Miranda Madison Events

ail hour. For both the ceremony and reception site, help from wedding guests was needed, as setup wasn't done by the time guests were arriving. Both sites had several errors: 'reserved' signage missing at ceremony, hurricane candles placed up to altar (should have stopped at front row; issues with breakage due to movement, and placement with bridal dress train), reception table decor missing (runners), improper item placement etc. We had a coffee/s'mores station, but the tiered stand we had for s'mores wasn't put together and they were placed on guest tables instead of the designated side table. The biggest fail for me however was cocktail hour, and our bar setup on the patio deck. I took a lot of time setting it up myself as most I could before I had to start getting ready, with the expectation they would complete the rest, so it'd be ready when guests came back from the ceremony. This was not the case. This is something they should have been handling during the ceremony. It was very embarrassing for me, to hear from probably more than half our guests, about how they were confused to find no drinks out or in ice chests or everything just in disarray when they arrived at cocktail hour. They had to take it upon themselves to start things going and placing stuff where it needed to be. I spent a lot of time the nights prior making ice balls for my specialty cocktail, and they weren't even out in the designated ice bucket, nor were orange peel garnishes put out which I spent time making that morning, or my wife's custom cocktail drink put together either. The bar was as I left it, from what I could tell, meaning had I not set it up as much as I had, then it would have been completely bare; all these details were laid out in an intricately detailed wedding binder my wife had put together, that the MME team had digital access to almost 2 weeks in advance, and physical access to the day of, allowing plenty of time for reference and time table planning. I didn't even realize guests were unaware of these things being missing until I went to the bar later in the night to get myself a custom drink only to find things as they unfortunately were. We ended up with an inordinate number of surplus beverages as well and I can't help but be certain, this wouldn't have been the case had everything been out and ready for guests at the start of cocktail hour as they were supposed to be. This led to waste in time and money, outside of our MME bill. The biggest frustration is had I only known or it been communicated to us at any point, that the team wouldn't be able to reasonably accomplish this portion of the work, or any other, then I would have asked some of my friends for help beforehand, as they all were offering the night before. I just wanted them to be guests however, and naively it seems, assured them I'd be fine as we have 3 coordinators who'd be handling everything. There were also delays and issues in dress bustling (40 min!) for my wife, which took away from valuable time spent together and enjoying the wedding. MME did offer a cold refund for $850 off the $2200 total which certainly was appreciated but doesn't offset the errors, disappointment and embarrassment which left a bad mark overall. There are more errors to report, but I'm out of characters.