Well, I hate to be the Debbie Downer of the crowd but I’d rather that than to have another B2B encounter an experience similar to ours with Sarah of Sproullie Designs….

I contacted Sarah via Etsy after checking out her beautiful invitations and positive reviews and was immediately sold that she was “the one” to handle our boarding pass invitation order.  After reading all of the glowing reviews on this site, there was no hesitation whatsoever to place our invitation package orders with her.  I sent her an email requesting her services and to begin the order process.  Within the email, I provided our details, colors, and anticipated timeline and requested information for an invitation package to include matching seating cards, OOT tags, stickers, table numbers/names, monogram(s), thank you cards, etc.  Three weeks later, I still had not heard from her.  I figured she was probably extremely busy with current orders and accounted for the possibility of a vacation or family emergency.  

Two days ago, I sent Sproullie Designs two emails via Etsy and her official website to follow-up on the initial email I sent her.  Sarah responded a few hours later and stated that she overlooked my email and was now no longer taking orders until January 10, 2011; however due to another B2B changing her date, she presently had one date available on her design calendar and if we secured that date, our order would be ready near the last week of January 2011. She also provided a link to purchase a custom made order for 75 invitations.  I responded and told her that we were having a small DW wedding and would only need to purchase 40 invitations, however as I stated in my initial email, we would be purchasing an invitation suite to include matching seating cards, OOT tags, stickers, table numbers/names, monogram(s), thank you cards, etc.; which would surely financially compensate her for the difference of 35 invitations.   I also expressed my concern regarding being penalized by having our deadline delayed due to her initial lack of communication.  Her response was essentially, “….I’m only taking orders of that amount and I’m sure you’ll find another great vendor on Etsy.”

Needless to say, we are disappointed and frustrated…… We wasted three weeks waiting to hear back from her and in that time frame, had we known she was not going to take our order; we could have researched another vendor and been well on our way with the invitation process.  Because we believed everything about her company that we read in the reviews, we did not have a backup plan.  Not one line in her policy states that custom boarding pass invitation orders must be a minimum of 75.

I’m not writing this review to discredit or discount her product, because I’m sure it is all as pictured and probably better.  The issue lies with her lack of customer service and timely communication.  Sarah disregarded her lack of acknowledgement to our initial communication and because of that; we are now back at square one and a month behind our deadline.  Being a DW Bride herself, one would think she would possess the humility to accept accountability for her role in a botched business transaction.  A DW is stressful enough without these types of snafus stateside.  She offered no resolution or attempt at remedying the situation which I found to be poor business acumen.  While mistakes and oversights occur, because we are all human, at that point one would think a business, or in this case Sarah, would in good faith make an effort to resolve the error.  It is my hope that this review spares a B2B from a similar occurrence and at the least, Sarah herself realizes how her business oversights affect others.  Beware that she does not value her initial communications with B2B’s, which doesn’t separate her from most corporations who are also all about the bottom line rather than servicing the customer.   Best of luck to you all in your invitation and stationary purchases!