Married by Shelley

I'm so sad to be writing this review, but I'm taking the time to give feedback in hopes that it will prompt improvement, or prevent other couples from experiencing the frustration and disappointment me and my husband felt. Our biggest wedding regret was hiring Shelley. Shelly came recommended from our wedding planner, and we saw that she had great reviews. Our initial meeting was pleasant and she was very nice and personable. We thought things would go well with her so we went ahead and hired her for our wedding. But as we got closer to our wedding date, things started going poorly quickly. On October 27, around 6 weeks before our wedding, we had our ceremony planning meeting. Overall we thought it went well; we went over how my partner and I met, and what we'd like our ceremony to be like. We also talked extensively about how since my dad had very recently passed, we'd like there to be a big part of the ceremony where we honored him and had a moment of silence for him. It was important to the whole family, especially since my family had not gathered since his passing. I promised to send her notes on this as well - I sent them on 11/10. She never confirmed that she got them, so a little over a week later (11/19), I emailed her to follow up (and to confirm that she received our payment in the mail). She said on 11/19 that she would finalize her draft and sent it over in "the next day or two" so we could finalize everything. This didn't happen, so I followed up again a week later (11/25 less than 3 weeks from our wedding). She then said she would send it over that night, but ended up sending it two days later (11/27). At this point, we were really frustrated by all of the broken promises of getting the first draft to us by a certain time. Of course, if she needed more time, that's fine - but to keep promising us that we would get the first draft by a specific time, and then it wouldn't happen, was upsetting. The first draft, which we received within a month of our big day, stressed me out more than anything happening at that time. There were so many details that were just wrong, which was surprising since she took so many notes during our ceremony planning meeting. There were also just a lot of grammatical errors. With less than a month until the wedding, I can't overstate how stressful it was to receive a first draft like this. I spent that day going through and revising everything, correcting details about our love story and filling out the remembrance portion for my late father. I sent her the updated draft that day, and asked for a call to chat. We had a phone call to go over the details later that week, and to get on the same page. Then, on 12/1 (2 weeks from the wedding), she sent me "Draft 2", which had NONE of the edits or corrections that I had sent her prior. So, I had to take this "Draft 2" and re-do all my edits so that they would make it in the final draft, which took up a big portion of my time. I sent her the draft back letting her know that I had to go back in and re-add my corrections. There was more confusion about which draft was correct as now we were in a chain with multiple attachments, but finally on 12/5, we confirmed which draft was correct and had this settled. I understand that some people like doing things last minute, but still having back and forths about my wedding ceremony a week before my wedding was absolutely not ideal. And to have none of my previous corrections and edits be included was unacceptable. It was stressful to say the least. The actual ceremony was extremely disappointing. I think either she was having an off day, or wasn't able to prepare or something, because her performance was awkward, not smooth, and she seemed very nervous. During the remembrance portion for my late father, she stumbled on words, couldn't pronounce the word "revered", and didn't leave enough time for the moment of silence like I had requested. She also said something to the effect of "Thank you for letting Melody have this moment", which I specifically asked her NOT to say - this moment was for the WHOLE family. It wasn't just me who lost him. I was honestly shocked since this was something we had talked about. The worst part that hangs over us the heaviest is that she mispronounced my husband's last name when she pronounced us as husband and wife. I don't even understand how this happened, since during our meeting with her, we went over this. Our hearts absolutely sank in that moment - we were SO unbelievably embarrassed. It was all I could think about when we were leaving the ceremony. What should have been an amazing moment was honestly so awkward and embarrassing, and all of our guests noticed (obviously). During the reception and the brunch after, I had so many family members asking us what happened - they felt bad for Shelley, thinking that we had hired her last minute and that she didn't have any time to prepare because her delivery overall was so awkward. If we had known it was going to be like this, we would have never hired her. Now in our wedding recording, my dad's remembrance and my husband's last name will be forever botched, and this moment can't ever be redone. There were other (more minor) things throughout the process that in retrospect, should have told me to hire someone else early on before our big day. We sent her payments (2 total) via check in the mail, and each time, I had to reach out to her to make sure she got it, despite me requesting in an included note to please send confirmation of receipt. I never had to ask any of my other vendors if they received checks in the mail - they would just email me as soon as they received it. It's a minor thing, but we found it a bit rude. A bigger red flag was that her emails were extremely unprofessional - lacking correct grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and having typos in general. One email she sent to me started with "Heyyyyy", which was very off-putting and uncomfortable. I love being friendly with my vendors, and some of them have even become friends - I don't mind being friendly in emails and adding smiley faces or whatever, but many of her emails were just plain hard to understand due to the presence of typos and sentence fragments. Overall, we are extremely heartbroken with how things went with Shelley. As a person, she is very nice, friendly, and personable. Everyone has bad days, and we completely understand that. We honestly do like her and wish her nothing but the best. But our experience with her services were so disappointing that we felt it important to share, and I sincerely hope she can hear us out and learn from this so that future couples can have a better experience. Thank you for reading.

Shelley was amazing!! From our first phone call, Shelley made my husband and I feel comfortable and we knew she would be the perfect officiant for our wedding. Shelley takes the time to get to know you and your love story to make your ceremony special. All my family and guests said how amazing Shelley was! Shelley also took the time to include our son in our ceremony. I can’t thank Shelley enough with all her help and amazing work she did for us! I would definitely recommend her to anyone!

when my cousin asked me to preform a ceremony at her wedding I was truly honored , I had no idea what it took to organize a ceremony and when it came to it I couldn't even start there is so much put into this that you wouldn't imagine. long story short all I can say is leave it to the professionals !! thank god she hired Shelley she is the BEST !! I can't imagine the time she put into my cousins ceremony in late October but this is truly her thing she did such an amazing Job and literally saved the day !!! the way she told there love story sent chills through everyone her words where perfection and she truly made this day beyond more special then it was set out to be THANK YOU AGAIN !!!

From our first phone call with her, Shelley immediately made my husband and I feel comfortable and we knew she would be the perfect officiant for our wedding ceremony. Shelley took the time to get to know us and our personal love story and used these details to make our ceremony so special. She also went out of her way to involve my grandparents in the ceremony which was so special and meant so much. We would definitely recommend Shelley to anyone looking for a wedding officiant in the area!