Overall, my partner and I's experience with this company was frustrating. We paid for the top tier…read morepackage with YWYW. It feels like we were let down by how things were handled especially in the last few months leading up to the wedding.
They use an online tool (aisle planner) which is super helpful when there are items to discuss. However, there were numerous times we needed to email because something we wanted to discuss was not on the checklist and many times that things were lost via email. Also, the tool didn't have a convenient way for us to upload things to the portal.
The vendor quotes we got for things were very limited. When we wanted an outside vendor (not on the list provided) it felt like we needed to handle that ourselves. It also was much much faster turn arounds when we spoke directly to the vendors.
Stefanie is a very personable, friendly and kind person. She really does a good job of making you feel important. However, the follow through was not there leading up to our day.
For example, after several weeks up no response, we finally got a response to start on invitations. We had already sent save the dates. However, the invitation design/send process started so late we had guests reach out to ask if they were uninvited because they hadn't received their official invites. Plus, we sent them so late our guests had less than 2 weeks to respond.
Towards the last 6 weeks leading up to our wedding, there was a medical related incident that caused some delays - which we completely understand. People first!However, the communication, transition and delays were horrible. For example, we had another several weeks without YWYW contacting us at all. Then, we received an email stating the radio silence was based on a medical incident.
We had a HUGE mishap with catering and most of the communication with the vendor was handled by the wedding planner themselves. Meaning, it was hidden from us - which is good normally. However, the day before our wedding, I asked about the final invoice and it was 30% larger than the last invoice we saw (we didn't add that much). When I seemed shocked, the first response from our wedding planner was don't worry, it's still within budget. That felt unsettling to me. It turned out the cater had misquoted the cost of staff (buffet versus plated). The wedding planner did step in and fix this once we communicated frustration with it.
On the day of, everything went well. However, our wedding planner could not make the event. They had a medical issue and had first, communicated that they were going to be well enough to attend our wedding and then week of, told us that they were no longer coming. Which was totally good but the replacement wasn't good. They were often short with me, my partner, my sister and my matron of honor. They snapped at my wedding party a few times in front of me. They were hard to find often and did not have the catering issues handled - I was asked where the special diet person sat (even though this was communicated thoroughly with YWYW).
If we were to do the experience again, we would do most of the planning ourselves and then hire a day or week of coordinator. We are both very organized, detailed and informative. We felt like we could have found cheaper, tested and still lovely vendors.
On the bright side, I didn't like my first make up trial and the wedding planner worked really hard in one day to get me set up with another trial and contract. It helped immensely because I felt beautiful on my wedding day. They even gave me their business phone number to text/call when needed. We felt really supported here. However, it was by far the best turn around we saw.
We feel overall that the ball was dropped for our wedding multiple times towards the end. However, our day ultimately was beautiful and magical. We will be grateful for some of the wonderful vendors YWYW provided to us. We wanted to get a wedding planner to alleviate some of the stress around wedding planning but felt it frustrating at times.