Worst Wedding Planner Ever
Karly Troutt Events in Paso Robles, California, straight up, does not actually plan a wedding. I should have trusted my gut the first time she missed a meeting, but sunk cost feeling (as had already paid her a deposit), so we kept her.
To be clear, she isn’t a bad person. But I don’t know if a good person would have agreed to plan/coordinate our wedding if she was going to be so out of her depth. It was a 173 person wedding. Which I don’t think she’s actually done anything that large.
It rained on my wedding day, which wasn’t ideal, but not her fault, BUT her not having ANY rain plan was. It was an entirely outdoor venue. As the bride, I’m allowed to hope for a nice day and plan for that in my head, but it was her job to have an alternate plan. We did get a tent for the reception, but our guests were sitting in the rain for our ceremony and cocktail hour totally got screwed. She didn’t make sure we had umbrellas for guests, she didn’t event suggest it. She didn’t suggest pop up tents. She didn’t suggest heaters. She didn’t do anything except hope for a nice day.
During our rehearsal the day before she told our officiant that rain would be her worst nightmare…babe. That’s not what you want your planner to be saying.
She cried at me during our wedding, blaming my mom for her stress. Managing difficult personalities, circumstances and the day is her actual job. I didn’t get to enjoy my wedding day because I was the one people were coming to constantly.
She was also the manager of the venue, and I don’t know what she did as a planner that was additional to what she might have done as a venue manager. She came to a couple meetings? But she didn’t suggest things, she did help with the timeline for the day of, but threw it completely out the window the moment things went sideways.
At one point, we asked what was the plan and she said she didn’t know what was happening.
Other things:
They didn’t do a champagne toast pour, because she didn’t tell them to. We have 52 bottles of wine and sparkles leftover. We were told we were running out…
My younger brother was the one who told the groundskeeper to put hay in front of all the tent entrances so people wouldn’t track mud and slip.
They didnt put down the aisle for me, so my dress (which was of course going to get dirty at some points), was IMMEDIATELY dirty instead.
They maybe put out half the candles/hurricanes I bought.
She didn’t cue the toasts during dinner. My husband had to ask when they were doing them. She said oh we have to cut the cake, which again, as the bride, we got a lot going on, so I forgotten. To be fair, we were supposed to do that before dinner. We ended up doing toasts after dinner, which made us lose an entire hour of dancing. We had a live band and I said that was the most important thing to me and my husband. But who cares, right? She certainly didn’t.
Our guests had an awesome time regardless, which is a testament to them and us and our playing through attitude. But she tried to take credit for that. I wish we could have enjoyed our wedding the way our guests were able to, but there were just so many glaring things that made it so difficult to be in the moment.
The most frustrating part for me was her inability to take any responsibility. Everything was someone else’s fault: the rain, the bartenders, the photographers, my mom, etc.
One of my sisters in law said she shouldn’t have accepted her fee or given us half back. Her suggestion was, tell her we’ll write a terrible review or she gives us half of the money back. But I don’t care about the money. I care that she didn’t do her job, so the wheels fell off our wedding almost immediately.
My husband and I love each other and are so grateful to our family and friends for choosing joy and making lemonade out of lemons.