Wedding – XOAKELLY.BLOG

OUR WEDDING PLANNING NIGHTMARE..3 MONTHS OUT!

I STILL CANT BELIEVE my wedding is over! Its already been about 4 weeks since Casey and I said “I do!” Our wedding was SO unbelievably perfect I wouldn’t have changed a thing. My wedding planner, Ashley, at Your Jubilee was incredible and the venue at the Clayton House was EVERYTHIG I dreamt of. A lot of people don’t know this though, BUUUUUUT.. we planned it ALL in three months. Yes YOU read that correct.. three months. We had originally gone with a different venue/wedding planner, but it became A NIGHTMARE ….SOOO let me tell you a little BACKGROUND OF IT ALL, and how it all went down!

Back in February 2018, I had found my dream venue at The Croft in Phoenix, Arizona. It was everything I wanted and more. It had the old empty rustic glam feel that I wanted. Chandeliers in the ceremony and reception room. The owner of The Croft Angela is also the “wedding planner” and you couldn’t bring outside wedding planners to her venue because obviously, she OWNED it and IS a wedding planner too. Her husband was a florist; so no need to get outside floral vendor. She also said that she had A HUGE warehouse of furniture, no need to use outside vendors. Pretty much like a “one stop shop.” Couldn’t have sounded anymore perfect to us and we paid the deposit immediately! It all just sounded so perfect.. ha..ha…ha…. weeeellll…..

WE had our 1st meeting “my vision board of wedding “ …which actually was just a slide show of a previous wedding she had planned and we were pretty much copying everything . She wanted to “re do” this look but couldn’t because after THAT wedding she had got an email from the bride that she couldn’t post anything on The Croft social media for some “drama” that had happened at the wedding. … RED FLAG #1.

Over the summer, we had tried calling and emailing Angela but hardly ever got a response back. Her sweet assistant would get back to us, but she wouldn’t know any answers to our questions! Example: we needed a calligrapher for our acrylic signs (not knowing it was SO abnormal for us to be buying signs and researching it) her assistant had no idea who did calligraphy in Phoenix 😖(DOESNT 80% of weddings have calligraphy) Y’all are wedding planners?!? She told us to simply google one (LOL) but my wonderful momma found one off Instagram* shout out to FREED HANDS * 😂… RED FLAG #2

So after many months of me and my mom planning my wedding, (thank God for Instagram and Pinterest) I often would think, it’s so abnormal… She never gave us a check list, NEVER called , emailed , reached out to me FIRST, asking how everything was going. It was like hunting her down to get a simple yes or no on simply just asking to MEET with her for a time, date, etc. In October , we had a meeting , to go over EVERYTHING. When she sat down and opened up the folder she had time wrong, # in my bridal party…wrong ,the colors of my wedding …WRONG. I was holding back tears as she would cross off what she wrote down and what was correct “always coming back as if I told her “ ?? WEIRD FLEX BUT OKAY?!?!?!. We asked to see this “HUGE warehouse of furniture” she had so we could pick out some things a liiiiiiitle different from the slide show.. like maybe different couches, cutesy décor?! Never ever showed us, she would always beat around the bush. She pointed to the ONE WHITE couch that was IN HER OFFICE and said this is the one you could rent from me, this is all I have. Just one?! ONE ?! (Holding back tears)

*AFTER MEETING…*Got into car*…. BURST into tears* … I am NOT having my wedding here. It’s 3 months out and she doesn’t even have the TIME correct?! I couldn’t IMAGINE how the day of wedding would go?!!? RED FLAG NUMBER 3

My amazing superhero mom called a wedding planner, Your Jubilee, and had told her everything. I still wanted it at the venue, I loved it so much… , but I just wanted home girl Angela to take a seat and to let Your Jubilee handle it all. They would come in as ‘mid planners’ for the finishing details. They called Angela and to told her and Angela was not okay with it. She had told them how she operates, and no outside planners allowed. She called and apologized and said she was so sorry, she was in Europe most of the summer and would love to have us have our wedding there and she – in her EXACT WORDS “wasn’t 100% in , but now she is” L-O-L.

If I couldn’t have Your Jubilee and Ashley, I was out. Your Jubilee had found me a venue (that night -the same DAY as the last meeting with Angela) The Clayton house was my second option, and they had an opening THE SAME DAY as my initial wedding date .. a sign FROM GOD. I had already sent out the save the dates, which ALSO on my own, had to figure out what website to do this on. I didn’t know a wedding planner was supposed to help.

Yes, we did lose money from The Croft (deposit of venue 😑- not fun) BUT I couldn’t have been happier then working with Ashley and Your Jubilee. Your Jubilee did more for me in just 1 month then Angela had in those 8 months. Your Jubilee contacted me more in just 1 week then Angela had in 8 months. I think I repeated in our meeting with Ashley “sooooo this is what it’s like to be planning a wedding ?!?” 50 times. They invested, listened, put their artistic talent into it and it WAS A dream. They didn’t copy a wedding they had done just so they could post on their social media since they couldn’t the first time, they created this look. They were heaven sent and if you are newly engaged or planning to get married soon. HIT. THEM. UP. I seriously wouldn’t have changed anything at all. It honestly just scares me to think if I HAD stuck to The Croft and with Angela, what would have happened the day of wedding.

I’m not about ever blasting anyone / companies on social media, but I really don’t want what happened to me happen to anyone else. There were tons and tons of red flags and yelp reviews – go look for yourself – that The Croft was bad news, but always would hold on because of the venue. And always Angela would turn it around and say it was the bride and groom fault. PLEASE, PLEASE if you are planning a wedding, go with your gut instinct. If your planner isn’t making you happy and isn’t doing what needs to be done and you’re paying them for it, DO NOT stay with them. They are supposed to be making your life a thousand times less stressful, like how Ashley and the whole Your Jubilee team did for me! I linked their website down below with some pictures so you can see how amazingly beautiful they planned this wedding in THREE FREAKING MONTHS! XOXO

((Here are a few photos of how AMAZING Your Jubilee created our wedding look! I haven’t received all my wedding photos back-so just sharing a couple from what they captured! In the next couple months ill be posting a couple other WEDDING THEMED blogs on all the incredible venders we used, day of wedding details, and more))

Your Jubilee :https://yourjubilee.com/

In the Summer of 2014, Casey was back in Scottsdale, AZ, rehabbing his elbow and I was living out my dream as a professional dancer with the Phoenix Suns. One afternoon i had noticed on Instagram, a super cute baseball player had followed me and liked a couple of my pictures-romantic right?! HAHA. I was freshly 21 and single, so i immediately gave him a follow back and liked a couple of his 😉 a week or so later, i got a DIRECT MESSAGE from Casey. It was a picture of an adorable puppy, saying “ When are we hanging out?” (Later found out he had just got his French bulldog, Mays a month before). I couldn’t say no to that FACE (Mays- not Casey’s HAHA). We started texting back and forth, me blowing him off, making every excuse why I couldn’t hang out (gotta play hard to get sistah). So finally we agreed to movies, and just like that…our first date! If you know Casey, he is the most genuine, kindest, funniest person I’ve ever met, so i definitely was super interested. After that first date, we began to hang out almost everyday until Casey’s rehab came to an end. Casey was back to his home, which is in Florida for the offseason and immediately flew me out to meet his family where we officially began to date! Since then, Casey and I have been going from city to city, traveling for baseball and pleasure and making our journey the most fun we could have! Fast forward to January 2018, Casey finally worked up the courage to ask me to marry him in Vail, Colorado. It was the most incredible time for the both of us. We then got married January 26, 2019 and it was the most magical day/ night of our lives. We now are on this AMAZING journey as Casey is playing in the KBO this season. I am along for the ride with my husband as newlyweds. We are currently in Australia for half of spring training then the other half will be in Japan! The regular baseball season will take place in Seoul, South Korea. We can’t wait to be on this once in a lifetime experience and hopefully start our own family soon!