Communication was great at first. Britt was very timely & responsive. I communicated my needs very specifically & she agreed that she was able to meet those needs as a Day Of Coordinator. I had an overall smaller budget & she was running a discount for her services. I believed that she was trying to grow her portfolio, so I expected that she might not have as much experience. As I did have a smaller budget for this, I didn't expect perfection & was excited to give someone a chance to grow their business. The contract I signed promised that she would contact all of the vendors & get their arrival times for the day of, & she delivered. It also said that she agreed to do anything to help the day run smoothly. I also had to fire another vendor two weeks prior to the wedding & she assisted with that & got me a refund on my deposit. From the beginning, I kept trying to initiate speaking on the phone, but I could never get her to agree on a time. The week of the wedding, I wanted to set up a call with her to clearly discuss & go over the needs I had already portrayed to her, but I couldn't get her on the phone & she kept misplacing my phone number.
On the day of, she was running late for personal reasons, however we did have a flexible timeline in the morning & she had clearly communicated it as soon as she realized she wouldn't arrive right on time. Things I needed assistance with the day of included decorating the ceremony space, setting up chairs for the ceremony with the help of the chair vendor, timing of the ceremony (initiating ceremony start time, spacing out the party during the processional, ushering guests into recessional after ceremony), assisting with cleanup of the ceremony, & ensuring timing of reception in addition to meeting with vendors. The decorations were not put up exactly how I had them in the pictures I sent her. The single chair vendor had to set up over 130 chairs by himself. She also texted me all morning long while I was trying to get ready, & I had to keep answering questions (which could have likely been avoided had we ever spoken on the phone). The ceremony vendors didn't know if we were supposed to start & we were after the time, so they just started. Then she disappeared during the cleanup & our family had to do it all. I hadn't had access to my phone until after we were on our way to the reception & I found a message from her stating "Were you wanting me to stay for the reception? Normally I do, but I was wondering what your thoughts were." We still had half the day left (and lots of vendors and a specific timeline at that point). She stayed but spent most of the evening in the kitchen of the venue while our DJ ran the show. When I noticed this, I had my stepdad send her home.
A few weeks later I found that she had taken pictures of the reception decorations & posted them on her business Facebook & Instagram pages stating "A wedding I did." Although she assisted with ceremony decorations, my bridesmaids & I spent about 7 hours the day before the wedding setting up the reception decorations & it appears as if she is marketing it as her work. That seriously sits wrong with me as it is very deceiving to people who may be looking to hire her. If they hire her based off of those pictures, it wasn't her work.
I wish I would have saved the money & had a close friend assist on the day of. Britt was great at communicating with vendors leading up, but she could stand to get more hands on with her day of coordinating. It seemed more as if she spent the day as a guest, and our other vendors expressed frustration not knowing when things were supposed to start. From everything I had read about what day-of coordinators do, she didn't really deliver on them.