Allie's Party Equipment Rental Inc.

Terrible customer service. Sure Allie’s has a lot of items available for rent and some of the pricing is competitive but the customer service is sub-par. When I first met with Allie’s, I spoke with the owner Mike. He seemed nice enough and very willing to help. But once I started to work more closely with them and especially as the date of my wedding drew closer, I found them to be very difficult to work with. They simply just don’t care about you. I had to ask for proposals, pricing, layouts, and measurements so many times it was ridiculous. Every single time I would call the person assigned to help me, Gloria…she would say that she would email the updated proposal or layout by the end of the day and then I wouldn’t hear from her for weeks. I asked for measurements of the aisle 3 separate times and it took them 3 months to finally get it to me. I asked for an updated copy of the reception layout and I didn’t get it until the week before the wedding. Even then, it wasn’t even updated or accurate. I ended up making my own to give to the DJ and various people who were helping me set up. I had specifically asked for the cake forks to be placed under the cake table along with the cake plates, they were placed on the tables as the salad forks. I asked for the draping on the poles for my canopy to be fanned out so it would billow (even showed a picture of it) but the day of, it was tied tightly around each pole instead. I asked for the custom GOBO to be shined on the tent top so guests can see it when they look at the cake. They ended up shining it on the wrong side so the money I spent for the custom GOBO was wasted because no one really saw the GOBO. I don’t understand the incompetence or just the general lack of concern for things to be right. Gloria has been doing this for 20 years so she feels that she knows what she is doing. She may have thought I was just another anxious bride but it was because no one would respond to me that created such frustration and anxiety to begin with. Gloria may be experienced in knowing how many belly bars are needed or what size tent or dance floor is best for the expected number of guests but there is definitely not an ounce of “care” that she puts into her customer’s accounts. She just does her status quo…takes the order and then doesn’t follow-up or make the extra effort to make sure things are what the bride wants. By the way, the dance floor was dirty and it was placed so unevenly at the reception site that there was a huge dip on one side…nevermind how ugly it looked in my wedding photos…how about how dangerous it was for dancing guests where alcohol is served.

I live in Orange County and Allie’s is in San Marcos. The only way for me to get any kind of service or response from Allie’s is if I drove down there and physically forced them to see me. What a pain to deal with and the end result wasn’t impressive at all. Don’t bother with this place. Pay a little extra and go to a company that cares about their client’s satisfaction.