A bride has slammed her wedding planner for leaving her in a ‘horrible’ situation just six months out from the big day. She revealed on Facebook that she booked a “full service planner” for $22,000, but her vendors, hotel rooms and transportation haven’t yet been secured.
To make it worse, the couple has forked out thousands of dollars on top of the fee to lock in alternative vendors. Sharing on a popular Facebook wedding group, the bride asked other group members if this was a regular occurrence.
A bride has shared her ‘stressful’ situation on Facebook. Photo: Getty
“Shaming our $22,000 full service planner. We’re about six months out and they have not secured our room blocks or transportation yet. 90% of our guest list lives abroad and has been asking where to book. Our location is very remote,” she explained.
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“We’ve also now lost three of our first choice vendors because they did not warn us how early you needed to book these services in our area. We ended up having to pay thousands more than planned just to lock it in.”
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The irate bride added that their wedding planner has been recommending vendors that aren’t ‘good quality’ simply because they are friends. She admits that she and her fiancé are “demanding clients”, but reiterated the eye-watering amount they are spending on the wedding planner.
“We don’t want to drop them this close but this whole process is exhausting and I’ve not saved any time or stress in the planning process yet. Hoping it gets better.
“My biggest issues are the tone in their responses. They have scolded us for doing things we didn’t know not to do, and for moving ahead with booking some stuff while they are on vacation (and didn’t tell us they would be out),” she wrote.
The bride sounds defeated and said that she can cope with the mess their wedding planner has left, but “being scolded” has just made her stress levels rise.
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The bride has had to compromise on her dream day due to her wedding planner. Photo: Getty
Group members were shocked by how little their wedding planner had achieved, with many believing she was taken advantage of.
“The average price of an American wedding is $50K but I’m pretty sure half of that is not meant to be spent on just the planner. I think you’ve been essentially scammed,” one person wrote.
“Regardless of what you’re paying her…those things should have been tied down the MINUTE you made your decision. Fire [him] and get your money back,” a professional event manager replied. “They’re doing a horrible job. Guessing they have suppliers that they want to you use too? Kickbacks are worth a lot of money to a planner if they go that route.”
“For $22K, everything should have already been taken care of in the first few months. Nothing should be left to be done. My wedding didn’t even cost $22K, so I can’t imagine forking over that much for just a planner. Good on [the bride] for having that kind of disposable [income], but that planner is crap,” a third chimed in.
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The bride thanked the group for validating her concerns and provided some more details in the comments. She shared that her total wedding budget was $200K, and said the couple picked their wedding planner after extensive research and meeting with six planners.
She thinks that the wedding planner is punishing her for going “outside their network too many times”, but doesn’t know what she can do to salvage her dream wedding.
“I don’t know what our options would be. All other good planners are booked and we really need a coordinator and event designer. We’re pretty much stuck,” she wrote.
After receiving almost a hundred comments from group members urging her not to accept this level of service, the bride said she planned to give the wedding planner “feedback” with the hope that he “course corrects”.
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