Left a lot to be Desired
Heather left us feeling like it could have been so much better. We initially met in the early planning stages of our wedding and loved her. Lots of personality, tons of fun, suited to our casual, unique, summer camp wedding. After our initial meeting, communication was excellent; she replied quickly to email and social media contact.
Despite what felt like a good start, Heather went MIA on us about 6 weeks before our wedding. We emailed inquiring about our liquor license and how much liquor to purchase, and did not hear back for over a week. After responding, and being a little dismissive of our concerns we didn't hear back again for another couple of weeks. She indicated that she had a lot going on in her life, which we can understand, but we would have hoped that she had communicated in order to put us at ease.
We required a liquor license with an exemption due to the outdoor nature of our event, and it was us who ended up calling her in order to tell her that the exempted license meant it needed to be applied for earlier. She did end up coming through with the license the day before the wedding, but it was incredibly frustrating to repeatedly have been told that we had time and to not worry about it. If we hadn't looked it up, we would have missed the deadline.
Our contract stipulated two in-person meetings in the month leading up to the wedding, and she did not reach out until days before our wedding. We didn't bother contacting Heather as we had things under control, and felt that our questions were left unanswered, and we were still frustrated after the liquor license concerns. With four days left to go before the wedding, she contacted us saying that she "didn't mean to leave us feeling abandoned", and asked to schedule a meeting. We had absolutely felt abandoned, and the message was filled with excuses. Again, we are sympathetic to personal issues that inevitably creep up, but there are more professional ways to communicate and ensure your clients are taken care of. We ended up scheduling a zoom meeting, and left it with a bad taste after being playfully scolded for not sending our itinerary - the itinerary I emailed to all vendors two weeks prior. We felt the meeting was more so that we could fill her in on what was happening than her helping us with planning.
Sadly, wedding day left a lot to be desired. Heather's team, while lovely and kind, lacked initiative and didn't seem to be in the loop as to what was happening. Our wedding favours were left off of the table, and we, the bride and groom ended up doing various tasks; setting out blankets for the ceremony, blowing out candles, refilling baskets of snacks, creating the s'mores set-up etc. Yes, we recognize that there was a lot going on, but it really felt like it was too much to handle. Some guests commented on the lack of professionalism and the frustrations following interactions.
About a week after the wedding, a guest told us about a conversation she overheard between Heather and another guest. She said, "I'm not like other wedding coordinators; the couple does all the planning and I'm just an extra set of hands on the day." She was very right, and we may have been better off just asking family and friends.
