jkiss's reviews

I found Duane early on in my wedding planning. He was the first vendor I booked, because in all honesty the photographer is the most important part of the day to me. I booked him in January, paid the deposits, etc. He was always very nice on the phone. He wasn't always so good at returning emails. A few months/weeks after I booked him I sent him a few emails that went unanswered; which made me slightly nervous. I finally had my fiance call him to get the questions answered & everything was good, or so I thought. Approx. a month before our big day I get a call back from Duane in response to an email I had sent him a few days before. He tells me he's double booked my wedding. What irritated me most about this, was that he ended up taking on the 'other' client that booked after I did. Duane fessed up to his mistake & told me he found another photographer to shoot my wedding, which I greatly appreciated. The photographer he recommended is a highly sought after photographer, especially here on PW. I really did appreciate that, but I was upset that something like this could happen & that my business obviously didn't mean much if he was taking on the client he booked after me. He was more than happy to refund my deposit immediately. I am just sorry I couldn't have written a better review on him. I feel badly having to write a review like this. I am sure if he had taken my wedding photos they would have come out great. There is no doubt about it, he is a talented photographer, I just wish things could have gone how they were supposed to.

***UPDATE*** I get a nice surprise phone call today from Duane who has decided to confront me about my honest review here on PW. Apparently he's not happy with it. He wanted me to add to the review that the replacement photographer he found for me was normally $4000 to shoot a wedding, but she agreed to do it for the price that Duane had given me, which was $2500. When he refunded me my money, he also gave me an extra $30 for my troubles (which was very nice), but he recalled that he gave me $50, not $30. Either way I kind of felt like maybe he thought if he gave me the extra money that that was payoff for a 'good review'. I told him I would be happy to give him back that money if that was the case. Oh, he also wanted me to add in that he gave me some suggestions of places to have my wedding at, since I wasn't familiar with California. Yes, that was very helpful, but I didn't really think pertained to my review. It was also strange because he totally tried to change his whole story about how & why he had to cancel on me. He said he didn't double book my wedding, which is the first thing that was out of his mouth when he first told me of his mistake. He was giving me all sorts of excuses, which honestly doesn't matter to me at this point because what's done is done. As a business owner, if you make a mistake you can't expect someone to write a good review on you.

Oh my goodness, I just can't say enough about Erin & Louis at Palos! I actually found them after my original photographer backed out on us a month before the wedding. Thankfully they hadn't booked up on our date! I chose them because all of their images are timeless, crisp & clear & so gorgeous! They worked with our budget due to booking on such short notice. I actually planned an out of state wedding, so I never got to meet them in person until the day of the actual wedding. They showed up on time ready to shoot on my wedding day. I loved the fact that they were young like us & had fresh ideas. They were very easy to get along with & made us feel comfortable right away.

When I saw our teaser photos on their blog I was completely blown away. I have never seen such beautiful photos in my life. Every single person that sees them comments on how our photographs belong in a magazine. I can't stop looking at them & am so happy with our decision to book Palos Studio. I am beyond excited to get our CD with all of our images. I would book them again in an instant if I had to do this all over again. I highly recommend Palos to anyone looking for a talented set of photographers. Definitely my fave wedding vendor!!!

I must admit at first I was leery of ordering from this company, since I hadn't heard much about it. The few reviews I did read were good so I went ahead & ordered a bunch of overlays & runners for my reception area. The prices were unbelievably low! I got my order within the same week. They were backordered on my runners & the smaller overlays I needed, so I was nervous about getting them in time for my wedding. The backordered items ended up arriving earlier than expected & in plenty of time for my wedding. The colors matched so perfectly & the quality was better than I expected. The tables at my reception looked awesome & everyone complimented them! I highly recommend them! You definitely can't beat the price!

I purchased the infamous 'Jen' earrings from Prim & Pixie. They were shipped right away & very cutely packaged I might add. However, one of the rhinestones came loose during transit. I let the owners know & told them I would just super glue the gem back on & pray it stays put for the wedding. Unfortunately these beautiful earrings didn't last the entire wedding. The backs simply are not strong enough to hold these babies in place. The same rhinestone fell out again, I lost the earrings twice & the back broke on one of them. I contacted Prim & Pixie to let them know of the situation & they really stepped up to the plate & offered me a full refund as soon as they got the earrings back from me. I really think their customer service is great & appreciate that they care enough about the customer's satisfaction to step up the way they did. Even though the earrings weren't the best of quality, I would definitely recommend Prim & Pixie for all of your other wedding needs. :)

I planned my wedding from out of state so it also made more sense to rent the tuxes close to where the wedding was, that way we didn't have to pay late fee's, etc. I worked with Charlene over the phone & she was very nice & oh so helpful. She really took the time to make sure that our order was correct. The tuxes turned out great & I couldn't be happier.

Alexia Designs offered lots of gorgeous dresses in an array of fabulous colors. My bridesmaids dresses were even more gorgeous in person & looked awesome in photos. However, my MOH's dress wasn't even on for a half hour before she started getting poked in the bust by a wire that protruded out of the bust/armpit area. It was really sharp wire & was extremely painful. By the end of the night 4 out of the 5 bridesmaids dresses all had wire poking out in similar places. :(

The style of the dress was #2944: http://www.alexiadesigns.com/main/?p=349

I contacted Sweet Plume about doing a dress for my flower girl for our upcoming wedding. I ordered her Blush dress without feathers, asking for champagne instead of blush. I also sent over a few color swatches of what I was looking for via email. The seller was really nice & quick with her work. I thought since it was a custom dress she would contact me after the fabric had been purchased or in the least after it had been completed, so I could see it. Well the seller shipped it off to me, sight unseen. I was so excited to get it as I had heard great things about her work. Well much to my dismay I opened the package & the dress was an awful gold color, definitely not champagne. It also looked nothing like the dress in the listing. The quality of the dress looked really poor. So I contacted her & explained the situation. She told me if I shipped it back to her she would refund me. Well, she did refund me, but not the entire amount. I mean, I would have been fine not being refunded for the shipping, I am a reasonable person. She was also extremely sneaky & removed the entire listing off Etsy so that I couldn't leave appropriate feedback. I wish I could have written a better review, as I had such high hopes for that dress.

*Edited to add that since this review, this vendor tried to change her business name on Project Wedding to MY business name. Wow, I am so speechless that a simple review can really bring out bad character in a person.

I see she has added her response to the review. Yes, she did do a rush order for me, & I did mention in the above review that she was very fast with her work. She is not telling the truth about the refund part, all she told me was to send the dress back & she would refund me. She never said anything about remaking the dress in time, when I contacted her about how the color was off all she said was 'ship the dress back & I will refund you'. I like how the story changes when her reputation is on the line. I am not out to make a bad name for her. You can see that most of my reviews on PW are about how great the vendors are. I have never once had a bad experience on Etsy either, until I purchased from this seller. She's also lying about having 3 weeks to leave feedback. The second she got the email from me about being unhappy with the dress she deleted the transaction. I never had chance to leave feedback. And in no way was my review 'nasty'. Take it for what you will & if you don't believe me about the vendor changing her business name to mine, ask Kristeen (PW hostess), she will vouch for me. Oh & I find it hard to believe that she just found this review a few days ago, because not too long after I wrote the review (8/20/2009) I was contacted by one of the PW hostess' to find out if this was a legit review because the vendor wanted it removed.

I found John on the internet as well as on some vendor recommendations my venue gave to me. I didn't get to meet with him person until the day of the wedding, due to us living out of state, but after talking with him by phone & via email my fiance & I thought he would be a good person to do our ceremony. He is very helpful & I got a good feeling about him right away. He just seemed like a person that you could trust to show up on your wedding day. He came on time & helped guide us through everything. He was very friendly & even followed up with us after the wedding, which I thought was nice.

I have actually purchased two items from Bobbi, as gifts to my mother & grandmother. I must say that she was awesome to work with. She whipped them right up & the quality of her workmanship is outstanding! I just loved both nest pendants I received from her. They were even more adorable in person. My mom & grandmother loved them as well. These are great pieces that can be treasured or passed down for years to come. :)

Oh my goodness, Micheline is unbeleivabely talented! I planned my entire wedding from out of state & she was so good about keeping in touch with me. Her prices are very competitive too! She did my hair and makeup trial two days before the wedding. I loved how she made me look, and when she showed up on my wedding day she made me look even more gorgeous than before. I showed her some photos of what I had in mind and she ran with it & it turned out even better than I had hoped for. My husband was in awe when he saw me for the first time walking down the isle. He literally could not stop smiling all night & telling everyone how hot his new wife looked. He told me that Micheline was his fave wedding vendor by far!

She also did my mom's hair & makeup, which turned out gorgeous!

Not only is Micheline talented, but she is so sweet & easy to talk to. I felt like she was a friend doing my makeup, rather than someone I 'hired'. I wish I lived in Cali so I could use her again.