Lost my wedding gifts, gift book, was unresponsive during planning- had to do everything on my own
Jeanna was an absolute nightmare wedding planner. We hired her for the whole year of planning and she gets you by telling you how experienced she is and how she’s been doing this for thirty years. At first she’s great, and then a month or two down the road she ignores your calls, tells you she’s “on it” but never actually does anything, and gives you a lot of attitude about the wedding if you don’t want to do things exactly how she would do them. I’m talking stylistic and detail things like when to cut the cake, or what dance floor color you want. I remember during one meeting she got really stern and told me to let go of caring about a schedule because it wasn’t going to be followed. I get that things happen but as a planner your job is to comfort the bride and say you’re going to do your best to follow the plan.
She also lied SEVERAL times about calling vendors. Literally vendors would call me and ask me what the set time was for the wedding, I’d text Jeanna, Jeanna would say she’d reach out to them, or tell me that she had already reached out to them, but she hadn’t. Jeanna told me she had a meeting scheduled with the hotel “tomorrow.” A week later I spoke with the hotel who told me they hadn’t heard from the wedding planner after months of trying to contact her. Again, I’d call her and ask her to do things and she’d reassure me that she would. Again she wouldn’t. Another time, I needed help finding a lighting person to do the wedding because the one I wanted was booked up. She claimed she knew someone who did both lighting and draping, and for over a month she’d keep telling me she’d contact them. Every time I’d ask her, she’d come up with the same bogus answer- “no worries love! I’m going to contact them again” But the funny thing is is every time I’d talk to her about things I needed for the wedding, she’d forget that we ever talked about it and she would never follow up on things she said she’d do. I started realizing a theme, and realized that if I didn’t do it myself it wouldn’t get done.
The florist contacted me several times over the span of two months telling me she couldn’t get ahold of Jeanna. I messaged Jeanna every time and told her to please contact the florist and she would say she already had but she hadn’t! And this was a recurring theme with all of the vendors!
I ended up doing everything. Two days before my wedding, at a family party for the wedding, I literally had to sit away from everyone emailing all the vendors on behalf of the venue for vendor conduct forms because the planner neglected to do so despite the venue and me asking her to do so several times.
Come the day of the wedding, my husband was accidentally in the room I was heading to. Upon realizing this, instead of calmly helping him get to another room, Jeanna cussed at him and yelled “you need to get the f**k out of this room” several times. Literally said “oh my god she’s coming to the room you need to get the f**k out of here!” Yes, you don’t want him to see me. But there is literally no need to be that dramatic! It’s his wedding day too, and you made a situation much more stressful than it had to be. It’s a wedding planner’s job to be composed when something goes wrong and calmly fix the problem. She sat there screaming and shoving stuff into his suitcase while the photographer and videographer stood there stunned. On top of that, it’s so embarrassing that she acted that way in front of vendors. When we were about to walk in to the wedding she was being really snappy with the hotel coordinator and I felt so embarrassed.
Most of my bridesmaids and family had terrible things to say about her. Mostly that she was rude and incompetent, and that they were forced to take care of things on their own because she wouldn’t help/was nowhere to be found. For example, she was supposed to communicate to family while they were waiting in the lobby what time they were supposed to take pictures. The family had the schedule in advance because I gave it to them, but timing was off, and she was supposed to usher each photo group outside. Did she do so? No. My bridesmaids ended up doing it all.
The icing on the cake is that the next day I realized my guest book that family and friends signed was missing. The custom table numbers I purchased were missing. And best of all, SEVERAL GIFT CARDS WERE MISSING aka stolen. Throughout the night, Jeanna was carrying the cards to my fathers room in the hotel for protection. The next day, we realized several cards were missing. We confirmed by contacting people. One of the cards was handed to my husband at the end of the night. We wanted to take a picture together so my husband handed the card and his phone to jeanna’s assistant who took the picture for us, and that was one of the cards that was missing. Regardless of whether there was foul play on her or her assistants behalf, they were responsible for ensuring the safety of the cards and they allowed them to be lost. When I contacted her the next day, she told me she would follow up immediately. Did she follow up? Nope. It’s been a month since my wedding and i haven’t heard anything from her.
She also made excuses as to why the guest book was misplaced, and she told me she “gave” the acrylic table numbers to the florist. When I contacted the florist the florist told me Jeanna hadn’t given her anything and that Jeanna was actually nowhere to be found during break down. She was looking for her and couldn’t find her. So again, Jeanna lied. I actually saw Jeanna sitting at the bar right after the wedding ended. So instead of taking care of things and making sure stuff didn’t get lost, she left immediately after the wedding ended to go drink. One of the most important jobs is to be there for break down and make sure none of the stuff got lost. She told me the next day when I contacted her that she didn’t know the table numbers were mine. They were literally in a box of stuff I brought... with a sticky note on them that said they were from me... and if she paid any attention to the wedding planning she would have known they were mine. There were so many questions she kept asking me while I was doing my makeup about set up that she should have known and had solidified before hand. I swear it was like she was winging it.
After talking to family about this, family told me she was DRINKING a lot at the wedding and that she seemed drunk. I didn’t see that with my own eyes, but that’s what family told me. What I did see with my own eyes was her at the bar in the hotel lobby as soon as the wedding was over. Which means as stated above, she wasn’t there for the event breakdown. So instead of making sure that I got my table numbers and my guest book she literally left to go drink. The venue employees probably threw it all away.
So essentially, Jeanna lied to me many times and made the event more stressful for everyone. She lied about communicating with vendors. She lied about doing tasks. She lied to me about contacting the hotel. She cussed at my husband. She gave my friends and family attitude. She had no idea what was going on. Until the last minute she was clueless as to what the schedule of the wedding was. Luckily, the wedding was at a large hotel and my friends and family and the hotel staff made the wedding a seamless experience. It was a beautiful wedding absolutely no thanks to Jeanna. Beware.
