Aisle of View

Lindsey D 11÷11÷15
When I got engaged last year, my mom & I had no CLUE where to begin or how to make our wedding dreams come true. My mom hired Merry Beth because she heard she was the BEST in the region, so naturally, we felt well taken care of from the start & lucky she was still available. Not only was she a steal, but she came with a ton of amazing vendors that we were able to hire because of her, and she still worked extremely well with the few vendors we came up with ourselves. Throughout 14 quick months, Merry Beth catered to our every request, met with us whenever I was in town, responded to e-​mails, and made herself available to my mom who had a lot of emotions, wanting it to be perfect. It was always a joy interacting with her. We felt like we really saw eye to eye with her and she knew exactly what we wanted and how to make it a reality, remaining extremely patient, kind, and focused the whole time. It’s amazing she juggles more than one client at a time, because she was so attentive and 100% present in our meetings, I felt like we were all that mattered to her! By the time wedding weekend rolled around this past Labor Day Sunday, we were way more excited than nervous because thanks to her, everything was taken care of and there was nothing that had been forgotten. Merry Beth is definitely the most organized person I’ve EVER met! The rehearsal went off without a hitch. So well, that not a single wedding party member had any questions! Our wedding the following evening ran perfectly, which is hard to come by for a 140 person wedding, sit down dinner, with many small details. We couldn’t thank Merry Beth enough for all she had done for us. You can’t go wrong hiring her as your planner. If I had to do it all over again, I’d pick her up in a heartbeat!

My wife and I were born and raised in Seattle, so getting married there with a wedding that embodied «Seattle summer» was really important to us. We were hesitant to use a coordinator because we had a very specific vision for the day, and I was concerned planning the wedding remotely from CA. But my parents would not let us have a wedding at their house without a coordinator, which in understandable as they wanted to enjoy the day too! MB saw and appreciated our vision, and made planning the remote wedding easier for us. The day was flawless, and while stressful and very time consuming, the lead-​up was critical and effective in helping us enjoy the best day of our lives.
Our wedding involved mass in a Catholic church, and a casual food-​truck reception at my parents’ house. In a sense, it was kind of a dichotomy. I know she has helped plan very big and traditional weddings, but she was open to our crazy ideas of having a pizza and taco truck meals before an EDM dance party:) We were adamant about seeing our vision through, and she really helped us. She gave us the freedom we needed to pick vendors we wanted, but when we didn’t care or didn’t know, she helped us identify and chose options. There were times we had to push back a little, for example we didn’t want any additional flowers in the church, or expensive curtains and ceilings for the tent, and went with all web-​based RSVP. As she got to know us, it became more obvious to her what was important to us… we worked with her for over a year. Her DJ recommendation (Your Song DJ) was AMAZING. This was perhaps the most important thing for us, and she delivered. We searched forever for a pizza truck; having lived in Italy for 6 months we were pretty picky about this too… but she ended up finding the one we used. The only vendor we had problems with was the printer she recommended, but all was fixed in the end thanks to her support and relationship with the vendor. We picked our own photographer, local (CA) print shop for invitations, and other personal-​related vendors, but her recommendations (and associated discounts) on things like farm tables, porta-​potties, midnight catering, were super helpful.
MB is incredibly organized, and makes sure you have every detail planned, even if it’s totally off your radar or not something you care about. There were a lot of things my wife and I either didn’t think of, or didn’t care about. For example, walls on the tent, where/​when we do pictures, how we get to the church, what is the order of toasts, etc. Having these nailed helped the day go smoothly. We met with her in person 4 – 5 times, and each meeting was very long, and at times exhausting. Honestly as painful as they were at times, it was better to have fewer, longer meetings than lots of little ones where you’re just paying for travel time. We had a couple conference calls with her from CA which were honestly equally effective, to my surprise.
My biggest advice is to have a vision for your day, and use the coordinator to execute. If you expect someone else to pick your vendors, and plan your day, you will never be satisfied. And don’t expect to pay someone and have your wedding planned, it’s going to take a lot of your time AND money. There will be some things worth fighting for, and others not. MB was super effective at executing our very personal vision for the day, down to the details, and we are super grateful for that. Oh, and one of the things I appreciated most about MB was that she got her hands dirty. She’d move tables, clean up around the reception site, and drove supplies around in her mini van all the time. She picked my wife and I up and drove us to the church after first-​sight pictures. She became a really good friend throughout the process.

«Well, we are at the end and I just want to say again how grateful I am to have met you and to have you be such a critical part of my wedding. Every vendor that I talked with raved about how organized and wonderful you were and how lucky I was to have you, Merry Beth, as my coordinator. On top of that many members of my family and wedding guests came to me to let me know how fantastic they thought you were. Everything was seamless. I was not seeking perfection, but that is exactly what you delivered. So, with a little sadness, I say ‘thank you’ because we won’t be working together any longer. I am actually going to miss it all.» — Bride

I used Merry Beth as my wedding planner for my wedding this past fall. While she did a good job coordinating the day of, the experience up to the day was anything but perfect. I will preface this with, I would recommend her for day of, she had good ideas for the timeline, but if you want a planner through the entire experience I would shop around.
When we had meetings, she would drag things out and then suddenly rush us out because she had to pick up her daughter. I understand family obligation, but she made me as the client feel like I was the reason she was late, not because she wanted to talk about other events she had done. She also had some other family circumstances (again I understand these), but she brought them into my planning and I had to send multiple follow up emails to make sure we were still on target during this time. Finally, her response when I would ask for updates would be that she had a HUGE wedding that weekend and was focused on that (as a wedding planner, that is what I expect you are doing during wedding season). By saying this, it made me feel like my wedding wasn’t special enough or HUGE enough to matter to her. It shouldn’t make a difference if you have a 2 person wedding or a 400 person wedding, the person you are paying to help you should make you feel special about it.
Be prepared to spend A LOT of money, especially for what you get. For the amount of money we spent on the wedding planner, I could have had two or three beautiful weddings. She charges for every little thing, down to emails saying, «Thank you» or emails I had to send asking her to respond when she was working through personal matters. She also charged us for visits to the wedding location prior to the day of, I wasn’t aware she was doing. I found myself doing most of the work, which for the amount she charges anyone would agree she should have been doing. I found all of the vendors, the location, the florist, save-​the-​dates/​menus/​invitations, tied bows, the whole nine yards and she wanted to take credit for it. It was my wedding, absolutely perfect and beautiful, but not because of her help, because I planned everything. She actually asked me to bring an extra save-​the-​dates/​invite and menu to my rehearsal so she could use as an example of her work. If she had helped with the vision and look of the wedding, I may have been willing to, but considering I had selected the save-​the-​dates before we were working together and the menus and invites were also 100% my decision on my own, I don’t feel she deserves credit for it.
During one of my initial meetings, she put down my florist because of the amount of money she was charging me for flowers and told me to be cautious to make sure I knew what I was getting. The three of us had a mock up and suddenly my floral budget tripled (honestly I am not convinced I would have gotten less flowers for the original dollar amount).
She is a nice lady and is helpful with the day of logistics, but be cautious and prepared. If you decide to use her I recommend setting strict guidelines and limits and upfront communicating what you expect for the amount of money you are about to spend.