Sadly my review of Leah does not have to do with the quality of her work as a hair and makeup…read moreartist, as I did not get to experience her work. This review is based on her professionalism as we communicated ahead of my bridal trial.
I am an out of state bride, and I booked Leah for my April 2025 wedding in January of 2024. In late September 2024, I reached out to her letting her know my fiance and I would be traveling to AZ one weekend in January 2025 to meet with vendors and do my hair and makeup trial. I told her we would not be picking a date or booking flights until we heard back on her availability. We hadn't even picked a weekend, to give her as much flexibility as we could. I offered 3 weekends in January. Initially she said she was available the 11th but wanted to double check that. After not hearing back from her, I followed up and she said she was available 1/10/2025 at 1pm. This exchange happened the first week of October. I confirmed that worked for us, and we reached out to other vendors to schedule appointments and booked our flights there.
This past week, I reached out to all my vendors to see if there was anything they needed from me or what I needed to do to prep for this weekend. When I reached out to Leah, she told me she needed to reschedule. At this point, our weekend was packed beginning to end with vendor meetings (again, we are having an out of state wedding, so this was our only weekend in AZ to meet with people and prep things).
She then told me to text her (we had done all previous communication over email), which I did. I told her that we were only here for this weekend, and that we had scheduled all of our flights and appointments around this trial that she previously agreed to (months in advance). Instead of taking accountability for her mistake, she first told me she had no record of the trial. A simple search for my name in her email inbox would have pulled up a thread with the subject line Bridal Hair/Makeup Trial. I forwarded her the email, to which her response was that because I emailed her, it wasn't recorded. She said her scheduling is done through a CRM and it didn't add to her calendar (again not taking accountability). She did try to reschedule me for the same weekend, but by then we had so many other meetings we would have had to arrange that none of the times she said she could reschedule worked for us.
At this point, I had lost trust in her and was not comfortable or confident in her professionalism for my wedding day. I told her I wanted to terminate our contract. Only after I told her I wanted out of the contract did she tell me that she could make herself available on the original date and time.
I requested a refund of my $200 deposit, and I understand that I did sign a contract acknowledging that it was non-refundable, but was hopeful that considering the situation was of no fault of my own, Leah would refund me. She has chosen to not refund the $200, which again, she is not contractually obligated to do, but considering that it is supposed to cover her communication and scheduling (I had to follow up with her when she did not reply to me, and clearly she did not even add my trial to her calendar) I am not sure that enough work was done to warrant $200.
Had I been a local bride, this probably would not have been as big of an issue for me, but it was very clearly communicated to Leah that I was an out of state bride flying in for my trial. Canceling was not an emergency on Leah's part (at least not that she communicated), she was just moving studio locations and failed to add my appointment to her calendar. This whole situation happening less than 24 hours before I was supposed to leave for my trip was so stressful. I understand that mistakes happen, but this mistake was 100% avoidable, and Leah could have taken more accountability for the mistake from the jump instead of blaming it on other things.
If you are a bride who values a trustworthy vendor with good communication, I would take your business elsewhere. *After I posted this review Leah did refund my money.*