STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I am posting here to alert any members about these two "professionals." 

David Tutera is the event planner who did Star Jone's wedding and has a show on Discovery. He's a NIGHTMARE.

Sidni Greenblat of Rave Reviews, a Washington, DC based wedding planning company, was incompetent, unimaginative, ineffectual, inefficient, and unresponsive during the entire planning of my wedding.  She and her staff did not put forth creative or innovative ideas. She, on more than one occasion, made excuses for her own and her staff’s inefficiency and mistake laden work. In one instance an idea they suggested was not followed through upon and we were forced to “remind” them to execute their own concept. Another example of her incompetence is that it took countless emails for Sidni to make even minor changes to our wedding schedule. A third example: our invitation proofs were overwhelmingly erroneous. They were so incorrect that after our own frustration and clearly the frustration of other clients and Sidni herself she fired one of her staff. This staff member had been our liaison for all invitations, favors, guest bags and other related items.

We were billed for expenses Sidni said she would cover after a mistake was made in our invitations causing an additional printing and a second mailing to all of our guests.

Sidni mishandled our rehearsal dinner by neglecting to have the information for my family that the restaurant required a $4,000 minimum plus $1200 taxes and gratuities. We found out about that from the restaurant event manager after our event was planned. Sidni also mismanaged our post-wedding brunch. In the end, the event coordinator at the hotel where the bride and many of the guests were staying - and the location for the brunch - asked my mother to deal with her directly and my mother managed to salvage our party despite Sidni's inefficiency and lack of initiative. I was forced, the week before my wedding, to edit over 150 welcome letters informing our guests of the change in brunch plans. Those letters went into the welcome bags coordinated by Rave Reviews that some guests did not receive because of the lack of communication between Rave Reviews and the hotel staff.  There should have been no issues like this ever, especially the week before the wedding.

Some of the vendors Sidni suggested were wonderful, however, a number of those she made appointments with never responded at all and she was unable to offer any reasons why. One vendor in particular, the florist, David Tutera was a complete horror to work with. He repeatedly asked the same questions trying to make us change our minds so his work load would be eased. He tried to leave the wedding early, leaving his contractual responsibilities to his assistants. At our only meeting with him where we were able to see samples of his work he was unable to even understand simple requests. We wanted only white flowers and made that quite clear. He disregarded our request and we arrived to see multi-colored displays. In addition, when I arrived at my wedding my bouquet was wrong and he had a hostile attitude when I asked him to change it into the bouquet we had agreed upon. It is also clear that David Tutera deliberately left the building a "disaster area," damaged the floor, delayed the other vendors from completing their load-outs, and by not attending to his packing up during the reception and by under staffing his crew extended his own time beyond the 5:00AM deadline to vacate the building. This led to an additional charge to my family of $6000 for an additional day’s rental fee. David Tutera is now banned from ever working at the wedding venue, a U.S. government building.

Sidni and David both had more than sufficient knowledge and warning about the building rules and the required time-line. The other vendors complied with the guidelines they were given. We could have hired a day or week-of planner to deal with the logistical issues Sidni said were practically insurmountable. It is Sidni’s job to coordinate the vendors she supplies and with whom she has a business interest, and to make sure the regulations of the property are strictly observed. That is why she was hired as a wedding planner. She failed in this capacity. She is also banned from booking space at the wedding venue unless she pays $500 for the floor protector needed but not provided.

In this case the benefits of the perfect wedding day were outweighed by the energy and time wasted on the wedding planner’s inefficiency and lack of professional behavior.