TL; DR: Kaydi was the worst part of my wedding experience. She was consistently late, unorganized,…read moreand unprofessional. She did not follow through on her promises, and extorted us for more money just prior to the event.
I hired Kaydi in August 2023. When I got her DOC contract, I noticed that it contained an (illegal) non-disparagement clause, stating that the client cannot leave her a bad online review. My husband and I are both lawyers, but I imagine most of the people who read Kaydi's contract don't know those clauses are illegal, and I wonder if that's why her online rating turned out to be so wildly opposite to our actual experience with Kaydi.
Over the four months leading to our wedding, I received all manner of excuses from Kaydi every time I followed up on any of her unfulfilled promises. She was late to every appointment we had whether in person or by Zoom.
People hire wedding coordinators to relieve stress on the bride; all Kaydi did was add to my stress. It was a total role reversal. I was on the receiving end of numerous stream-of-consciousness anxiety-ridden emails and text messages from Kaydi.
I had sent Kaydi a "wedding event plan" document the same day I hired her, which detailed the tasks we were looking for our DOC to do. One of the tasks was to bring things back to our house at the end of the night (a 15 min drive from the venue). Approximately one week before our wedding, Kaydi announced me there would be an extra $250USD charge to do this. I queried how this was being brought up a week before the event. She had no explanation but continued to insist on the additional fee. With our wedding less than a week away, we felt forced (and extorted) to pay it. She also insisted on being paid over half her contract price in cash.
Dealing with Kaydi was so miserable that a few days prior to the wedding, I asked my fiance to handle all communications with Kaydi from that point onward because I wanted to be in a good mood. After just a few days of dealing with Kaydi himself, he was also at the end of his rope.
On the day of the wedding, she was 30 minutes late to pick up the wedding items from our house. Our guests, who had been told that the venue would open to them at 4:30pm, could not in fact enter the venue at that time because set-up was incomplete.
The cocktail hour set-up was also half-done when guests arrived on the terrace for that part of the event. After the cocktail hour, hundreds of dollars of perfectly good food and drink that was supposed to be transferred to the reception was simply thrown out.
I had asked Kaydi to put some bud vases in the bathroom and on the cocktail tables; she did neither. She was supposed to bring an easel to hold the seating chart, in the end she ended up standing (at the wrong door) holding the chart as confused guests tried to find their tables.
Later, once all guests were seated at dinner tables, Kaydi disappeared. My husband and I had to ask the DJ to cue tables to go to buffet. We had to shut outside doors and ask the venue staff person to increase the temperature because guests were cold. We had to ask the DJ to turn the music down. We had to ask the caterers for additional serving utensils for the buffet. We had to ask the venue staff person to turn up the lights slightly because it was too dark to eat. Later, we had to ask the caterers to start clearing plates and putting the buffet away.
Instead of getting to enjoy the experience, we had to do the things that you would expect the DOC to notice and handle.
Kaydi did not bring the buckets for the drinks table she had promised to bring. We ended up with over half of our alcohol unconsumed at the end of the event, in part due to how poorly the drinks table was managed.
Kaydi was concerned about her own time above all else. She took all the canned drinks away at 11pm, even though the dance was going to 11:30pm and we had the venue booked until midnight. This pretty much sums up the caliber of Kaydi's "ideas" throughout.
