Disappointing experience with full-service wedding planning:…read more
We hired Heather at Three Sisters Events for the "Whole Shebang" full-service wedding planning package and terminated our agreement after over seven months. It was nowhere near what we expected or what was advertised.
I was the bride and Heather's primary point of contact, so most communication went through me. My husband was involved behind the scenes. I kept him updated, we discussed concerns together, and both agreed to move on.
To be fair, Heather was responsive when we reached out, especially by text. But that was also the problem. We were almost always initiating conversations, asking for updates, and following up. At one point, I intentionally stopped initiating contact for over a month to see if she would take the lead. Nothing changed.
Our package advertised monthly meetings, design assistance, budgeting, vendor coordination, guest accommodations, and stationery support. In seven months, we had only TWO planning meetings. Other services never happened or required repeated prompting.
We raised our concerns multiple times. Heather would say things like "trust the professional," "enjoy the process," or explain that she adapted her approach to each couple. We wanted to trust her and enjoy being engaged, but kept wondering what was being handled. Things might improve briefly, but we'd end up right back where we started.
The budgeting was especially frustrating. Instead of helping us understand what was realistic for our guest count, rentals, and vision, Heather put together numbers that seemed to fit on paper. Once actual vendor quotes came in, we realized how far off they were. Our new planner finally gave us a realistic picture of the costs. We weren't expecting someone to magically make everything cheaper. We needed experienced guidance to make informed decisions.
Design was another huge disappointment. The mockups were basic, and our new planner discovered that the table sizes and quantities in Heather's reception layout didn't actually fit the venue space. That's the kind of thing I expected a professional wedding planner to know. We researched rentals and layouts without the guidance we paid for.
Looking back, those seven months were incredibly stressful. We hired a full-service planner to help manage things we didn't know how to handle ourselves. We wanted to be involved in planning our wedding, not responsible for managing the person we'd hired to plan it. That wasn't what we expected from the highest-tier package.
Eventually, we hired another planner just months before our wedding. Yes, it meant losing our deposit and paying someone else, but the difference was night and day. Our new planner took ownership, used structured planning tools to keep us organized and involved, communicated proactively, helped us make realistic decisions, and brought our design vision together. For the first time, we actually felt like we could enjoy the process.
After switching, we requested a partial refund of $900 from the $1,836 deposit we paid, considering the services we felt we hadn't received. Heather never responded.
I hesitated to write this and waited until after our wedding so I could reflect rather than react out of frustration. There's more I could share, but Google reviews have limits! I wish we'd understood what to expect before hiring Three Sisters Events. Heather may be a better fit for coordinating a wedding you've mostly planned yourself. But if you need true full-service planning, I'd strongly encourage you to ask exactly what that support includes.
We genuinely wish we'd switched sooner. Our wedding was everything we dreamed of, but that success came after the difficult and costly decision to replace a planner who wasn't delivering the support we needed. We found someone who actually delivered on the promises of full-service planning. Based on our experience, we would not recommend Heather or Three Sisters Events for full-service wedding planning.
