So I just got married at the Embassy Suites Hilton in Naperville during the first week of July, and Henna Raza and her company Professional Party Planners handled all of the decorations and setup of the event. Or at least she was supposed to. We had been meeting with her multiple times during the months before the wedding event. She always promised that she would be present during the event and she offered us choices with regards to patterns, color schemes, etc. We confirmed everything multiple times with her. However, in the week before the event, she suddenly told us that we could not use the couch that we picked out months before. Apparently it had torn. But that was fine - we just chose a different one. Then just a couple of days prior to the event, she told us that the new couch we picked out was suddenly not available. A little puzzled by this, we just went with the one she told us to use. Then on the day of the event, everything went to hell.
Henna was not at our event like she had promised - apparently, she is not allowed on the premises. Not sure why she told us otherwise. Anyways, for hours, we tried to get into contact with her because things started going downhill quickly. For example, she was supposed to make sure that the cupcake and wedding cake delivery was handled properly in the kitchens. However, the cake delivery person actually showed up at my hotel room where I was getting my makeup and hair done and tried to deliver it there. It was then we tried frantically to contact Henna but she still was not answering her phone. My sister went downstairs to try and talk to the second point of contact that Henna provided us in case she was unavailable named Aaron (who works at the Embassy Suites). When my sister saw the decor, she was shocked. It was absolutely not the decor we chose and confirmed with Henna over and over again. She charged us for specific aspects of the decor that she did not deliver on. Here is a list of the following:
-promised and charged us for drapes on all doors, only did one door
-turned off the air conditioning at 11:30 PM (event was supposed to go on for several more hours)
-promised on more LED lights than delivered
-misspelled our names on the event signs around the ballroom (did not fix when we asked them to)
-the reserved signs on the tables were flying off (looked like they had been printed hastily)
- runner was the wrong color and too short (she told us she would give us red, but gave us white)
- backdrop wrinkled and pinned hastily (shows up in our pictures)
- said sofa ripped one week before event
-promised ivory drapes but made everything hospital white
- was very rude and unprofessional
- promised she would be at the event the whole time but a couple weeks before said she couldn't
-appointed someone from the hotel who was very rude and uncooperative
When my sister finally got in contact with Henna, she claimed that she didn't even have the runner we decided with her. She also said the same thing about the drapes (which we had decided upon before). Aaron, it seemed, was just as unhelpful and actually started walking away from my sister as she was speaking to him. Both Aaron and Henna were supremely rude and cold towards us. We had been planning this event for many months and put in a lot of time and effort (as well as money of course) into it. What made us very angry was that we paid for certain things to be done and they were not. When we pointed this out to Henna and Aaron they said that we were over-exaggerating and nothing could be done. Thousands of dollars. Over-exaggerating, I ask you.
In addition, the hotel management was not better. Nidia is the hotel's event manager and she was also unprofessional and frankly ridiculous. She started following around my father during our event and trying to get him to sign the invoice. During my wedding event. She also turned off the air conditioning around 11:30 PM. Even though we were promised a 6 hour event. This is what made me the most angry as my guests were suffering in the heat and not to mention, me. Please never do any events at the Hilton Embassy Suites Naperville or with Henna Raza at Professional Party Planners. They really made us suffer on such an important day and barely seemed to care. read more