I absolutely do not recommend Michelle for any event coordination. "Events Like Clockwork" - truly, anything BUT.
We hired Michelle for our wedding last June. It's taken me almost a year to write this because I've been dreading sitting down and rehashing all the negatives of our wedding day.
We had all of the ideas and pieces in place, just needed someone to help coordinate and execute them on the big day. Sadly, that did not happen. We ended up cleaning up the venue until 1am on our wedding night.
We found Michelle on a reputable wedding website and she had great reviews. We met with her in person to review our plans twice before the wedding. We made our needs and expectations very clear. We told her that our family could be available on the day to help set up things. She consistently told us that wouldn't be necessary, that all of the guests should be able to enjoy themselves and she would coordinate everything. She said she would have assistants on site the day of, which was a selling point for us.
We were fortunate enough to have access to the venue the day before the wedding to set up most of the reception space. She came with no assistants, tools or resources.
I offered Michelle help setting up several times on the day of because I had downtime waiting for hair and makeup. Everytime I started working on something, she shooed me away telling me it was my wedding day and I should be relaxing and enjoying myself and she would take care of everything. I would have been grateful for this, but those tasks were never completed. She did this to several members of my family and bridal party throughout the day.
The chairs had to be moved from the outdoor ceremony site to the inside reception site during cocktail hour. We told her repeatedly that our family could help move chairs and she told us repeatedly that wouldn't be necessary. We ended up having to task our family and friends with moving chairs during cocktail hour.
This, unfortunately, was a common theme for the day.
The backdrop used in our ceremony was supposed to be moved inside behind the head table - it was never moved.
We purchased more than enough food for the whole event, but constantly saw empty refreshment tables. We had so much food left at the end of the night.
For the bouquet toss, she was nowhere to be found and I had to seek out my bouquet myself.
We were serving churros on our dessert table. We told her that we could task someone to make them, but she insisted she would handle it. The day of, she was complaining that it "wasn't her job" to make churros.
She also did not cut the wedding cake or task anyone with cutting.
When it came time for the toast, first she said we didn't have any champagne. Once she found the obvious collection of champagne, she had no idea how to open a bottle of champagne and the bottles had not been chilled.
The crowning failure was the fact that she was supposed to coordinate the pick up of the rental chairs at the end of the night. She told my mom that it would cost extra to have the chairs picked up the night of the wedding, but that was worth it to us to have it taken care of. My mom wrote her a check for the rental company and asked her to coordinate the pickup. At 11pm she was sitting around waiting for the truck to arrive for pick up - She had never confirmed the pick up with the rental company! I ended up having to change into yoga pants an haul chairs through my venue. We were at the venue with a few kind guests and our amazing DJ who offered to stay and help until 1am. This was my wedding night, I should have been enjoying myself, not breaking a sweat hauling chairs when she had said repeatedly during the day that she "would take care of it".
At one point, during one of these crises, she even told my mom "I'm so tired!" We paid her good money, she assured us over and over that she had everything handled and didn't need help, and we ended up working through the night on our wedding night. We were ALL tired, she had no place trying to complain to us about being tired while doing the job we paid her for. She tried to serve us sob stories after the fact "my phone was broken" "my assistants couldn't come". As a professional, she should have had a plan B in place for those issues, rather than complaining to the people who hired her to take the pressure off on this special day.
She seemed so overwhelmed by every aspect of the day - coordinating with vendors, venue set up, keeping food and drinks stocked. She even struggled to coordinate the traditional, basic wedding components.
We told her repeatedly exactly what needed to be coordinated for this wedding - if she couldn't handle it, she never should have accepted the job. She couldn't even coordinate the vendors - they were still asking me questions the day of because she was nowhere to be found.
It was a beautiful day anyway, but it will forever be clouded by memories of what should have been handled by the wedding coordinator. read more