Elle Music & Events

We had our wedding in May 2010 and the experience with Elle was unbelievably terrible.
I wanted to post this review to warn any potential customers of Elle’s, or Brandon’s, potentially horrible customer service. In my opinion, any person would be taking a huge gamble hiring Elle to do any event, as we got screwed in every aspect of our order with Elle. All of our order were either were switched without our consent, ineffective, delivered late or even just not provided at all.
I included some language from an email correspondence with Brandon, deleting certain requests for damages and other nonsubstantive details. The following language is not to be proposed to be facts, but are my own allegations of how their service was 100% unsatisfactory to us (although Brandon disputes some of my allegations):
"Brandon:
As I discussed in detail over the phone, the following are my complaints:
1. I paid for pattern washes and I received no pattern washes. This is a clear breach of our contract and understanding. [ELLE AGREED TO COMPENSATE US, BUT HAVE NOT HEARD A RESPONSE SINCE THEIR AGREEMENT]
2. I paid for uplighting. However, because the [LOCATION] lights were fully on through most of wedding, no one could see the uplights. I have pictures showing that all [LOCATION] lights were on, and therefore, your lights could not be seen. Despite Victor allegedly saying that he had everything in order by 7:30 pm, they were not in order because all of [LOCATION] 's lights were on and you could not see any of Elle's lights.
3. We agreed that you would arrange for [LOCATION]'s blue lights to be turned off, only leaving their purple ones. I have pictures of [LOCATION]'s blue lights still on. This clashed with our color scheme ([VENDOR]'s flowers and [VENDOR]'s linens) and made [LOCATION]'s blue lights recognizable, which we specifically wanted to stay away from.
4. We agreed that you would dim the chandeliers, but I have pictures of them still fully on.
5. We picked a specific drape, to match with [VENDOR]'s linens. At first, we were not even considering linens and were going to just use [VENDOR]'s for free. However, after your promises that you would create a certain ambiance, we decided spend the extra money to go with [VENDOR] for linens. We would not, however, rent linens if we had known that there would be no pattern washes, that you could not see the up-lights, and that the drapes would match the linens. You did not tell us that you were going to switch the linens; and your drapes were extremely lighter than the linens, ruining the ambiance.
Further, I did not order the muslin cloth. I ordered the banjo cloth. Although I was concerned about price, we specifically chose the banjo cloth. I would rather not have any draping than the muslin draping. Further, many of my guests and even the restaurant manager asked my why the draping looked so cheap.
6. In our conversation a few days before the wedding, you assured me that you would "have a whole team" available to set up the drapes and lighting in time, especially since you just partnered up with a new team. However, the only person I saw setting up was Victor. The result was that he was still setting up by 6 pm, the start time of the reception, and thereafter. This was embarrassing to my wife and me, as our guests were arriving while Victor was still setting up.
I am unsure of what was asked to be put up that was not part of the order. I am not aware of any such fixture. [BRANDON ALLEGES THAT THEY HAD TO ATTEND TO A REQUEST BY MY WEDDING COORDINATOR, CAUSING THE LATE SET UP. I CONFIRMED WITH MY COORDINATOR THAT NO SUCH REQUEST EXISTED.]
7. There still was not enough drapes to drape the back partition. We paid an extra fee to our photographer to take photographs of us and our guests as they arrived. Because there were not enough drapes, our photo area shows both drapes and the partition. I would have expected that you and/or Victor measured the area requiring draping correctly, especially considering you "upgraded" the fabric because you allegedly did not have enough of the fabric we ordered. [BRANDON’S RESPONSE WAS THAT “We provided the contracted amount of drape.”]
8. Because Victor was not finished setting up the draping, we had to set up the photography backdrop late. We were waiting for Victor to finish setting up the draping, before setting up the backdrop. Therefore, we only had 1/2 the time to take pictures with our guests, which was not enough time to take pictures with everyone. In consideration of 7 and 8, the extra photos we ordered from our photographer were either ruined because 1/4 showed the partition, or never were taken. [SEE 6. FOR BRANDON’S RESPONSE.]
9. You said that there would be an operator staying at the event for the entire period of the reception. In our phone conversation a few days before the wedding, you even said there was a high likelihood that you would be working the wedding, to make sure everything was ok. However, after the event, you and Victor have clearly stated that Victor left at 7:30 pm, after he "thought everything was ok." As soon as we did our entrance (around 7:30 pm) and after we sat down, I noticed that the lighting was all wrong. I spent at least 45 minutes a) texting and calling my wife's sister to fix the lighting, b) trying to find the operator, which left, c) calling you directly and leaving you messages, d) asking [LOCATION] employees "where is the lighting guy" to only hear "I don't know, he left", e) if the operator was present, as we agreed to, they could have plugged in light that went out. [NOTE THAT IN OUR CONTARCT, IT SSAYS THAT AN OPERATOR WILL BE “ON-SITE”.]
I understand that your team put in effort on setting things up, but the outcome came out wrong in every respect: wrong draping and still not enough of the wrong draping, no pattern washes, late set up, didn't turn off/dim the lights that were supposed to turned off, couldn't see the uplights and no operator to fix any of the problems. Your team did not deliver any part of the agreement as agreed upon (as mentioned in our conversation, I thought that you guys may have even mixed up the order).”

Not only did I waste my money paying for Elle, it messed up the whole coordination with my other vendors. To top it all off, I’ve been trying to reach Brandon since the day after our wedding date in May 2010 and have only received limited responses from him. He is extremely difficult to get a hold of and is allegedly “always traveling” or is allegedly “caring for an ailing grandmother.” Whether those are true or not, I am extremely unsatisfied and have infuriated by the whole situation.
It's basically all a sham from my perspective.

Be warned: In short, do not do business with Elle Music and Events (dba Elle & Company Inc). Although they are really nice people with aggressive pricing they are a troubled business. In my experience with them they have been unresponsive and slow to respond to emails and phone calls. If I ever did hear back I was given the run-around and was probably lied to. It took them over 6 months to get my refund from them (I think I only got my money back b/c I threatened to take them to small claims court). Also, they are in financial troubles and have laid off the majority of their staff.

NOTE: It looks like they got great ratings here at project wedding but take a look at their reviews on yelp.com. They might have been a great vendor in the past but their more recent reviews are starting to look real bad.

Now if you want to read the details:

We originally booked a band we liked through Elle about a year before our wedding. Six months later we got an urgent email from Elle stating that the relationship between the band we wanted and Elle had dissolved. In short, we would not get the band we wanted. The solution Elle provided was for us to go to a music showcase they hosted to audition various lead singers to configure the band we wanted. So we went to this showcase, picked out a band configuration we liked and moved on. At this music showcase there were about 10+ other clients who also had to pick a new band; one of those clients was my wife's old friend who whose wedding was in two weeks. Because we felt something was up with Elle we called up the old friend a couple weeks after her wedding. She said Elle was a DISASTER. It was a disaster b/c she did not get the band she picked out. It was a complete "bait and switch." She was unhappy with Elle and her efforts to resolve things after the wedding was a long and painful process for her.

After our conversation with the disgruntled bride we realized that something was definitely up with Elle. So we wanted to get out of our agreement with them and get the deposit we paid for the band back. We spoke with Brandon and at the time he said he would release us from the agreement and provide us the refund. However, after hearing the horror story we heard from our friend we were not convinced we would get our money back despite the fact they said they would. So we decided to spend our deposit on lighting services from them. The lighting we decided on was about $1500 (our band deposit was $2100) so after the wedding Elle would still owe us $600.

So finally our wedding day comes. Elle sets up lighting at the reception on time and one of their guys decides to stay during the entire wedding b/c they were worried about the power overloading and shutting off. Well it's a good thing they stayed because THE POWER DID SHUT OFF IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RECEPTION! Luckily it was only for about a minute or two but really, if one of the techs thought it might be a problem they should have done what was needed to make sure nothing bad did not happen. We were really lucky it did not completely ruin our reception, but nevertheless this should not have happened.

Ok moving on... after the wedding I started to contact Elle via phone and email to get my $600 balance refunded. Let's just say getting my money back was not easy. I sent them countless emails and phone calls. During that time Elle ignored me, gave me the run around and probably lied to me in hopes that I would give up in trying to get my money back. It was not until months later when I threatened to take them to small claims court that I started to see the money that was owed to me. Finally after 6 long months I got my money back.

In the end, if you are looking for a vendor to handle your very special event you are better off with another vendor. No one else deserves to go through the trouble and hassle I have gone through or risk the possibility that their event might be ruined.

We hired Elle to handle our lighting after meeting the owner, Brandon Cruz. He was just so friendly and enthusiastic. Plus his quote for the strings of globe lighting I was aching to have was several hundred dollars less than the local company quoted. We ended up ordering the globe lighting for our dinner area, plus lighting for the dance floor and our lounge area. Unfortunately the lounge lighting was never connected, but Brandon happily refunded that charge and apologized profusely. Everyone loved the globe lighting and it provided the perfect ambiance for our garden party.

I would definitely recommend Elle & Co to my friends, and here's why:

They are inexpensive and Brandon Cruz is really, really nice.

I found Elle & Co because they represent the band we wanted to play at our wedding. Said band, Martini Straight Up, played at my cousin's bar mitzvah, and they rocked it. Despite the fact that the band was expensive, the other things Elle provides (such as lighting) were pretty inexpensive. We also got a discount for ordering multiple services through them.

I'm not sure that they are as creative as Got Light?, but they are MUCH less expensive. I already knew what I wanted for lighting, so I gave Elle a picture and they were able to duplicate it. I think Got Light? is very artistic and you definitely get what you pay for, but our room looked fantastic and I'm not all that picky about lighting...so in our case, I didn't think Got Light? was priority enough to take up that much of our budget.

Brandon always new my name and my fiancé's name when I called to talk to him. He is very friendly and I really liked him. I talked to him about hiring a string quartet for ceremony, and he was totally honest with me: he told me that he didn't think we needed a quartet for our ceremony venue, and that a trio would save us money. I told him I was considering hiring students (which I eventually did), and he told me the things to ask them to make sure our ceremony went smoothly. I really appreciated his honesty.

So why only 4 stars instead of 5? I sometimes felt like I didn't get a call back from them when I needed it. There was a bit of feedback on the sound system during toasts. I'm not sure why this happened, but I felt like it shouldn't have. Also, we ordered a cake spotlight (in addition to uplights and a floor wash), and we didn't get it. I called Brandon about this a few weeks after the wedding, though, and he promptly refunded it. :)

Our band Keith Johnson and the All Stars hired through Elle Music and Events was fantastic. Everyone had a great time and danced, danced, danced. I would have given them and 4 stars except they played the wrong version of our first dance song even though we gave them the CD of the song we wanted. They didn’t check to ensure that the version they had was the same as ours. We were bummed about the wrong song being played but no one noticed except us. We had cooreographed a dance to the song so when the wrong one came on we thought "Oh crap!". Keith sent me an email apologizing for it so that made me feel better.

Lighting - Elle Music and events

In addition to the band we used Elle for lighting. We had a floor wash and cake spot. Working with them was so so. I didnt feel like they were responsive at all to emails and phone calls. Leading up to the wedding I had attempted to contact Brandon several times about the lighting. Sometimes he would respond and sometimes he wouldnt. I felt like right before the wedding they should have made more effort to get back to me on important things. One other thing was that my friend Sara and I were both using them on the same day. They were getting her and I confused because we both have the same first name. I would get an email saying something was sorted out then I would respond saying...we never talked about that! Just because we have the same first name should not have caused all the confusion. I mean...we have different last names and our husbands (then fiances) have different names and we are at different locations. How confusing could it be? Brandon did apologize for it but overall I felt like it caused more stress because they were not as organized on the back end.

Also, the day before the wedding I get a call from accts payable dept telling me that I hadnt paid the final balance even though I had sent the check 2 weeks prior. It would have been nice if they had called me sooner to say they hadnt gotten it rather than waiting until the day before. It totally stressed me out because I had to pay them via CC over the phone then run to the bank and put a stop payment on the check (which cost me $30). The girl who called me said they would continue to look for the check and if it did come they wouldnt cash it. She seemed flighty so I didnt trust that they would shred it and I didnt want to have to deal with them depositing it by accident then fighting to get my money back which is why I stopped payment on it.

The lighting itself was OK. The cake spot looked nice but I didnt feel the floor wash was as good as it could have been. But, im going to reserve judgement on it until I get the pics back. It might have been better than I remember.

I gave them overall 3 stars because of the issue with first song and also the issues dealing with lighting and my payment. Those are simple things and should not have happened.

We enjoyed working with Elle for our lighting. The effect of the canned lighting wasn't quite what I had pictured but the chinese lanterns were amazing!

Very hard to get a call back, and questions answered. The day of the wedding the lights were not plugged in or put in the proper place. The dance floor wash was barely seen. Also, they were annoyed that I rented plug in uplights at 10 dollars a pop when I could have rented theirs for 100 each!

We used Elle for lighting for our wedding and it was great. Their prices are a lot better than any others I have seen for the same services. Brandon is also easy to work with and very responsive to email.