This is overdue but necessary. I was married in Nov 2010 and orginally hired this company for hair/makeup for me (bride), 15 women (13 bridesmaids/2moms), and 3 flowergirls (hair only). I lived in Dallas so picked this company based on reviews and emails from them. In my emails, I told them my primary concern was that I am a dark skinned Indian girl and needed someone who had experience with this. They assured me they did have experience and even sent me a few pictures of previous indian girls they had done. I believed them and hired them. The makeup trial was aweful!!! The foundation didn't match at all and after expressing my concern several times, the makeup artist took a picture of me to prove that it matched. She took one look at the picture and said, "uh, that doesn't match." (How frustrating that she couldn't tell without the picture!). She wiped it off and started over, but at this point my faith was shaken in this person and I didn't want her to do my wedding makeup. The next day I called Appease and they said they had heard that the makeup person stuggled and that they would give me another trial with another person. This person was much better, but I feel like if Appease already knew that I had a bad experience, why didn't they call me first to fix it. Also, if they knew my primary concern was having a person who could match dark skin, why didn't they send a better person the first time instead of waiting for this girl to fail and then sending me a better person? On the upside, the hair person they sent Catherine was amazing!
Things to consider when hiring them:
1) They don't listen to your concerns. I told them my concern was matching my dark skin, and they didn't send me someone who was capable of handling it the first time. Another concern I had was with their time table. I told them based on my experience, it takes longer to do Indian hair/makeup. They would not change the time line and the day of the wedding we ran late.
2) They make you pay 20% tip upfront. I feel like a tip is performance based and should be given the day of (unless you want to give it early).
3) I paid for everything up front hoping for a smooth day. The day off, the makeup artists are trying to upsell the bridesmaids, asking if they want airbrush for $20 more or fake eyelashes for whatever amount more. So then I have bridesmaids dashing back to their hotel rooms to get money and a makeup artist trying to keep a ledger of everything she is selling. It pissed me off because I personnally paid for everything up front as a gift to my bridesmaids and to keep out the chaos but instead, Appease totally stressed me out and made me feel bad about not buying the bridesmaids airbrushed makeup instead of regular makeup. (and I already paid $120 for each person, not including me)
Months after the wedding, when Carla the owner asked me about my experience and I told her the truth, she was defensive and never appologized. She told me she learned from my large bridal party experience that more time should be allotted per girl and the fake eyelashes should be included in the base price and that they now do this for bridal parties. (Too little, too late for me. Though, I am happy some of this won't happen to other women). Basically she told me I was lucky that they were generous enough to do some things for me (like I had one women and 1 flower girl at another location so they sent a separate person there. But if it was a big deal I would have had that woman and flowergirl come to my location) What Carla fails to realize, is that this is a business. I'm not lucky, i am your client. What business owner tells a client that the client is lucky to be paying for services and getting serviced by them. I am a client that brought you a lot of business (1 bridal hair, 3 flower girls hair, and 15 women's hair and makeup), so i would have thought you were lucky to get me! Carla was one of the hairstylist the day of my wedding (which I didn't realize at the time). She said she saw the chaos created by the makeup astists trying to upsell and saw that I was stressed out about what going on, but did she do anything to stop it or did she come up to me at any time during the chaos and see what she could do? NO!
I'm upset with how alot of things were handled by this company. That being said, I would recomment the hairstylist Catherine Tsakalis. She is an amazing hairstylist. read more