I met with a wedding planner yesterday to discuss her possibly being my DOC and I really just was so disappointed that I feel the need to vent it.
First, I go to the address for what I assumed was her office, but was actually her house - not a big deal in itself. I'm just used to people who work out of their home asking to meet in a coffee shop or something for the first meeting. But when she came to the door she didn't introduce herself or ask who I was - just "come in" and motioned to the living room. I had to ask if I was in the right place.
Second, it was clear that she had not cleaned up that living room in the last few weeks or so and the coffee table was piled up with random things and her lunch plate - maybe I was being too judgy of her cleaning habits, but not a good first impression for someone that wants me to hire them to run my wedding day.
Third, she had a binder that she took a sheet out of, read the front (it appeared to be a catering menu from another wedding), and then proceeded to take notes of what I said on the back. Not exactly the super organized planner I was hoping for.
Fourth, every time she asked me a question, my answer reminded her of another wedding and she would proceed to tell me a story about someone else's wedding plans that she was working on - and most of them involved her disapproval of what they wanted or how silly they were being. I have no problem with her having those opinions, but to talk smack about a client to a potential client? Nope. Not to mention that over half of the consultation was about someone else's wedding.
Fifth, when I told her I was inviting kids to the wedding, she commented that she hates when people don't, especially because its usually because people are going to be drinking. Then she proceeded on a 5 minute rant about how trashy it is for people to get drunk at weddings and she was glad I wasn't going to be one of "those" brides. That is until I told her we were still serving alcohol after dinner and she had to backtrack really quickly.
Sixth, there were several things I mentioned doing that she immediately shot down. Have my sister do my make-up? My pictures are gonna look awful. Mom doing my hair? Only if its a super easy style. FBIL in charge of iPod playlist? Nope, gotta have a DJ. Ummm, you've never met these people, nor do you know what talents they have - don't tell me they can't handle it.
Lastly, and I was relieved of this actually, she informed me that she was not prepared to book my wedding as her printer had broken and she had no way to get any paperwork ready. Although, I had scheduled this meeting over a week ago, so if she had been prepared she could have printed it any one of the 9 days before somewhere else.
I know in the long run this is not a major ordeal, but I was looking forward to knowing that FI and I weren't going to have to coordinate everything ourselves. We live in a rural area and this planner was the only one less than 2 hours away from us, so I was so hopeful that she would work out. The DOC budget is going have to go up quite a bit now since whoever we hire will have to travel to us and - from my research - require a hotel room. Time for some number crunching and budget readjustment.