I found Julie to be excruciatingly difficult to work with as well as disorganized and…read moreunprofessional. We originally signed the contract with Julie because she did my brother's wedding in October so I had high hopes that my experience would be fun and easy.
My experience is as follows: We met with Julie in December and put down the deposit to hold the date. Julie mentioned that I should create a Pinterest board, which I did, and sent to the Pinterest account name she requested. We left the meeting and there were a series of emails back and forth over a few months in which I requested a copy of the contract. We also had a few emails where I informed her that the colors of the wedding had changed, but we still hadn't had a contract and didn't have a single flower arrangement discussed, so this didn't seem to matter at the time, although there were multiple attempts to send pictures and get information down on paper.
When we had our first face to face meeting in May, she mentioned (during the meeting) that she still hadn't looked at the Pinterest board and to add her under a new name during that meeting. Frankly, I felt that this request demonstrated that she was unprepared and unprofessional. During the meeting, we discussed elements of what my fiancé and I were looking for and spoke about three different events (a Rehearsal Dinner, a Meet and Greet, and the Wedding).
After Julie left, I got a rehearsal dinner quote that felt outrageous ($2013.00 for an event for about 45 people) and I STILL did not have a copy of the contract. I called Julie and said to her that we would need to focus the budget on the meet and greet and the wedding. My exact words were "we need to be more moderate than extravagant". I had made it clear that my fiance and I were paying for this event and instructed that there shouldn't be an abundance of flowers like orchids or other items that would drive up the budget.
She returned two additional outrageous proposals ($4700 for the meet and greet, which consisted mainly of pumpkin floral arrangements at $85.00 each and candle arrangements for mason jars for $75.00 each) and ($13000 for the wedding) totaling all 3 proposals to about $20,000+.
Here is the frustrating part: She did my brother's wedding in October, and my brother shared their contract with me. I requested Julie to replicate the arrangements she did for my brothers, which would include items like the flower choices (i.e., garden roses, etc.). When we compared Julie's estimates for a few of the EXACT same line items, we noticed that a majority of the basics were incrementally higher than what she had quoted my brother. For example, the bridesmaids bouquets were $85 per person for my brother v $95 per person for us, the boutonnieres $20 v $25 per person, the barrels $200 for my brother v $250 and $425 per barrel for us-both quoted as one-sided rather than fully around, the grooms boutonnieres $25 v $35, father of the bride/groom boutonnieres $20 v $25 per person). Overall, the majority of the line items were increased across the board. Lastly, the service charges were also increased in comparison (25% vs 33%). (See the full and complete estimate for all 3 events below)
When you work with wedding vendors, you want to be treated fairly and in this instance, I genuinely couldn't figure out why these items across the board would be so inflated. The bottom line is, I would never recommend Southern Floral and Drapes and when we told her we would not be working together her response was "it's actually a blessing". My thoughts were-if you don't want to take on a client, why go through the rigmarole of making the client feel completely taken advantage of? What ultimately forced the decision not to work with Julie was because I truly didn't feel we were given a fair proposal. I think she gouged our contract it doesn't inspire trust in the vendor.