I hired Merideth Reed of Belle Soiree Weddings to be my day-of coordinator for my May 26, 2012 wedding, and somehow I am still dealing with her almost a year later. (Sorry in advance for the length, but if you hired her or are thinking of hiring her, you should have this information.)
The day of my wedding, Merideth did a fine job. Other than not being able to figure out my bustle and unsuccessfully safety pinning the dress up (yikes!), she did her job well that day. The problems with Merideth came after my wedding.
Despite my mom insisting at the wedding that she take everything home with her then (top layer of cake, toasting flutes, guestbook, etc.), Merideth told my mom that she would deliver all of our wedding stuff to my parents’ house that week. After repeated attempts to call Merideth, my mom finally texted her to see if she would respond. While not answering any calls or returning any voicemails, Merideth responded to a text, telling my mom that she was out of town and to call her assistant who would take care of getting everything to my mom. So, my mom then called the assistant, and told her (I wouldn’t even think it would be necessary to tell somebody this) to call before she came by to make sure somebody was home. A pretty simple request, right? Well this girl did not call before she came, and when my mom arrived home one day that week, she found all of our wedding items sitting on the side of the house, including the top layer of our wedding cake. SHE LEFT THE TOP LAYER OF OUR WEDDING CAKE SITING OUTSIDE IN THE 90+ DEGREE NEW ORLEANS WEATHER FOR HOURS.
When my new husband and I returned from our honeymoon, my mom told me what had happened, and I decided to call Merideth and express my disappointment. I soon realized that I had to call her for another reason, because her assistant also returned the wrong toasting flutes and cake cutting set to us. I mean, the Waterford crystal set that was left on the side of my parents’ house was very nice, but we wanted to have the set we picked out for our wedding (I'm sure the bride who owned that set appreciated that). So, Merideth came to exchange the flutes and cake cutting set, and I told her about the ruined cake. She was very apologetic, and very graciously offered to buy us a new top layer of cake from Haydel’s. I wish I could say the story ends there, but it is still not over.
The next week, Merideth emailed me telling me that she ordered the cake and that it should be ready Monday for me to pick up, but she would let me know for sure when it was ready. After Monday and Tuesday had passed, I texted her asking if the cake was ready for me to get, and her response was, “I have it in my freezer! I went ahead and picked it up! Thought I sent you a msg but I guess it never went through!”
I then replied, “Great! Can I get it from you this weekend or this week?” I never received a response (still have the text message).
A month or so passed, and I posted a very short review on the Knot saying that Merideth was good the day of, that she offered to replace the ruined cake, but that I wasn’t sure if I would actually get it because of the time that had elapsed. The next day, she e-mailed me saying that the cake was in her garage freezer (“I promise it’s here!”), and that she could get it to me next week. I responded with available times and days and again never got a response.
At this point, I decided I would wait to bring it up again until more time had passed, because I was clearly getting nowhere with her (and I chalked it up to being peak wedding season at the time). Fast forward to August when hurricane Isaac hit, and Merideth posted on Facebook that she lost power (as many of us did for very extended periods of time). I then thought to myself that this “cake” she had “in her freezer” was ruined now after sitting in a garage freezer without power. (this information will come into play in a bit).
Now fast forward to April 2013- a few weeks ago. I e-mailed Merideth a very cordial but straight-forward message essentially explaining that she never followed through on her promise to us, and that it would be the right thing to do to for her to rectify the fact that her assistant damaged our property. In the e-mail I mentioned that I knew she lost power during the hurricane and that the cake she previously got was no longer good.
This was her response:
“Of course I remember you! No worries at all- I moved the cake to my parents house and it is still good! Don't worry! I would never let you go without cake! Can you believe it's been a year?! I'm out if town until Monday but will be free Tuesday on of next week! Let me know when is convenient for you and we can exchange! Hope you have a great weekend!”
I then responded that I would be available Tuesday after 3:30PM, and asked if that would work for her. No response.
It’s been almost a week since we were supposed to “meet up” that Tuesday, and since contacting her is getting me nowhere, I decided to post a review on the Knot.
This is not a “OMG NEVER USE THIS PERSON EVVVERRRR” post, but I just want to send a warning to brides that if you use Merideth Reed do not entrust anything of value to her or especially to her assistant, and you probably want to take what she says with a grain of salt (I mean, who really would think to grab the four month old wedding cake replacement from their garage freezer when evacuating for a hurricane?)
I hope this post will ensure that no other brides have their precious wedding things left on the side of a house to melt, get rained on, or worse, get stolen.