My fiancé and I hired Roxy and her company to plan our upcoming wedding in August. I was living in…read moreChicago and this was a long distance planning session. I was interviewing multiple wedding planners and decided to go with Roxy because of her amazing personality and everything she could offer. We had a Skype call and I decided to go with her company. My family and I put a deposit of around $2,100 CAD and were excited to see what she would offer. The plan I chose was not the most expensive, but second from the highest. The total would have costed around $7,000 CAD. The other wedding planners were not as highly priced, but I figured I should go with someone that knows Toronto, so I can have a variety of options for my wedding in Niagara on the Lake. Roxy was very personable and kind with great fashion sense. This is where the positivity ends.
My family and I were sadly disappointed. We believe that the cost of her services does not justify the work completed. We were under the impression that she would lead the charge and tell us exactly what was next (booking shuttle, welcome bags, assisting with the wedding shower, etc.) In her contract, it explicitly states that she should be doing EVERYTHING from conceptualizing wedding themes and colors. I should not have to prompt about what my needs are. I also should not have all the dates and do all the research on things. I never once received a plan or prompting questions about what I want the wedding to look like or maybe you should go with this color or check out these photos...
I even gave her a test. The venue I selected has a wedding coordinator there as well. I asked them both to find me a list of officiants that were local to the neighborhood. Roxy did not e-mail me back for around 4 days, however the other wedding coordinator who was hospitalized, e-mailed me back in 2 hours from when the e-mail was sent.
Secondly, being late for both meetings in person and not having everything organized was another issue. My fiancé and family drove 4 hours through a snow storm to meet Roxy to start our venue search. Roxy was around 20 minutes late only having to drive 55 minutes. She also neglected to tell us that she was eight and a half months pregnant. I was surprised that she did not mention this before we paid a deposit. She had no idea who we were meeting and what dates were available for venues. There was nothing organized where the venues were located and where who we were meeting. The people at the venue did not even know who she was. Also Roxy did not factor in lunch, which was an issue. My fiancé has 3 kids and cannot go from 10AM until around 4PM without food. My fiancé and I had to use yelp to find a place to eat between appointments. There were no extras built into our day: wine tasting, lunch, nothing special. It was go go go from the minute we arrived at the first venue.
The second meeting in person was when my fiancé and I were going to do a tasting for our wedding. My parents flew in from New York to be at the tasting. At first Roxy was not going to be there. I was floored that my wedding planner was not going to be at my tasting, which is a HUGE component of the wedding. She told me that she had a long term client that had a birthday party. I was livid and e-mailed her stating that it is in her contract that she attends every meeting associated with the wedding. Roxy then followed up with an e-mail that her assistant would cover the party in the afternoon and she could be there. I had to e-mail her and express my frustration to get her to attend, which is ridiculous. Roxy was 5 minutes late to this meeting. I maybe received one text message from her the morning of the tasting. She did not negotiate anything with the cost of the tasting or even the cost of our rooms. The wedding coordinator at the venue laid out all the costs and we spoke directly with her at the venue. Roxy did not even help with any of the room selections or anything. She just sat there while my fiancé and father worked with the venue's wedding coordinator to organize the rooms.
Thirdly, another issue was the photographer. Roxy gave us a list of 3 photographers to choose from. Except for the photographer, she did not give us any local vendors to the Niagara region. (Later in an e-mail I was told that she does not work with any "local" vendors that are not Toronto, this should have been brought up before the deposit was made). My fiancé and I decided on a photographer and actually got to meet her at the tasting. There were multiple packages that you could choose from. We chose the most expensive package, which was around $2,000 CAD, this was "package 3." My father, the one paying for the wedding agreed and I thought that was the end of it. I was happy, we have a photographer! This was not the case...Roxy sent me another set of prices where there was a package 4 and the price increased $300...I was confused and did not know what happened between our meeting in person and
