This person is a scam artist who has been taken to court for not following through with her contracts. She takes your money then never does the work. I have witnessed this over and over! DO NOT HIRE THIS PERSON! You can look up city records for proof, you can look at BBB, shoot just google! read more

If I could give her no stars, you bet I would. I normally don't ever write reviews unless I absolutely despised the service or product I received.   This is one of those cases. We paid her upfront and in months advance.  We had 90% of everything planned out months before the big day. She was responsive and communicated quickly in the first few weeks and then absolutely nothing in the months after. So on the big day we were hopeful the flowers and decorations were just delayed a little. Nope, the food, flowers, decorations never arrived. THE ONLY things that went right were the services we paid for and were not under her control. Instead we had to pay additional out of pocket to feed the guests and no one got to eat til 9. I never saw any appetizers for cocktail hour. Food service was horrendous, because the guests ONLY had an open bar. All of our sober guests stayed thirsty that night. So I paid full price for a wedding and received half of it. We tried to be as kind and considerate as we could, but kindness should not be taken as a sign of weakness. You only get one true first wedding, spend your money elsewhere or forever remember how terribly bad your wedding goes. Now she continues to evade our written contractual refund. read more

Please stay away from Branding Iron Events. I know this review is long, but I guarantee it will save you a lot of money and heartache if you listen when I say, STAY AWAY. I used this company for many services for my wedding this past weekend and it was just awful. I just want to start by saying that she showed up to the venue at 4, when my wedding started at 4:30. Cheryl ( the owner) was supposed to provide linens, chair covers, bartenders, a fully stocked bar, the altar decorations, flowers, day of coordination, cocktail tables, lighting, sweetheart table, photo booth, centerpieces, and other things, but these were the main items. Let me start by listing the things she did not complete at all: photo booth, chair covers, bartenders, day of coordination, cocktail table, lighting, sweetheart table, and many other little things. The things she did provide were terrible and not what we discussed when we PAID HER IN FULL. The linens- there were not enough to put on the table, they were wrinkled, wet, and smelled like mildew, and stained. She didn't bring the lace overlays we had agreed on, but brought the ugliest, also wrinkled lace runners. The centerpieces looked like random items she took from her house, didn't match, and were not as we discussed either. The altar was still not ready at 4:30 when the wedding was supposed to start. Our guests looked confused, as she was putting up the poorly decorated arch, thinking maybe the time was wrong on the invitation. The flowers were wilted and were the two kinds that I specifically asked her not to use because I know they are cheap, ugly, and wilt very quickly. We asked for six boutineers and we got two that worked long enough to get through the wedding. She made them at the steps of the groom's room and the other two she made fell apart before they could even walk down the aisle. I don't really want to get started on the bouquets, it was awful. They really were the most sloppy bouquets I have ever seen... my mom started to cry when she saw them. Our cocktail hour was supposed to start at 5:00 (she had a copy of the itinerary that I made because she didn't do it) and be a fully stocked bar - 4 different kinds of beer, 3 different kinds of wine, 4 different liquors, many different kinds of mixers and garnishes, and bartenders for 200 people. At 5:30 she showed up with one box of alcohol, which all the bottles were opened and nearly finished, no bartenders, no ice, nothing to keep the alcohol cold, no mixers or garnishes, no bartenders, and no beer. So our cocktail hour turned into no cocktails hour... I was so embarrassed. During this time we were taking our pictures and we walked past her and her assistant, they were just standing there talking/complaining. There was 1600 other things that they could have been doing, but no they are standing there. She ran out of alcohol (no surprise) and was going back and forth to the liquor store, but would come back with a couple things at a time and then have to leave again. This went on the whole night until the liquor store closed at 9, when we ran out again. At this point we had to grab bottles that people had given us for gifts to use so poeple could still have drinks. On top of the fact that everything she provided was either not what we agreed on or disgusting, her communication was worse. I had to constantly be hounding her the days leading up to the wedding and on my wedding day. I was patient and cordial with her up until the point when I realized that she put no time, effort, or money ( I paid her a lot) into my wedding. This was truly the most terrible experience I have had with any kind of business. On day that was supposed to be so special, I felt so stressed and distracted. She was hired to help me and did the complete opposite. She is a con, took our money, and invested no time or money that we have her into the day we had been planning for over a year. Please, do yourself the favor and stay away from this terrible person. read more

See all

This person should NOT be in the wedding planning business. In ten years of doing wedding photography I have NEVER seen something this bad. DO NOT even consider this person to help ruin your wedding day. read more

DO NOT HIRE CHERYL KNIFFEN. I wish I could give this negative STARS. This review is long but I can assure you that reading it will save you from making a huge mistake. In February, we booked this company for our October wedding. We paid in full because if you do so, you get a 10% discount. At the time when we booked Cheryl's, the owners, services she had decent reviews. We ordered food and alcohol for 200 people through her and as the wedding got closer, we wanted to add some appetizer trays for cocktail hour. That's when I discovered the terrible reviews that had piled up over the last few months leading up to our wedding day. I panicked since our wedding was only two weeks away at this point, so I contacted her about the terrible reviews and she reassured me saying that the bad reviews weren't even from her customers and that she didn't know why they had left her a review. Red flag, right? Since we had already paid her over $4000 at this point, I just hoped and prayed she was telling the truth. Fast forward to our wedding day, she was supposed to show up at 9am to drop off six bottles of 1.75 liters of tequila for our margarita machines along with the beer for later that night so we could begin to ice it down but instead, she showed up at 10am with 6 bottles of. 75 liters of cheap tequila (a different brand than we agreed on). When I discovered the mistake, I called her since she had already left and she said she would bring the beer already cold along with the prepared food at 3:30pm. We had to go to the lake store to get more alcohol for the bar tenders to get the margarita machines set up. Fast forward to 6pm when the ceremony is starting and she's still not there, and is not answering my calls. After the ceremony, she finally arrives over three hours late with RAW chicken that could only feed about 10 people, not 200. She also has her daughter and a staff member with her who start trying to cook in a toaster oven that they brought from home. Cheryl then gets in her car and starts to take off when we ask her when the alcohol is arriving to which she replied "a car is right behind me with it". About 30 minutes later, I call her and her very young daughter answers the phone and informs me that her mom is in the store buying the alcohol right now. Then after that, I tried calling again but she didn't answer. My brother in law finally got a hold of her and she claimed her car broke down. By this time, my wedding guests are in the kitchen trying to help prepare food. Cheryl finally arrived after getting her car started with about four bottles of liquor, not the right brand, amount, or size for 200 people! We ended up ordering a lot of pizza from papa John's and did a liquor run for our guests. Needless to say Cheryl Kniffen single handedly ruined what was supposed to be the best day of my life. It was the most humiliated and embarrassed I've ever been and she didn't even apologize for any of it. She basically stole thousands of dollars from us, ruined our wedding, and made many false promises throughout the process. Cheryl is very convincing that she will deliver what she promised, but please don't be fooled. I will never forget my wedding day, but not in a good way. My pictures were ruined from crying and I wasted time worrying about how we would feed all of the guests when I should have been mingling and having a blast. I hope this review saves other couples from the heartache and embarrassment we've experienced. read more

A thousand negative stars would be given if this was a choice. Incredibly unprofessional in every way. In short, she ripped off the bride and family. Thank goodness the music and food was not ordered through this incompetent - Otherwise the wedding may have been a disaster. Nothing promised was delivered. Showed up an hour before wedding trying to wing it. Too much to go into to describe how awful and unprofessional they are. Run away from these con artists - what they did was criminal. read more

I contracted them for my daughter's wedding on 10/8/17. She showed up 20 minutes after she was supposed to start serving with no ice for the drinks and ran out of food well before our guest had all been served. After expressing my discontent with the situation she emailed me a promise of a full refund within 14 days. It is now mid December and not only have I not received a refund but she will not respond to emails or phone calls. I have since been contacted by several brides that have used her and their stories are much worse then mine. I know of 7 civil suits against her. Please don't let her ruin your special day- stay away from this company! read more

Awful. Didn't even show up after paying her $8,000 and we didn't get any catering, any bar or DJ which she was supposed to order.

This Wedding planner needs to be retrained on how to take care of their customers. Very disappointed and upset how our big day turned out. Nothing happen how we planned and did not follow what the wedding party wanted. Cheryl did her own thing and did not want to listen to the wedding party. Then decided to give a refund of some of the wedding but took over four months to get that back. Cheryl removed us from posting on Facebook about the reviews, stopped returning phone calls, emails, and every form of communication with us. We had to get the attorney general involved and the BBB to try to get the refund. Cheryl did not even respond to them either with made them upset. Stay away from this Company!! read more

I hope that my review of Branding Iron Events and Cheryl Kniffen is informative and will keep others from making the same mistake we did. Cheryl was hired in 2/2017 to cater the 10/2017 wedding of my son and daughter in law. I paid for her services at that time because she was very anxious to be paid and offered a 10% discount for paying early. This was my first red flag, but her feedback was OK at that time. My daughter in law had contact with her several times over the summer, but every time had difficulty getting Cheryl to respond to her. More red flags. Several weeks before the wedding, we became aware of the horrible feedback being left for Cheryl. We had a very difficult time getting Cheryl to respond to emails, phone calls and text messages. I finally spoke with her and asked about the feedback which she explained by claiming that a lot of it was not true and the rest was out of her control. She basically accepted little responsibility for what had happened at those weddings. I asked her sincerely to please be honest with me. I begged her to let me know if there was going to be any problem with her arriving on time, with adequate food and adequate staff to serve the meal and appetizers for our guests. I told her that I did not want the wedding of my son and his bride to be ruined by the catering. She assured me that she would never do that. She promised that she would be on time, with extra food and had plenty of staff who had worked with her for years. It was all a lie. She arrived just before the start of the ceremony and dropped off her teenage daughter and another young lady she had just hired the day before, along with part of the food that was uncooked. Then she left with the excuse that she was going to get more plates when in fact she was going to the store to buy the rest of the food and the beverages we had paid her to provide. The girls had no idea what to do. We ended up ordering pizza for 175 guests. Cheryl showed up around the same as the pizza. She agreed that she had not performed under the terms of our contract and that we were owed a full refund. When and if that refund is ever received is an open question. The worst part of all this, is the heartache, stress and anxiety that she caused to the bride, groom, parents and wedding party. What should have been a joyous happy occasion was greatly marred by this caterer, even though she was given adequate opportunity to bow out gracefully and allow us to find another food provider. I am trying not to let emotion enter my review, but it is very difficult when I was a part of the anxiety caused by Cheryl. I personally witnessed the heartbreak of my sweet daughter in law. Please don't let this happen to your wedding! Avoid Cheryl Kniffen and Branding Iron Events. read more