So Terry and his team just did my son's dohl this past weekend and at the time of the event, I was so sleep deprived I didn't notice a lot of the shortcomings or defects until later in my guests' photos and videos.
First of all, the venue said our event planner could start decorating at 9 am and Terry and his team showed up at 9:50 am. When I saw some things were different from what was originally discussed and agreed upon, and asked him about it, he said they ran out of time.
Second, our venue provided the right number of tables and chairs per table, but had rearranged the tables so that they were in a different order than the diagram that had been emailed us. Any event planner who has done any event should be able to problem solve on the fly, but not Terry's team. He had delegated the placement of seat cards to his incompetent assistant who put the 14 person group place cards at a 10 person table and vice versa. We had several guests come up to my husband and I asking if there were any way to have them sit w their friends and we got confused because according to the seating chart I had worked on all week, they were supposed to be with their friends. You want to know how bad this assistant messed up? I, the mother of the birthday boy and hostess, was not sitting with her husband or baby, the birthday boy. I asked Terry to fix the mistake and his assistant couldn't figure it out so my husband, my sister in law and I had to take over, this mistake cost us about 30 minutes of food service that we had paid for. Also I'm pretty sure this same incompetent assistant was probably responsible for the welcome table, which was at the back? Not by the front door? We had bought a special guestbook where guests sign a wooden heart and drop it inside a wooden space ship, imagine my surprise when I see the assistant didn't set up the stand and the space ship is laying flat on the table.
Third; the decorations were not as expected and far below acceptable. I had paid for block letters for my son's name only to find out after the event was over and the photos are done; that the A is an upside down V and the B is much larger than the rest of the letters. When I looked at their photos of the other party at the same time; I saw the other kid's name GABE had a normal appearing A and correct size B. Please look at my photos. The block letters mistake is front and center in all of my event photos! Also, we had agreed upon a balloon arch that would be thicker along the bottom and had been sent photos of what my $100 upgrade would look like and that was not at all what was delivered. I know there were two parties at the same time for this company, and it looks like my party got shortchanged because Ivy the designer went to the other party.
Fourth; we paid for Terry to MC for us. I think he does too many of these events to invest any time or effort on his part. The MC was very disorganized and very rushed. He kept forgetting my husband wanted to give a speech before the birthday cake, and we had told Terry my husband created a game to be played during the meal and he kept trying to move on to other games while guests were already playing my husband's game. The whole event was just a mess and I thought having an MC would allow for the event to flow seamlessly from activity to activity but nope, our event was just utter chaos from start to end.
Fifth, don't get my started in the doljabi which is considered the main event of the dohl party. Terry said he would provide a camera and a keyboard. If I had known he was referring to a camera keychain and keyboard keychain, I would have brought my own stuff from home! Your whole business is online and I asked for photos so many times during the planning process and he would just refer me to his IG page. How do you not have photos of the individual choices for design for events when this is your entire business?
Sixth, finally we asked Terry and his assistant to try to help us hand out party favors before all our guests left since there wasn't a designated table and my husband and I didn't want to end up with 60 sugar cookies. They said no, just leave it, guests will find it. My husband and I, beyond exhausted, we walked from table to table to hand these out to our guests since the event planner and assistant we hired were too lazy and unwilling to do it.
I'm not writing this review to be mean, but as a warning to other potential clients. For one of the most important celebrations in your baby's life, I strongly recommend you look elsewhere. I wish I did. I even tipped Terry and his assistant in the end in the off chance that I use them again in the future. But as I look at more and more ruined photos of my baby's dohl, I know I will never use them again. read more