First let me say that this review was difficult to write, but I urge all brides to read through in its entirety. I booked Michelle back in 2019 for a June 2020 wedding based on a recommendation from our wedding day-of coordinator/planner. Miche...lle was very responsive and helpful with getting booked and outlining her services for me and my bridesmaids. Everything seemed good to go, until COVID hit. I reached out early on in March to ask what her policies would be if we had to postpone or cancel, and she responded quickly that she would either move to another date if needed or fine another stylist if she had to. We had a hair and makeup trial scheduled for April, but that was cancelled due to COVID. In May, my husband and I decided to cancel the big wedding and switch to an elopement. I messaged Michelle again to see if she would be willing to do makeup for just myself on the same day, and she responded saying she would be able to do it. We also established doing a makeup trial on June 3rd.
On June 1st, I reached out to Michelle just to confirm the trial was still happening, and she responded yes it was. Then, on the 3rd (the day of the trial), she messaged me at noon stating she could not legally do it as King County was not in Phase two, but she also stated that she “promised we could get the trial in”. With the wedding two weeks away at this point, I did the only thing I could think of which was to reach out to my wedding planner who recommended I switch to another stylist. Simply put, it seemed to me that Michelle was making promises without truly making a commitment to the wedding.
I reached out to Michelle explaining how this situation was causing me an enormous amount of stress, and how I was going to seek out another stylist who could guarantee services. I asked her if she would be willing to refund me in any way. She responded that she would never not show up to my wedding. I then responded that since King County might not be in phase two for a while, she could therefore not guarantee her services and I asked her again about refunding. She then waited until King county moved into phase 1.5 to respond, stating she was allowed to open now. And therefore I was canceling on her. She would only refund me 25% per our contract.
After a bunch of back and forth emails, including me stating that we never signed a new contract for the elopement, and basically begging her to be understanding about how much stress this has caused especially weeks away from the wedding, she only agreed to give me 50% back, not including the deposit. She stated she was being more than reasonable as I had originally planned to have hair and makeup done for 6 other bridesmaids.
In conclusion, I have worked with many vendors during this time. I have seen how flexibility is needed from both parties. However, I feel that I was fully manipulated by Michelle and would not hire her again. Even if she legally could not have done the trial, she should not have canceled on me the day of, and especially not two weeks before the wedding.
On top of trying to plan a wedding and now elopement in a pandemic, she added an extra level of anxiety and uncertainty.