I would not recommend I Do! Beauty Co. to any bride. I used 2 of their hair stylists / makeup artists on my wedding day this past summer, including for my mom and 6 bridesmaids.
When I look back through my wedding photos and videos I love everything, with the exception of my hair and makeup. I was happy enough with my makeup, but prefer most looks I've created myself. I was very unhappy with my hair. My mom and the majority of my bridesmaids felt the same way about their hair and makeup. In addition to the poor quality of their service, the biggest reason I would not recommend them to any bride is because of their professionalism.
The morning of the wedding the makeup and hair stylists were 45 minutes late arriving without any explanation or excuse. This delay threw off the whole morning and afternoon. The schedule Janine and I had agreed to in great detail was now meaningless and all the bridesmaids mornings had to be rearranged.
We had to try and reduce the amount of time for getting ready. We ran late which caused everything the rest of the afternoon to run late. Photos and video shoots were more rushed than planned, and our ceremony started late. As any bride can imagine, this is not something I wanted to deal with on my wedding day. I tried to not let it ruin my day, and it didn't stop me from having a great day, but it did take away from my day and is something I'm reminded of everytime I look back on my photos.
My experience with the company after our wedding day was no better. The lack of professionalism bothered me so much that I emailed the owner to let her know about my experience while on our honeymoon. I assumed she would provide some sort of resolution that would provide me comfort. Of course she did not.
Janine's initial response was more sympathetic, rather than apologetic. As if these things happen, and some of my bad experiences was my own fault. For example, Janine's response to her stylists being 45 mins late was that:
- she asked her artists to called ahead in that situation and apologizes if I didn't get the message
- she always builds some buffer into the schedule for these kinds of situations
- that her understanding was that the girls still completed all services by the agreed time of 1:30pm
There are three major things wrong with this response -
1. Yes I did receive their call, but calling to you are running 5 mins late is a very different thing than being 45 mins late the day of someone's wedding. They were not late because of traffic since they mentioned several times the amount of time it took them and it was normal travel time. So I can only guess they left late on my wedding day which threw everything off. I'm glad to see the $212 in travel fees I paid (for a 1 1/2 hour drive) went towards them sleeping in and being late.
2. I can't imagine any bride would find a vendor being 45 minutes acceptable. That is also a pretty big chunk of time to lose in a schedule when there are 8 women to get ready in 5 hours. With only a little more than 4 hours for getting, I find it hard to believe short cuts were not made! We knew 5 hours would be tight that is why I paid $150 extra to have 11 additional artist there the morning of my wedding to ensure short cuts didn't need to be taken.
3. And lastly, we had agree for all my bridemaids to be ready by 12:30pm, not 1:30pm. That is a pretty big difference.
After providing more detail to substantiate my claims, Janine expressed some remorse, but her response didn't provide any comfort. The service that Janine's company is providing in my opinion is the assurance to brides (like me) that they don't have to worry about the quality and professionalism of their stylists - that is her job. In my opinion, I Do Beauty Co. provided me with neither. In addition to being late, one of her stylists was always very unprofessional. I overheard her being rude and pushy with several of my bridesmaids and generally found attitude impacted the vibe of the entire bridal suite.
The owner offered to do my hair and makeup for free herself for any upcoming event - as long as she was available. But I would never trust them again for an important event. Why would I use this company again after they provided terrible service on probably the most important beauty day in my life?
And secondly, after a not so apologetic initial reply to my email, Janine refunded the hair stylist's tip that I had prepaid for. No other portions of what I paid for that day was refunded to me. Even though I did not receive what I paid for.