Gianna and Company Reviews
Reviews
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4.6 out of 5 rating
4.6 out of 5 rating
9 Reviews
92% recommend it
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Jen C. Sent on 01/11/2020
She's truly the BEST
This review is long overdue, but the good people of the world deserve to be lauded and Gianna is truly one of them. My wife and I started our wedding planning by looking for a property in LA, which led us to Gianna's website. After a great phone call where we talked about what we were looking for, we spent a day looking at a handful of properties around town and picked our venue in Malibu.
Both my wife and I worked in production for years, so we naively thought we could DIY our wedding, but quickly realized we were in over our head and asked Gianna for advice. After learning about her own decades of experience in live event planning, live production, and wedding planning we knew we had our perfect partner. We wanted an experienced wedding planner who has been through it all and could handle whatever might come up, so it was not a tough decision. She bent over backwards to make our requests happen, and walked us through the issues when they couldn't (which was rare.) She was a blast at our catering tastings, took detailed notes and handled everything. She introduced us to our amazing florists, lighting, decorators, photographers, and makeup artists, she reminded us of things we didn't even think of, like bringing in extra bathrooms for our guests, and she even secured our venue for a Sunday pool party (don't forget the lifeguards!) the day after our wedding at a big discount. Not only that, but I jokingly said we wanted baby goats at the pool party...AND SHE GOT THEM. I was joking! But we had two adorable baby goats roaming around munching on the grass and it was amazing.
My favorite story is that when we picked our venue, which overlooked the ocean, she told us that if we could pick a date near a full moon that the ocean would sparkle like white diamonds. We factored that into our planning and she was right - it added a truly magical touch. That's attention to detail. Gianna knows the ins-and-outs of how to plan for every aspect of a live event - the things you can anticipate and the ones you can't. We all know that unexpected issues arise, but the real test is how quickly they are handled and Gianna is one of the best - totally unflappable and completely professional. She not only planned a perfect wedding but also an entire 4-day weekend around our wedding and was a joy to work with the entire time - she was always responsible, prompt, responsive, able to pivot on a dime and did it all with a smile. You could tell that the people she works with love working with her, from property owners to vendors to her own staff.
We loved every aspect of planning and executing our wedding with Gianna and highly recommend her to find you any venue and plan any event. She is truly a good person who is great at what she does and we need more people like her in the world. -
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![Katrina]()
Katrina Sent on 01/10/2020Would NOT recommend.
When writing reviews, reviewers typically give either 1 star or 5 stars- really bad or really good. We decided on 2, because we are giving her 1 star for helping us find our wedding venue.
If you need help finding a wedding venue, go to Gianna. She has access to venues all over LA, primarily on the west side. She works with Universal Locations (or if you want, maybe just go to Universal Locations directly) to be the middle man between you (the client) and them. She likely takes a cut, but I'm not sure- either way, Gianna helped us find our wedding venue and we loved it.
Onto Gianna herself as a planner: she is disorganized, gets flustered easily, and really absent-minded. She convinced us to hire her as our full-on planner, not just day-of wedding coordinator, by saying she really knew the venue, she is close with the owners, and that she herself even got married at the venue. So even though we already were iffy about her (again- absent-minded, she tells long-winded stories, disorganized) we decided to go with her, since she "knew the venue". Malibu has a lot of rules and regulations, and our venue was a private estate- we figured since we had to bring everything in, having her would be beneficial. Boy, were we so wrong.
The entire "planning" experience we didn't take of her suggestions- (her design aesthetic was different from ours) but to each their own- no problem. We didn't need to take any of her ideas, we went with what we thought was best (and what the venue would allow, based on what she told us was allowed and what wasn't). We still copied her on all e-mail correspondence with our vendors, and gave her any information that she needed to know to add to her "file" of our wedding.
On the day of the wedding rehearsal, Gianna asked us to "dummy-proof" all of the décor/knick-knacks that were going to be used for the wedding- I did just that. I gave her all the boxes and clearly labeled what each box had and what each item was going to be used for. She was so flustered and kept asking the same questions over and over, that we mentioned multiple times in e-mail and over the phone. We let that go thinking "ok, some people are more organized than others, it's fine. She's a wedding coordinator so she'll shine doing the rehearsal." During our actual rehearsal with our wedding party, she was never able to take control and lead everyone. She had the processional order ahead of time and could not put people in the correct order, then kept disappearing throughout the rehearsal- once we all processed down and were looking around for guidance on what to do next, everyone kept asking "Where's Gianna?" because she disappeared. She also kept saying little comments to my bridesmaids like "I need to change my shirt" or "I don't usually wear this" which obviously is inconsequential to the entirety of the event. She really disappointed us at the wedding rehearsal. That night, my husband wrote her a long e-mail saying how she let us down at the wedding rehearsal and she really needs to step it up the day of our wedding because IT IS THE DAY OF OUR WEDDING. He then also asked if he needed to print his vows. She responded maybe an hour before we had to get to the venue the day of the wedding (12+ hours later), saying she'd print the vows so he wouldn't have to but what kind of wedding planner doesn't monitor their e-mail the day of a wedding?
The ONE thing that we needed assistance on was parking for the venue. My entire side is local, so a lot of my family drove to our wedding. Gianna took the liberty of contacting the City of Malibu and informed us that there was a lot nearby and handled the majority of the correspondence/processing of the paperwork for that. She gave us the costs, etc. of what we needed to pay, but we let her take control on that particular aspect of the wedding. On the day of the wedding, as we are in our "holding room" inside the house, my mom gets a call from my aunt saying that a bunch of my family is at the parking lot and there was no parking. We all start to panic, and long story short, Gianna misread the contract. We purchased 30 parking passes, which doesn't "reserve" spots, all it meant was when our guests got to the lot, they wouldn't have to pay- but this lot was a beach parking lot, and in the middle of summer in August, you can imagine how many people go to the beach.. Gianna then started blaming it on the City of Malibu, and when my husband spoke to them over the phone (mind you, this is 30 minutes before our ceremony was supposed to start) the gentleman explained the contract. My husband then told Gianna exactly what he said, and Gianna was unable to say anything back, and was stunned.
Our ceremony ended up starting about an hour late, which is a lot of time especially with the Malibu noise ordinance with music lowered by 10pm. All of our guests were able to park (other lots, PCH, etc) with the quick help of our valet company (Gianna recommended them, so I guess she gets credit for them too? They have worked at our venue before). When the entire wedding party was getting ready to walk down the aisle, again, Gianna was unable to line everyone up in the correct order, and by this time I am so frustrated with her. She knew I was and while I am closing my eyes, trying to be in the moment and forget all the chaos that just happened right BEFORE my wedding even started, she kept saying over and over "Oh Katrina, oh Katrina, I really tried. I really did" and obviously as I am waiting to walk down the aisle that is the LAST thing I wanted to hear at that moment. She made that moment about her and could not accept the fact that she screwed up.
Gianna is a very caring person, but is not a good planner. For a wedding, you need someone who can take control, is organized, and is calm. She is the complete opposite of all those things. Even during the set-up before the wedding, my caterer came up to me and said "WTF is she doing?!" and then quickly apologized for being unprofessional. She even drove our vendors nuts!
After the ceremony was over, I informed our florist that we wanted to continue the rest of the wedding without her. And lo and behold, thanks to our awesome vendors, everything went smoothly (oh except that our dessert vendor came late thanks to Gianna- he is a magician and doubled as entertainment during our cocktail hour, and was told by Gianna to come right as dinner was starting. She forgot, even though it was explicitly listed on her "timeline" she created.) I am unsure why she has 5 star reviews. I assume they hired her as the same-day-on-site coordinator representing the venue, but not as the actual wedding planner/coordinator. Gianna does not have the skillset to. PLEASE contact me before you even THINK of hiring her as your planner/coordinator. Let her find your venue, she did help us there (but if we booked the venue directly, it would have been $3,500 cheaper- it was listed on VRBO for $7,500 and she charged us $11,000, but we would have not found our venue without her.), but do NOT hire her as your planner/coordinator. We wasted $4,500 (the cost to hire her as our planner/coordinator) and the added stress of having her in the picture is not worth it. Please take this as a legitimate, fair, and honest review, with both pros and cons. All emotions aside, she is incapable and lacks the ability to assume the role as a wedding coordinator. I would never want anyone to have the experience I did.
