We fired MDH five weeks before our wedding. That's how bad it got for us. The stress and…read moredysfunction we experienced working with MDH was so overwhelming that going it alone felt safer than staying with them. MDH promised a high-touch, luxury planning experience. For us, it turned out to be the most chaotic and unprofessional service we've ever encountered. Truly, working with MDH felt like our BIGGEST NIGHTMARE.
From day one, MDH sold us on structure and communication--but we ended up being the ones chasing updates, initiating calls, and even rebuilding their internal tools just to understand what was going on. The planning sheet they gave us was a recycled template slapped together last-minute--we literally watched them edit it live. It was useless to us until we fixed it ourselves. Their so-called "vendor sourcing" did not work for us at all - we had to constantly follow up for options and to get the latest updates. We were told vendors weren't responsive, but when we contacted them directly, we got replies within 24 hours. Because of MDH's inattentiveness to calendaring or failure to follow up, we missed major deadlines (like our wedding stationery design, which cost us rush fees), and lost out on accommodation properties we wanted.
In our experience, multiple deliverables were constantly promised and never delivered -- welcome tote options, website feedback, decor quotes, timelines, vendor ideas, gifting concepts, were all supposedly "in progress" but never shared. MDH kept telling us other clients were happy and "trusted the process", making us question whether we were expecting too much. When we asked to be connected with those other clients to level set our own expectations and build some confidence in their delivery? Silence. And when we voiced our concerns? We felt gaslit. We were told we were "too involved" and "pulling work away" from the team--when in reality, we felt we were stepping in to do their job. We were trying to protect our own wedding. We were following up (MULTIPLE TIMES) on timelines that MDH shared and then consistently missed. They even had the audacity to tell us that following up on OUR OWN wedding progress was disrupting their workflow (we have never seen this workflow before).
In our view, the lead planner, Aeisha, is the most unprofessional service provider we have ever dealt with. We feel like she dissembled constantly, twisted facts, and would say anything to deflect blame. One of the most absurd examples: she claimed the decor for our wedding would cost $99,000! When we asked for a detailed breakdown, we did not receive anything concrete that made sense to us or helped us understand where the money would be spent. No renderings or visualization tools for what we were getting for the $99K, no vendor invoices, no evidence of any negotiations being done for us. We asked Aeisha to show us ANYTHING, any email to vendors, any kind of work-in-progress quotes, to help us build trust in her delivery but our request was denied. She also claimed that because our choice of wedding venue was expensive, we reduced her budget for decor. A discussion like that never happened. The decor budget always remained the same. In fact, we chipped in more to add to our overall budget for the venue because we liked it. But five weeks before our wedding, we had no idea of what we would ultimately be spending on our decor. We felt like Aeisha waited till the very end to slap us with an unreasonable amount and pressure for us to pay up. We didn't pay them any decor budget, parted ways, and asked for our initial retainer back. They refused to give us our money back and also refused to return an overpayment we had made in good faith. They claim it was used to procure decor, but we did not approve of any purchases. We feel this runs against their assertion that the client's consent is at the core of their process.
For us, firing MDH was the best decision we made during our wedding planning. After we brought in a new planner, we had an entirely different experience that made us realize what had been missing. For instance: Bali was shutting down the week before our wedding due to Eid and Nyepi Day--which meant no banking and major logistical disruptions. MDH never advised us of this crucial fact given its impact on wedding planning. Either they didn't know or they didn't care. Worse still, we learned that non-Bali vendors needed artist visas--a legal requirement that MDH never mentioned to us. We had to scramble and pay thousands of dollars in last-minute fees to fix this mess.
To us, this isn't just about poor service. This is about feeling lied to, ignored, gaslit and constantly stressed about one of the most important events of our life, despite spending thousands of dollars on a planner. We're not just disappointed - we're disgusted.
Based on our experience, this is our recommendation - Do. Not. Hire. MDH.
