ComplaintsforThe Event Troupe

• Initial Complaint

  01/12/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I hired The Event Troupe for full wedding planning. I paid $1250 (half of the total cost). Over the following months, ****** failed to follow the agreement, wouldn't answer questions and lied to us on several occasions resulting in having to hire a new *************** additional expense. Lied to:Relish not willing to quote stations CBD couldn't do our event due to another event 50 person transportation not being available Blanc only allows CPR or 1 other rental company more expensive - Blanc sent me 5 & said no restrictions Not fulfilling terms of contract:Vendor referral/introductions based on budget, dates, ************************ Ignored budget of Photographer $2k - ****** sent $2699 & $3500 - I pushed back on cost & ****** responded that an individual is more expensive than a company & that shed check if any would discount - sent vendor $2k/8 hours this is standard pricing on website & didn't include the 10 hrs standard - Ignored budget Hair/Makeup - $1k - ****** sent $2400. I found a vendor for $1200 - Ignored budget DJ - $1k - ****** sent $2k for 5 hrs and $2,397.50 for 5 hrs. We found DJ+Photobooth $1700 ($1300 DJ). ****** sent photobooth reco of $750 which would have put us DJ+Photobooth $2750+- Ignored budget Cake - $1k - ****** reco over $1k. I found vendor for $750. ****** unprofessionally pushed alternate bakery with poor product quality & higher cost.- **************** Services: Monthly check-in calls & targeted review points to keep us on track - Have not had any monthly check-in calls - Scheduled meetings/tastings with all vendors/interviews to select appropriate vendor: Most of vendors have been sent to me to get quotes/set meetings vs. ****** actually managing sent through availability for tastings 3 times and then arranged one myself after months of ****** not scheduling - Wedding budget ********************* accounting: No budget presentation or mindfulness of our budget - ******************** of rehearsal dinner - she never engaged on

  Business response

  01/17/2023

  ******* told me $500 "no flower" budget.  I asked who was buying all the candles she wanted and she did not respond.  I told her for $500 she would get a bouquet, a couple of bridesmaids bouquets, and a few bouts, but not centerpieces and arch-work and outdoor plants that she wanted.  She came to my house for the design workshop weekend. She showed me pictures of huge ceiling installations and very full lush greenery, and hanging ****** bulbs.  I advised her that this look would be more like $5000.  She wanted quotes.  I introduced her to my lighting guy who said to hang the bulbs he had a $3000 minimum.  She decided to cancel that.  Then I told her just for the ceiling work it would be a few thousand dollars. She wanted a florist anyway.  I found someone who was available and introduced them, the florist told me that would be about $3000.  I backed out at that point, so I don't know how it ended. But again, she started with no money, found huge visions that were pricey, didn't believe me on the prices, spent time and energy with vendors and finding quotes, and then decided not to.  It was all too much of a waste of time, and at some point you have to stop.  I could have built any look she wanted, but she was going to have to pay for  her vision, and she didn't want to do that.

  Business response

  01/17/2023

  Please note I completed a response to this several days ago and I just got into the file to check in and there's nothing here. Since I've not been through this before, I"m unsure if I need to re-do, so I will, just to assure a response. Apologies if this is a duplicate.

  I am very sorry that ******* was unhappy, and first and foremost I wish her the best wedding day ever.  In total, I had 360 emails on this wedding, which is an extraordinary amount at only half way through.  We also had 2 in-person meetings as planned, and a few zooms, as in the contract.  Those meetings totalled about 10 hours.  In additional behind-the-scenes work, I probably spent a total of ***** hours on this wedding, and we were only half way through.  Per my contract, work begins immediately so the deposit covers work completed during the planning process, therefore no refund is permitted.  One of the first things we do is develop a budget; in this case the client had very low dollar goals, and the budget was done before crazy expensive inflation prices were hitting for 2023.  I, too, was shocked at some pricing I was getting in, but there were a lot of pricing problems with this client.  For example, she initially told me $7500 for catering for 65 people.  I told her that would get her some creative stations such as a sliders bar and mashed potato bar, etc.  We went to my favorite caterer who gave us a quote.  ******* did not like that so she totally changed the scope of the event to be a formal family-style sit down dinner. I explained that would increase her food cost to maybe double.  She told me she was sure that it would not cost more than $10,000.  I continued to get quotes at that point from 2 caterers, and both came in roughly the same price..close to $15,000.  ******* did not like that.  I searched out 2 more caterers.  One was declined by the venue, and one started quoting, and ******* started making major changes to every quote.  In the end we had 40 emails with one caterer and they finally said, "enough."  And then more major changes and a second caterer backed out due to booking another very large event that night.  In the end, ******* was playing games with the vendors and it was too much.  It became very frustrating for everyone. She was never satisfied.  And it was making me look bad with people with whom I work every day.  Everyone was frustrated. I counseled her on a few occasions to stop and she would not.  I recommended on a few occasions that she choose a caterer and we go do a tasting, she would not.  Then she got special permission from the venue to get a different caterer b/c the 5 I showed her she did not like.  I've never seen anything like it in my 30 years.  Then she started telling that caterer that she was not paying the site fee for them to work at a venue for which they were not contracted (this is common, and the site fee is usually something like $500).  That caterer talked to me and was very frustrated as well.  I sent them 3 transportation bids and never heard back from them.  All three were available, but I was advising ******* on the schedule and she was refusing to listen and being oppositional.  I'm unsure  why she hired me b/c everytime I advised her on something she did the opposite.  Another vendor, I admit the first bid  came back very pricey, and so we had to go find another bid....in that process she found someone she wanted to use and I advised her that I had had bad experiences with that vendor and they were not on my recommendation list...so she signed with them anyway.  They were cheap.  ******* wanted a Nordstrom look for ******* pricing and she was willing to fight tooth and nail to get ******* Pricing...regardless of the outcome.  What should have happened is the vendor selections should have been complete by fall, tastings happening in late fall, and then design work and details like rehearsal dinner. We never got that far b/c ******* would not choose a caterer. I work with vendors who are extremely popular and do big events, multiple events every week. However, everyone has his/her own taste and I always tell clients if you don't like someone I'm putting in front of you, it's OK....they may not be your person....and we'll find another.  In *******'s case I spend hours putting people in front of her and she didn't like anyone at all.  I helped her find the venue with in-person tours.  And she signed on the photographer really quickly.  The other vendors she found, I'd not heard of the ** before so I cannot comment.  The other two she found are pretty low-end work.  She also used my contact for hotel room blocks.    She happened to schedule a tasting while I was on vacation, and she knew that, which is why I did not attend the tasting, but I'm unsure why she did the tasting with that company b/c she told me she was signing with the caterer who she got permission to bring on; she did not sign with the caterer she tasted with, yet more waste of time on everyone's part. At some point, you have to stop spinning your wheels.  I never push one vendor on anyone, everything is a matter of personal taste.  I pick people to match up based on what I think is the client's taste, look, desire, vision, and budget.  Sometimes budget does not match vision and then we have to test it.....if you want this vision, this is the cost.....if you don't want to pay that then this is what the product is.  But we don't do 40 emails with a caterer and 15 different menus and still not be satisfied.  In 360 emails, 2 in-person meetings and a few zooms, she got a lot of time out of me.  When she jumps from a $7500 menu to a $15,000 menu it's impossible to know how much she really wants to spend and where the worth and value in each vendor lies for her.  Often people tell me they want to spend $1500 on a **....and then they want live music and extra lighting and the final bill is $3000 but that is their decision to make and they get what they want.  In the end, I'm sorry  ******* did not like the vendors I put in front of her and my hope for her is that she gets the wedding of her dreams and has a wonderful day.  Best wishes.

  Customer response

  01/18/2023

   
  Complaint: 18683562
  
  I am rejecting this response because:****** is continuing to spread lies, everything in here I can easily back up with email proof to refute. She has even gone to the point of bad mouthing my fiance and myself to vendors which is just so ridiculously unprofessional, I am completely blown away. We absolutely did not have 10 hours of meetings via in-person and zoom (we only had 1 zoom meeting which was an onboarding call),****** did not provide sound guidance, any budget guidance outside of the ranges on the sheet she had us fill in which we put our budget within the ranges suggestions and she absolutely NEVER let us know to expect food costs of double our budget when we asked for a coursed menu. If she would have, it would have saved tons of time on everyone's part and we would have immediately said let's stick to stations, which we ultimately did. She never got the original quote she is mentioning of $7500 for stations (or she never sent it to us if she did).  I asked if we could set up calls with the caterers to discuss first vs.building out proposals which ****** ignored. I provided dates for tasting availability on 3 different occasions starting back in August that ****** never scheduled. ****** even told me to go ahead and schedule the caterer tasting without her since she would be out of town for weeks. I did not ask for major changes on a bunch of quotes, there was 1 caterer that ****** insisted we needed to have the menu final before doing a tasting that we went back and forth on a couple times and which ****** never scheduled the tasting for. 
  ****** was unresponsive on questions, provided menus that were nothing like what we outlined and then finally sent a couple that were double our budget. I know for a FACT that ****** never provided guidance that the cost would be double for the menu we wanted and I have the emails to prove it. ****** NEVER gave pricing guidance and finally sent over menus that were $15k. I said to her I was surprised and that I thought the cost might float up to $10k but not double to $15k and immediately said we could switch to stations when I received this information. Again, this is well documented in my emails and I would never have provided the ideal menu she asked me to do if she would have told me the cost.
  IF ****** sent 40 emails to a caterer, I have no idea why or what they were conversing about. I was not copied on any of that.****** never reached out to the additional outside caterer she mentions, she just forwarded that she knew a vendor running a promotion and I pointed out to her that my venue had a set list of caterers and asked if they'd let us bring in an outside caterer (which she should have known). She then reached out to the venue and they told her that they wouldn't work with that vendor because they were awful. Regarding the outside caterer I reached out to because after months of waiting for proposals and asking to meet with and providing dates for tastings and nothing being done (and a lot of excuses from ****** on why she couldn't get any of this done), I asked the venue if they had good experience with any other vendors and they provided the outside recommendation that I reached out to myself. This was after being told by ****** that one caterer could proceed due to booking an event and that one just wouldn't provide a station menu (both claims from her were refuted by the venue and we are actually going with the caterer she said wouldn't provide a quote. We mentioned the outside vendor fee that is per person to the caterer,not fixed (****** really is not on top of the details here) and asked if it was possible to split the fee, which the caterer said they might and that they've had it waived by the venue previously, but later responded that they would not split the cost. 
  
  I don't want to spend significant amounts of time reiterating my previous comments, but ****** was lazy and unprofessional. She didn't try to stay within our budget even when there were highly rated vendors that have worked our venue numerous times available within our budget. She is just flat out lying in her response - please ask her for the 15 different menus she had put together. It is a lie. As for her last comment on buying candles, this never happened. I would have said I was buying my own candles. I said I would rent the bouquets and greenery and I NEVER asked for outdoor plants. She asked me to bring inspirational pictures to our design meeting, which I did, but design inspiration is not the same as this is exactly what I want even if it is thousands of dollars. ****** advised that hanging lights would be expensive but I could get it quoted out which I did and decided not to proceed with. She then introduced me to the florist she mentioned even though I had said I wasn't going to use one. To say I wanted Nordstrom for a ******* budget is absurd. I will end up spending over $40,000 on this wedding and my budget for each category was well within the proposed budget ranges ****** gave at the onset which she accepted and didn't give any indication my budget was off. 

  Overall, with ******'s lies, inattention to detail, lack of responses to emails, lack of action to schedule tastings as requested, lack of providing budget guidance, and now extremely unprofessional bad mouthing and spreading falsehoods to my vendors, I cannot believe she is still in business. I'm attaching the proof that I provided dates for tastings and budget response on the caterers. I can provide significantly more emails to refute the numerous lies she has on here. 

  
  Sincerely,
  
  *************************

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