I Romance

I was recommended to Irene by a good friend of mine, who vouched for her coordinating services. She was the lowest priced coordinator, and in retrospect I wish I paid more for someone else. Irene promised that she would follow me around and ensure that everything would go smoothly. Instead, she completely dropped the ball, leaving my family and friends to pick up the slack and all of us very stressed out. Luckily, it was my family and friends that saved the wedding, and the guests did not notice much of the chaos that went on behind the scenes.



I had a fairly complex itinerary planned out, and laid out every detail in a large packet. All the coordinator had to do was follow the directions, but it seems Irene did not even read them. She did not once meet with me to go over the details. Many items had to go to specific places at specific times. I noticed critical items were left on the floor, and my clothing for the reception was left in the closet. Irene did not bother to check that all items were taken. If I had not double checked, they would have been left behind. My family later told me what she was doing while I was getting ready: eating and chatting, not coordinating at all.



Irene then went to the ceremony site. During the ceremony, the microphone went out. It was several minutes before the AV person had to run all the way from his booth to give us a new mike. Where was Irene?



After the ceremony, Irene went ahead to the reception. As explicitly stated in my instructions, I needed a change of clothes before I went to the reception. I essentially would be naked without it. I ended up having to wear my husband's shirt and my petticoat to the car.



Nothing was set up for the guests when they arrived, so they couldn’t find their seats. I had two large professional seating charts printed, which Irene couldn't find. She exasperatedly asked my mother where it was. She ended up grabbing small computer print outs of the seating arrangement. Later, when reviewing our photobooth photos, I saw Irene in the early ones, when things were the most chaotic. Why wasn't she doing her job?



She also did not ensure that our drinks were pulled from the storage room to serve guests. We actually had to delay the toasts, and our best man had to drag the drinks out himself.



There were also issues with the projector being too far from the DJ to hook up to speakers, so there would be no sound for the slideshow. Our best man later told us that Irene offered no help.



She also did not coordinate any part of the reception. I ended up having to work with the DJ to set up the timing. I was told later that she was eating, chatting, and mingling rather than sticking with me and coordinating the events.



Finally, I learned that Irene had to be reminded to pass out tips, and ended up randomly giving out tips to servers that didn’t actually work for our wedding. The ones who did serve us went to my mom for tips, but, by that time, all the tips were passed out. It’s exactly what we didn’t want to happen.



In the end, we feel that Irene had fun at our wedding and got paid handsomely for it. While things ended up being ok, my family and friends were completely stressed out during many portions of it, and ended up being the ones who coordinated the wedding. Clearly, I would not recommend her.