Decor 2 Remember

I got married about three months ago in June, and it’s taken me this long to write a review because I am still so shocked, hurt, and upset about how Valerie and Decor2Remember treated me, my bridal party, my family, and my wedding. First, Valerie and her team were over half an hour late to set up. When they did arrive, she had forgotten half of the décor that I had supplied (yes, she made me supply my own décor). She then called an uber (a complete stranger), gave him the code to her shop, and had him pick up and deliver the remaining items to the venue, including priceless family heirlooms. When everything finally did arrive, she ran out of time putting things together (mind you, she herself was sitting down the whole time, barking orders at her staff), so my bridesmaids who had gone early to take pictures actually had to run around in full hair, makeup, dresses and heels and do it themselves. One bridesmaid even had to go to the store across the street to purchase replacements for items that Valerie had left behind. Not only that, since she was supplying the linens and other basic items, other vendors had to also wait on her to set up. This caused the wedding to start at 720pm when it was supposed to start at 7pm, and they were actually turning away my guests for 20 minutes and sending them to the bar next door, telling them that they weren’t ready. It kills me that I paid for an open bar for the entire event (champagne was supposed to be served prior to the ceremony), but everyone was forced to pay out of pocket while they waited for her to finish. Meanwhile, I was supposed to have arrived in time for the ceremony, but I kept being told to wait, getting more worried about everything by the minute. My groom actually had to call me to inform me what was going on, minutes before I was supposed to walk down the aisle. When I arrived, none of the décor was as we discussed (I went to her business 3 times and even set everything up with them so they would see how everything was supposed to go), half the items weren’t even set up, and things were thrown around randomly on tables. Now, mind you, I paid for all these services, and what I got were dollar-store jars with water in them, dirty chairs that were thrown around and not set up properly, and teeny-tiny floral arrangements instead of full centerpieces. This is despite the fact that I supplied 90% of the items, and even set everything up at her office, with her assistant, while they took pictures and notes. To put insult to injury, they charged me an extra $450 to take everything down an hour after the wedding. My coordinator waited for an hour and a half and they never showed up. I called about it on Sunday to see where everything was (including my priceless family heirlooms) and got no response. I finally got a hold of someone on Monday, who said that the company had gone to pick up their items on Monday, but that they left behind mine at the venue. When I went to go pick everything up, I broke down in tears. They treated my family’s items like trash, they broke things, and they had left everything outside for 2 whole days, unguarded and unsheltered. Even the owner of the venue, who recommended D2R, was appalled by it all and said I should be refunded. When I reached out to Valerie for a refund, she said she would not refund me anything, and that she had “done me a favor” by including my family’s items (even though I paid for this service) and then she proceeded to lie about the events of Saturday. In my opinion, if you look at her Instagram posts, you can see that she did great work on someone else’s wedding that same weekend as mine. What I believe is that she spent all her time and energy on this other person’s wedding, and treated mine as an afterthought. I was really excited to work with D2R because I had seen her other work, but somehow, it feels like she completely dismissed it as worthless. Funny that even though she treated it as insignificant, somehow the $4500 CASH I spent on the décor is so significant to her that she refuses to return it, even though every single vendor, even her own friends and employees, admitted that she botched the wedding badly and several have even said they’ll never work with her again. I hired D2R for peace of mind on my wedding day, but what I got in return was a nightmare. I’ve had to apologize to my bridesmaids especially and to my guests for having to wait and pay out of pocket. Nobody deserves to be stressed on their wedding day, especially if they pay a lot of money, supply all the items, walk through the entire set up, and basically try to help as much as they can in the planning process, just to have the person they have entrusted completely betray them and treat them like they are nothing. I just hope that no one else experiences this, and my only regret is that I did not work with a vendor who was an actual professional, since there are many other companies out there who I know would have done a much better job for a lot less. I have photos and a full video of it all where you can see the décor I bought and paid for, along with my family heirlooms and even my ring box, just thrown on the floor like trash. I actually asked Valerie afterward if this was representative of the job her company does, and if it represents how valuable she views sentimental, family heirlooms. She, of course, did not respond, and I interpret her silence to mean that as long as something doesn’t have monetary value to her, then it means nothing. In my opinion, a wedding décor company should be about creating an atmosphere of love, not one of greed.