I DO Events

g to avoid) our day would have been completely ruined. We got married on 8/5/2023 and prior to this I had given Alison detailed timelines, a spreadsheet, and a document with photos, directions and worst case scenarios. She did maybe 1/8 of what I asked of her, and hardly anything that was actually in the contract we hired her for. We had a multi-modal wedding (on the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad and Casco Bay Lines!) so I was extremely detailed and made sure to ask if she was capable. Having never planned a wedding or used a day-of coordinator, I didn't realize her lack of questions for me should have been a red flag. Besides the things in her contract she failed to deliver, SHE LOST MY WEDDING DRESS for 48 hours after my wedding and I was trying to track it down the day I was supposed to leave on my honeymoon. I changed into a separate outfit and one of her duties was to get everything off the boat, that was brought on. One of those things was the garment bag with my dress and shoes in it. When I contacted her, she was completely nonchalant and told me one of my friends probably took it for me and told me she never saw it while she was cleaning up and that it was not on the boat. After 2 days of my honeymoon thinking that someone just walked off with my dress or that it got thrown away and calling everyone, the event planner for Casco Bay Lines called to tell me it was still hanging on the boat and then Alison never came to check for it. She lied. She forgot the Rescue bag promised in my contract so when I asked for a tide pen for the stain on my dress, I could not remove it. She failed to set up the very basic supplies set aside for the pizza and falafel buffet, namely the hundreds of napkins I purchased-my guests were asking my mother where they could find napkins. These are just the basics. Throughout the week of my honeymoon, I found out that she failed to set up what she agreed to for the train ride, the boat ride and that people had to help who were not hired and did so because she was doing so poorly. Her "assistant" walked around taking photos of the sunset. I'm all for supporting new women-owned businesses and I went out on a limb reading only the one good review she had up. I have now found out with a simple google search, that review was written by Alison's wife, another lie. When my husband and I got Alison on the phone, the day after our wedding, we were calm and kind. We told her that the way she was handling all of these mistakes was falling far short of our expectations. Instead of apologizing, or validating what happened, she got defensive and took no responsibility. When we said "We're going to go on our honeymoon, but when we get back we're going to get back in touch," her only response was "Please don't." This speaks volumes about her lack of professionalism, hospitality and care. I wish I could say that this happened because Alison is a new event coordinator and she is learning, but it's actually because she does not care about her clients. Luckily, I only paid her $875 for her "services" and her new rates are more than double this. If she doesn't want to be organized, professional and do literally the bare minimum of this work, she is in the wrong business.

r with my matron of honor to take care of the final little details we were unable to do. She did not. Rather, she sat in her car with her guy for the hour. The wedding venue staff went to search for her and was told by Alison that she "takes a lot of breaks since there's so much down time". Meanwhile the rest of us were running around. like crazy. She was nowhere to be found for 97% of the day/night. My wedding crew and I had spent 2 days setting up the reception room, yet she took pictures and posted them on her social media as if she had anything to do with it. I was asked by her prior to the wedding to fill out a 6 page questionnaire-detailing the time line for the day. No time line was followed because she was completely absent. The mother/son dance was interrupted because the time for photos got confused, our wedding party had to wait until the end of the line for food because no table order was overseen by her, my husband and I got no dessert, no toasting drinks-nothing. She did not check on us once! Candles were not set in the votives like she expressed she would do so they were just empty-the list goes on and on. The dj was mind blown by her absence, the photographer was upset, the venue staff was shocked. I had a knot in my grandmothers necklace that thankfully one of the catering staff was able to step in and help us untangle. Everyone except the planner I hired had to step up and pick up the slack-and they were not getting paid for this. She completely abandoned us. I sent her a polite but direct email about my disappointment and her response .was that she was offended! I am baffled and can't believe how awful our experience was. To say we are disappointed is an understatement.