I will start off by saying that their skills as a fabricator are top-notch. Everything that we…read moreended up receiving was gorgeous. If you know exactly what you want, exactly how you want it (materials, fonts, colors), I think I could recommend them.
HOWEVER, if you need any sort of design, any sort of support, any sort of person-to-person interaction, prepare for a struggle.
We worked with Kathy and her team for wedding stationary and day-of signage. Initially, we set up a skype call to see if it would be a good fit, as we did with all of our potential vendors; she was the only one to set up a visible timer for our meeting and she held to it. It was a little off-putting, especially when we were looking to spend a good amount of money with her. Part of us rationalized that she was firmly outlining the time she had agreed to, but it still felt 'off'. We specifically asked if she would be our singular point-of-contact for the entire process, and she asserted she would be. While we were a little apprehensive, her quote was extremely competitive, and we decided to proceed.
Our initial kick-off design meeting iterations presented the first tangible signs of our misgivings - we were contacted by someone that was not Kathy. We were confused as Kathy was supposed to be our singular point-of-contact. Apparently she has a business partner that works with her on all of her design jobs - Angelica was nice enough, but we were still mildly upset that this had not been disclosed since he had asked specifically to avoid this kind of surprise.
But as weeks passed and design iterations went on, they did not seem to be getting any closer to our vision - to the point that I had to start mocking up things on my own to push the design closer to where we wanted it (something I feel I shouldn't need to do if I'm paying for a professional service). Even then, we had to schedule a zoom call to discuss our frustrations with the process - we had even discussed amongst ourselves and our wedding planner of buying ourselves out of the contract so that we could start fresh with a different vendor.
Only after this meeting were we able to get a design that was close to what we wanted. But then, Angelica took over completely - Kathy seemed to have disappeared; apparently she had also gotten married...and failed to tell us that she wasn't going to be available (which, if it had been disclosed, we could have worked around, or chosen another vendor.)
Then came the pricing - over double what the initially quoted. I will take some responsibility here as we did not cost out each price change, but being that each item is priced as a per-piece upgrade (.25 cents here, .50 cents there), it quickly balloons out of price, even on a small order. It feels intentional to lull you into thinking that these are little changes, only to reveal the full price at the end and put it on the client to either pay or backtrack on all of the weeks of design work that were done up to that point (not to mention any deadlines that were established).
Once the invites and RSVPs were done, we had to move on to day-of pieces, where suddenly we were introduced to ANOTHER designer. More design iterations, same problems as with the invites and RSVPs. At this point, we're exhausted, we're just trying to get through the design phases to get the products done - we're running out of time, and Kathy disappears again - apparently now on her honeymoon...again, undisclosed.
We compromise on designs to just get them finished. We schedule pick up at their storefront and have some difficulty finding the place; no one picks up the phone when we call for some guidance. Finally after circling the industrial park a few times we manage to stumble across it. Pick up is fine after that - everything was packaged well.
In the end, the products look great. But given the amount of stress and work we had to put in to get them, I cannot recommend Velvet Fox as a professional design service.
