Everlasting Elopements

The Good: The day-of wedding coordinator Alyssa and the photographer Danielle were outstanding and absolutely lovely to work with. They truly went above and beyond to make everything run as smoothly as possible, especially after the chaotic start to our wedding. The cake and flowers were amazing and beautiful as well. The Bad: Kari, the boss of this operation, was the complete opposite of pleasant to work with. Her customer service is awful, almost every email exchange from her was condescending, even when I tried to voice my concerns about paying for services not needed or requested, nor ultimately rendered. Who likes to pay for services they did not request nor receive?? The Ugly: The day of the wedding, our family members arrived at the venue and learned that according to the venue, there was no record of the wedding nor was paperwork properly filed by Everlasting Elopements. Our family members had to help with the setup because the venue had no idea about the wedding we booked and paid for months in advance. Because the venue was not prepared for us, we were not able to use the bridal or groom suites to dress into our wedding attire (although this was a perk for this particular venue and Kari also previously assured me that we would be able to use the suites). This was all extremely distressing to say the least. We paid $1,000 for the venue, was any of that actually given to the venue or kept by Everlasting Elopements, we're not sure. Additionally, in my email exchanges with Kari I repeatedly told her that we would be providing our own officiant as the website promotes that "all packages can be customized to a couple’s exact needs so they are only paying for the services they truly need," which is very misleading and not a true statement at all since we were forced to pay for an officiant we did not request or utilize. This was far from "stress free planning" - also a direct quote from their website. It was also very shady that we had to pay before even viewing the contract. Kari then basically strongarmed us into signing a contract we did not completely agree with as we did not want to have to pay for officiant services when we had our own officiant and we actually handled the ceremony and paperwork entirely ourselves. The contract was competely tailored to her liking, not ours. I was naive and am guilty of being loyal to a fault since this was the first wedding planning service I reached out to and felt forced into entering into this contract. The reason they don't want to give up having couples pay for officiant services is because this is a husband-wife business in which the husband is a minister and the wife is a wedding planner so they are only looking out for themselves and not properly serving their clients. I would very strongly advise to proceed with caution before working with this woman. It is unfortunate that she has such a great staff working under her thumb. Make sure that "you’re only paying for services you need (and nothing you don’t)!" as that is what they claim to offer but do not actually honor.