worked quite well despite the claim that there was nothing to be done when I asked Holden. Ultimately, Holden created more work and expense for us, and did not save any time or stress to justify what we spent on his services.

quick to answer questions, give advice, and point out missing gaps in our self wedding planning process. Our wedding went so smoothly that many of our guests complimented us because they had never seen one go so well! We are eternally grateful to Holden and his team.

We can’t thank Sarah enough for her kindness and dedication to our wedding day. We loved having her with us on our special day. Highly recommend HME as your wedding coordinator!

vent planning, and he helped us set reasonable budgeting expectations, helped us pick out the perfect vendors, and kept our timeline so on track that there was very little stress even the week of the wedding. Multiple guests commented that they could tell we were really having fun on our wedding day, which we owe in large part to Holden and his team. I cannot recommend Holden Michael events enough.