Just got back from our 3-week Wedding-Honeymoon hiatus! It was fantastic from beginning to end! I will be completing my vendor reviews and more this weekend but I wanted to make this initial post/warning separately to begin with. The wedding week and wedding itself were a smash! This was a wedding with TONS of details and moving parts. We scheduled 6 days of activities for about 80 guests-- all OOT and many traveling internationally-- almost all stayed 4-7 nights. We coordinated several casual activities (ghost tour, pub crawl, group lunches, group dinners, gator tour) as well as formal stuff like the Rehearsal Dinner for 35, a birthday dinner for an Uncle travelling all the way from his post in Africa, surprise cocktails with surprise international guests for my father's birthday, a welcome dinner/mixer for just our immediate family, Bridal Brunch, Groomsmen Lunch and a wedding morning breakfast for (15) parents, aunts & uncles. All that to say, there was a LOT going on! I would say 98% of it really went off without a hitch. Our Wedding Coordinator, Elyse Skansi (from Tying the Knots) was nothing short of miraculous in helping with all of this, and Alyssa at the Bourbon Orleans was also key in making much of this go smoothly. The only fly in the ointment was NIKKI LYNCH of 318 DESIGN.
I'll warn you right now this will be long but I want you to have the full picture, and not just come on here and give a useless rant/vent.
I know there are at least a handful of brides on here working with her-- and I wish y'all good luck. Maybe she will come through for you but she certainly DID NOT for me! She was contracted to decorate our ballroom for the reception (elaborate flower and candle designs that I had very specific drawings and instructions for), to provide gold-rimmed wine glasses for all the guests, to provide our wedding cake flowers, as well as all the personal wedding flowers (8 bouquets, 13 boutonnières, 3 corsages). I fedexed her custom table linens we made, ahead of time, almost $100 worth of feather trim, and about 2 dozen gold candles I purchased, that were all going to be used for table decor. She and I spoke for literally HOURS about the design and details. We had a very detailed contract about how and when things would be placed. We exchanged photographs and diagrams about how EACH and EVERY table would be designed. Obviously, I cared a lot about this stuff. This was not going to just be a matter of sticking a vase with some flowers in the middle of a table-- it was going to take time and precision and an attention to detail. She assured me repeatedly there would be no problem, that she understood exactly what I wanted and she would have additional help to execute everything. She required full payment in advance, and I was ok with that because she explained she had to order a lot of floral supplies to meet our requirements. She was also very easy to reach, and very communicative so I thought everything was on track.
FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLEShe suggested I send my décor items to her ahead of time so she could do a video session with me showing a sample of EXACTLY what she would be doing on the wedding day. We had 9 tables and there would be 2 distinct decorating styles for each. She said 2 weeks before the wedding she would get enough flowers to show me samples of the 2 styles via Skype. After quite a bit of trouble setting it up, the only thing on video was her dining table at home (nowhere near the size or dimension of the ballroom tables), covered with one of my custom overlays and 3 of my candles. I expressed my concern that this was nothing like what we discussed and she said well it would be "different" on the wedding day. I thought this session was meant to be an example of EXACTLY what I could expect on the wedding day? She then suggested that we end the video, just stay on the phone and she would mail me photos while we continued to discuss. The next sample she sent me was supposed to be a picture of my tables that would have 24-inch tall vases, filled with hydrangea balls at least 12 inches in diameter (that's how specific I was in the contract!), surrounded by gold votives and petals at the bottom. What she sent me back as a sample was about 10 inches too short, and only had a SINGLE hydrangea in the vase! She assured me it would all be "better" and "different" on the wedding day.
SECOND SIGN OF TROUBLE2 weeks before the wedding I mentioned to another wedding vendor that we were using Nikki for flower and candle design and they seemed hesitant in their reaction. I didn't push but a day or 2 later they went to the trouble of calling me and telling me "off the record" that they had attended a vendor expo Nikki and planned a few months earlier and that it was a "total disaster". The person said it started over an hour late and that Nikki herself only showed up for 15 minutes and seemed to let the event be run by uninformed assistants. It was disorganized and a bit pointless. They thought the whole experience was unprofessional and embarrassing and they were concerned she wouldn't be able to perform for us. My stomach fairly dropped when I heard this. I called her without mentioning this specifically but let her know I was concerned about details and the timing. I told her I got permission from the Bourbon Orleans for her to have access to the room 3 hours earlier (10am) but she assured me she had everything under control and would have more than enough time arriving at 1pm.
THIRD SIGN OF TROUBLEIn one of our numerous conversations when I asked more deeply about her previous local experience, she mentioned she "used to" do wedding planning--um what about the current brides who think she's doing wedding planning right now?? And that she "hated" it and only wanted to do design now so she didn't have to be bothered with all the "stress and drama" of being more involved in the wedding planning process. She said she wanted her involvement to be limited to one day so she could be "in and out" without any added "aggravation". I really got the impression she was sick of weddings and brides. Yikes!
FOURTH SIGN OF TROUBLEWe wanted to send flowers to both of our mothers with a special card inside. They would both be spending a week in their hotel rooms and they had both really helped a lot with the wedding planning and such. We didn't want to just send generic bouquets from 1-800 flowers so I mentioned it to Nikki. She said she could make large beautiful arrangements for them both, that would be waiting in their hotel rooms Tuesday evening when they each arrived, with the special letter we'd written to each of them, attached. These were an additional charge, which I paid the week before. We also sent the cards/letters to her a week ahead of time, with each mother's name on the outside. They should have been delivered Tuesday. I was surprised when my mom didn't mention receiving them the next day but I was busy hosting 80 people! By Thursday they still hadn't been delivered. I texted Nikki to find out what was going on. She didn't know. She "assumed" they'd been delivered. She would get back to me. Friday afternoon she texted me to say the delivery people had sent them to the wrong hotel. Huh? I told her I would have expected her to follow up on the day of on her own. I shouldn't have had to find this out on my own 3 days later. I then didn't understand why I took her 24 hours to clear up. She didn't offer to get the flowers to them in any event, she just offered a refund-- which I still haven't received. Then Friday afternoon, the lady at the front desk of our hotel stopped me to say she had a letter for my mother. When she handed it to me, it was the letter I had sent to Nikki for my mother. I had hand written it and stenciled my mother's name on the front and put it in lovely stationery, Nikki had then put it in another plain envelope, with chicken scratch handwriting on the front and dropped it in the MAIL (regular USPS snail mail). It was then MAILED to the hotel where it sat in a drawer until Friday, so it never would have been included with the floral arrangement in the first place! Thank you for ruining what would have been a touching gesture for my once-in-a-lifetime event. Such a simple act, ruined by her total lack of attention or giving a $hit.
FIFTH SIGN OF TROUBLENikki had sent a picture of a gorgeous table with gold accents that included gold-rimmed wine glasses. I asked if she had them for rent. She said yes. Part of the contract included providing 75 of them for our sit-down dinner. She texted me Thursday (2 days before the wedding) to say she wouldn't be able to provide them after all, with no other explanation. She said she would refund us for that part of the contract. I have still not received the refund.
TOTAL AND COMPLETE FAILUREThe wedding started at 4pm. The Ballroom would be opened for dinner at 6:30. Nikki was contracted to arrive at 1pm to start setting up and to be finished in time for me to make a visual inspection and approval before guests arrived. Around 12:40pm on the day of the wedding, about 20 minutes before Nikki was scheduled to show up, I sent Elyse, our Coordinator, an email of something too big to text. She just happened to check her email as a result. Otherwise, she was knee-deep in wedding prep and never would have checked her email. In any event, Nikki usually text messaged or called. With less than an hour to go before her arrival time, and about 3 hours before the wedding, Nikki decided to email my wedding planner the following:
"On Feb 11, 2012, at 12:14 PM, Nikki Lynch wrote:
I apologize to cancel on such short notice.....but we just got some terrible news from back home and must leave immediately. I hope this is enough notice to make the necessary changes. Please inform Bezlu that we will be making a full refund next week. Again, I apologize but this can not be helped."
I probably don't need to tell you how stressful it was to receive this, with such short notice! I already had reason to feel like she might not perform up to my standard but it had never occurred to me she would just be a total no-show. It was so outrageously unprofessional that I don't even think I need to add much commentary to this. I had told this woman that reception decor was the most important aspect of this wedding to me after my fiancé! I told her the décor mattered more to me than even my own dress. She was enthusiastic and gung-ho and said she totally understood and that she was excited to be designing such elaborate décor, and then with less than an hour to spare, this woman informs us she will be cancelling. Less than 3 hours before my wedding, no bouquets for me and bridesmaids, no bouts, no corsages, no flowers on the cake and no flowers, candelabras, or votives and candles on my tables.
TO ADD INSULT TO INJURYWhether there was in fact an emergency in her family, I really don't know but it seems a legitimate and scrupulous business person would have sent the flowers (and my personal items I provided weeks before) with an assistant, or as the contract stated, just sent a replacement florist/designer. She didn’t do that. Her only offer to make us whole, was to give a refund. Well 18 days later I still DON'T HAVE A REFUND or my items. I think a legitimate and scrupulous business person would have spoken to me personally, or sent a text message to me personally. She never did and she hasn't responded to any of my phone calls, texts or emails. The final blow was to find out later that she had 2 other events that day and they both received their flowers. I don't actually know that for a fact but that's what I was told by another wedding vendor, so in the end it seems to just be case of an unscrupulous, heartless and totally unprofessional person willing to screw us over in order to deal with her problem of being over-booked. OUTRAGEOUS! And with absolutely no remorse expressed. I think that bothers me more than her not showing up. Her total lack of communication or acknowledgement that she let us down on such an important day. There's no awareness that this was our wedding she totally flaked off!
BOTTOM LINEOur wedding coordinator, Elyse, saved the day! She got us a replacement florist (Bee's Flowers) in LESS THAN AN HOUR! We had to pay a big chunk of unexpected money for it but they really delivered. I would have been happy enough with just some flowers but instead the tables looked gorgeous (just like our original plan) and were probably better than Nikki ever could have pulled off. My bridesmaids and I had lovely bouquets before we left the hotel and Elyse and her amazing staff got bouts and corsages to all the right people even though we were spread over 3 hotels! We pretty much had to use all the cash we had prepared for the honeymoon 2 days later but we didn't panic and in the end everything looked beautiful. I don't know what we would have done without Elyse! She was a total pro. She was so in control that I honestly felt like everything was going to work out, even when she gave me the bad news. It was a good lesson in expecting the unexpected!
I'm choosing to just focus on the positive (I just came back from the trip of a lifetime, I had my DREAM wedding, a week of celebration with nearly all of my family & friends, and married the love of my life) but I think it goes without saying, you should really think twice before hiring Nikki/318 Design to have anything whatsoever to do with your wedding.