We initially contracted with The Party Architects for wedding planning and invitation services. Helen was offering one of the best rates for wedding planning as well as invitations. We asked her for some references before contracting. She did not have any online or anywhere to be found publically so she gave us some numbers to two of her previous clients. We spoke with them and decided to go with her. During the planning process she was consistently late to appointments with vendors that she scheduled. She also referred us to multiple vendors that were either way out of our price range or that she was affiliated with. She spoke very unprofessionally when my fiancée approached her about being on time for appointments and from then on she treated us in a very “nasty/nice” way. Eventually, we realized that we would not be able to continue with her planning services because we were not benefitting from them. I had to continue finding vendors and making appointments, even though we were contracted with her. She agreed to let us out of our contract with her if we continued to go with her for her invitation services. We agreed in hopes that we could move on from her and start to enjoy the rest of our wedding planning process. After that, Helen added $3 to each invitation we ordered. She also made multiple additions for different things, ie. rhinestones, double sided printing and different things that she said would be included in the pricing. I asked her two months in advance to meet my deadline of July 31st. After saying she would, she didn’t. And when I went to go pick up the invitations I realized that she didn’t even assemble them like she said she would. This added an extra two days before I could send them out, because I had to assemble and address each one of them. Overall, the invitations came out to be beautiful, but all of the work that it took to get them was not necessary and unexpected for a professional vendor. Helen frequently treated me with disrespect and ultimately made my wedding planning and invitation experience a nightmare. While her products are nice, I’m sure that if I had gone with another vendor I could have something as nice without all of the migraines. Also, I would recommend looking online and for public references before going with any vendor. She gave me different names and numbers, and I’m now realizing that there was no way to confirm that they were her previous clients. As a bride that is counting down the days for her wedding, I can say that making sure you’re happy and with a good planner/coordinator that will work nicely with you is very important! We spent well over $1,000 for just her invitation services (which she initially quoted at a much lower price). That is not even including her planning services that we got no benefit from. This is money that could have gone somewhere else towards the wedding. I just recommend looking at reviews and being cautious before contracting with vendors.
