Anyone have a review of The Wedding Holiday?

[SChica927]

Not sure if anyone has any other comments on The Wedding Holiday, but I'm considering them too as they are one of the only people I know that have done destination Indian weddings. Anyone use their "Platinum Package"?

 

Thanks!

[Isabella]

Do not use The Wedding Holiday! They are the most incompetent, unorganized and unprofessional company that I have ever dealt with. Here are a few 'highlights':

 

-Double charged our guests credit cards in error and double charged my credit card for the invitations we ordered from them

-We met with the wedding coordinator who just printed off papers from our resorts website and read it to us when we had questions

-Not getting back to us and our guests in a reasonable time (ie. weeks to get an answer to very simple questions) We had to basically nag them to get anything accomplished

-Several complaints from our guests asking what is up with this company, that they're incompetent

 

-The final straw was this. One of my guests wanted to add her bf to her room. She called and spoke with someone who said it wouldn't be a problem and that they would contact the tour operator and get back to her by the end of the week. Two weeks later had still not heard back so she followed up. WH explained that it was taking longer because of the tour operator and that they would be in touch shortly. Another week passes by with no contact except that my guests bf was charged in full on his credit card with a surprise additional fee. When we asked them about it the WH stated that because so many requests had come in from this particular guest they would have to charge a fee. We asked what requests, this was the only one! My FI wrote a very detailed letter  outlining our concerns to the owner of the company and to another person we had been dealing with, although it changes often as they can't seem to be able to hold on to their staff. We were promised better service. It's been over a week and they still haven't told us what all the supposed requests were that warranted them charging an extra fee. They'll use every excuse in the book as to why they don't provide timely service. Anyway, I'm rambling on here, I'm sorry I'm just super angry with them. My guest just wrote me an email saying that they had requested a quote for airfare and if a seat was available. She was told by TWH  that they wouldn't book it until the price was quoted. Well, they went ahead and charged the card and when guest called to say that he was upset with the way they do business and didn't want the seat on the flight, the Wedding Holiday told him that my FI told them to go ahead and charge it. That is a complete lie! They also mentioned that if he cancelled the bride and groom would be charged.

 

We are calling tomorrow to tell them we don't want to go through them for anything, from now on we'll go directly through the tour operator. I hope this saves anyone from having to deal with them. 

[nv+gms]

I would not recommend them at all!  They are terrible travel agents and are definitely NOT wedding planners (even their contract specifies this).  They are a middle man for the company in Miami (at least for the hotel I've booked).  All they do is fwd your emails and pretend to be important.  I found this out early and demanded the name of the miami contact and worked with her exclusively for about 5 months prior to my upcoming wedding.  We still don't have our e-tickets and were promised them either yesterday or today.  Apparently they had yet another crisis they were dealing with yesterday and they would "try" to get them out asap.  Anytime you need them they are either busy (so many wedding shows) or I love the infamous excuse "in a meeting".  They screwed up a number of our bookings and many of our guests advised us of such.  I just want my etickets so that I can make sure they didn't screw something else up again!

As for specializing in Indian weddings - I can't speak to that - but my suggestion would be this:

Hire an Indian wedding coordinator who has years of experience with Indian weddings locally and commission them to work with the coordinator you are assigned by the hotel you choose via phone.  That way you know you have someone with true expertise outlining your needs to the coordinator for the resort.  Heck - you may even be able to bring your wedding coordinator with you at the same cost of what the wedding holiday wants to rob you of.  I would continue to do your research on this one!

Also note:  Some resorts are limited to the "vendors" that they have an agreement with.  Often if you need something outside of that cost - you will be charged outside vendor fees.  There is nothing that any coordinator or the wedding holiday can do about that. 

I could go on and on - but I plan on writing an article about this experience after my wedding.  So I will stop right here. 
 

Originally Posted by SChica927 

Not sure if anyone has any other comments on The Wedding Holiday, but I'm considering them too as they are one of the only people I know that have done destination Indian weddings. Anyone use their "Platinum Package"?

 

Thanks!

[bmadzia1]

so I did request a quote from them when I started searching for prices.  I'm very for first impression, and I wasn't impressed with the telephone converstation. They sent me a quote; a few buck more than what we are actually locked in with another agent now.  THE BIG DIFFERENCE IS that they would not pass on the price drop guarantee from the operator (the resort we're going to is only offered by one operator). The agent we're with now, is doing this for us. So even if the price does not go down... we had that option. BUT if the price does go down, we can have it.

 

They are just a travel agency who have done wedding bookings - not coordination of the wedding.

[nv+gms]

I agree - poor response time (and only if you nag repeatedly).  We've never had such shitty travel service ever and I even booked our photographer through another agency instead of our group deal and it cost the same thing.  And let me talk about errors - we leave in a week and a half and have already noticed a handful of mistakes on the documents we repeatedly asked them to send us...icing on the cake for me for this poorly?/incompetently? staffed agency.
 

Originally Posted by Isabella 

Do not use The Wedding Holiday! They are the most incompetent, unorganized and unprofessional company that I have ever dealt with. Here are a few 'highlights':

 

-Double charged our guests credit cards in error and double charged my credit card for the invitations we ordered from them

-We met with the wedding coordinator who just printed off papers from our resorts website and read it to us when we had questions

-Not getting back to us and our guests in a reasonable time (ie. weeks to get an answer to very simple questions) We had to basically nag them to get anything accomplished

-Several complaints from our guests asking what is up with this company, that they're incompetent

 

-The final straw was this. One of my guests wanted to add her bf to her room. She called and spoke with someone who said it wouldn't be a problem and that they would contact the tour operator and get back to her by the end of the week. Two weeks later had still not heard back so she followed up. WH explained that it was taking longer because of the tour operator and that they would be in touch shortly. Another week passes by with no contact except that my guests bf was charged in full on his credit card with a surprise additional fee. When we asked them about it the WH stated that because so many requests had come in from this particular guest they would have to charge a fee. We asked what requests, this was the only one! My FI wrote a very detailed letter  outlining our concerns to the owner of the company and to another person we had been dealing with, although it changes often as they can't seem to be able to hold on to their staff. We were promised better service. It's been over a week and they still haven't told us what all the supposed requests were that warranted them charging an extra fee. They'll use every excuse in the book as to why they don't provide timely service. Anyway, I'm rambling on here, I'm sorry I'm just super angry with them. My guest just wrote me an email saying that they had requested a quote for airfare and if a seat was available. She was told by TWH  that they wouldn't book it until the price was quoted. Well, they went ahead and charged the card and when guest called to say that he was upset with the way they do business and didn't want the seat on the flight, the Wedding Holiday told him that my FI told them to go ahead and charge it. That is a complete lie! They also mentioned that if he cancelled the bride and groom would be charged.

 

We are calling tomorrow to tell them we don't want to go through them for anything, from now on we'll go directly through the tour operator. I hope this saves anyone from having to deal with them. 

[exquisite02]

Thank you for the information ladies!!! I was going to go and start to talk with them at the toronto bridal show next week( Jan.21, 2011) about booking my wedding for May 2012 but now i have decided not to use them and find someone else. Thank you again for your honest reviews.

[Digado]

We are also having troubles with them.  We started to work with them back in October 2010, and we are basicly at the same stand point with them as we were when we first started other then we have put a deposit down on our flights.  This is another mistake that I am kicking myself for b/c we no longer wish to use them, but I don't know how to get that deposit back to use another travel agent?  Does anyone have any recomondations as to how to go about doing this? 

 

They can not seem to hold onto staff so the new staff members we are dealing with keep using the same excuse that they are 'still learning the ropes', or that they are super busy with weddings or wedding shows that they can not get back to us and answer any of our questions, so needless to say ALL of our questions that we have been asking regarding our wedding plans have YET to be answered, so I've basicly gone ahead and researched the resorts wedding planners e-mail and personally got intouch with her to ask my questions etc.  The last straw for me was when we had wanted to go in to have a meeting with them face to face, and they kept pushing our appointment back saying that there wouldn't be anyone in the office, and not getting back to us.  

Basically to all who is considering using this company BEWARE!!! 

[FormosaDeb]

I agree with the comments above.

 

My FI and I went in for a free consultation last Saturday after meeting them at the bridal show. We were very excited initially and were very prepared before we went in. We have done research online and narrowed down to 6 resorts we were interested in Punta Cana. Because the rep we spoke to at the show raved about their extensive experience on planning weddings at many resorts there, I had hoped to get detailed wedding package prices from her that were not listed online.

 

However, when we got there, all she did was showing us pictures - pictures that were posted online by resorts that we have already seen and the basic price list - that is already online that we also have seen - of ONE resort only. She said if we went with her, her fee is basically building on the travel charges. So the travel charge per guest will be slightly more expensive than other travel agents. Then she basically kicked us out by saying they have another couple coming in because they were very busy from all the new prospects they attracted on the bridal show, and would email me the price lists.

 

On Wednesday I received her email. The email listed the 6 resorts we were interested in, with links to the basic wedding package page on the resort's website. Something I already had access to! Did not provide me with any insights or anything I don't already know.

 

We had decided not to go with them. We did our own research and went through pages of forum on this site and decided on Majestic Colonial. I emailed the WC at Majestic and obtained the detailed wedding price list by myself. I also got a 2012 price list from La Barcaza. Therefore don't see the need of having a middle man to "pass along my message" to the resort when I can do that myself with more efficiency.

[Vaughng]

About Time!!!!  Finally found a review site about "The Wedding Holiday".  I didnt think it was only us that had such a HORRID experience.  First off I would like to say that we almost cancelled our wedding and took a loss on some money because of this company.

 

Elaine or Lorane or whatever her name is is such a mood swining misleading control freak its rediculous.  She literally yelled at my Wife making her so upset she was bawling afterwards out of disbelief.  She then refused to apologize and made her self very busy when ever we came around totally avoiding us. She yelled over a small miscommunication about myself.

 

She then also promised us a bunch of stuff before we made our first payment to them such as wedding services and consultations and like a few days after giving them our money we saw nothing and she refused to give us these services saying that they are not included.  Guests complained that they weren't getting any call backs when tryin to book the trip or find out information.  We also had to wait around 3 weeks to get a single question answered from them.  This experience was just a big nightmare.  I hope Elaine or Lorane or whatever that ignorant selfish scheming British Wench's name is goes bankrupt very quickly.

 

I know I said some harsh words but believe it or not I am holding back what I truly want to say.  Im just glad that there are so many others that feel similar to how we feel about them.  I have already talked 2 weddings out of going with them and I will continue to do so until the day I die or they og out of business.  One person had already booked an appointment and I got them to cancel it the day before it.  My friend couldnt believe the experience we had with them.

 

Sorry for the venting, but that felt good.  I hope this helps you all.

 

V.

 

[CubaBride]

Hello Everyone,

 

If I can give any advice or warning about planning your destination wedding it is this...... DON"T USE THE WEDDING HOLIDAY!!!

I starting using them in May of 2010, its now 5 days before we leave. I am not usually a stressed person but right now I am at the end of my rope.

The Wedding Holiday will promise you lots of things and not follow thru, they will blame other people for the things that go wrong, they will tell you all along that everything is under control and not to worry, when you try to plan things ahead of time they will tell you not too, PLEASE if you are using them double & triple check everything.

Here is a small list of things they did not do, forgot to do, blamed on someone else,

- Telling me they took care of reserving Valentines day for us when they didn't ( I found out from the resort when I emailed them to ask a few questions )

  So I found out 3 weeks before our wedding that we can't be married on our dream day on the beach!!! Had we known this we would have picked another resort.

- The WH seems to think that we should just "pick another day it doesn't matter"  Them telling me to change our dream does not make us happy

- That being said we tried to change resort, Can't.  Have just the ceremony at another resort, Can't.  Cancel the whole thing, CAN"T ( they have all our

  money & all our family & friends money )

- Over billing my family & friends credit cards

- Taking over 2 months to refund them for what they were owed back and every time I called about it they said they were doing it and that they were

  sorry.

- Not listening when I was very clear that certain people were sharing rooms, so these people wouldn't have to pay singles supplements, since they

  did not listen or write it down these people were over billed.

- We paid for first class with the airline that was suppose to fly us and that airline sold the flight to another one that DOES NOT have first class,

  I found this out when I called the airline to question about my dressing on the plane. So the $450 we paid for that has still not been refunded to me

  from the WH. The airline informed me that the WH should have told me this, BIG shocker they did not!!

- Certain family members never recieved their tickets, when I called they responded with " the email bounced back" I asked why didn't you call

  them to see what was going on?  I got no answer to that.

- I had to consatntly call & call & call..... They hardly ever return calls and when they do its days later.

 

There are many more things that have went wrong. My advice use someone else. The Wedding Holiday will promise you that they will arrange everything, take care of everything, make this stress free for you.  How is not returning calls, not doing your job, wrecking our dream day, Doing EVERYTHING for you? If I could go back in time I would use someone else, make sure I double checked everything.

Make sure where ever you plan to go that you email or talk to the resort directly yourself, I was told not too. Look how that's turned out.

 

I am frustrated that We leave in 5 days and they have not emailed me the new tickets for the new airline, informed me that we can't fly first class that we paided for, have not refunded me my money for that, they have jerked my family & friends around everytime they called, NOT followed thru with their promises, Basically they did not do their job!!

 

TO ALL THOSE BRIDES PLANNING THEIR DREAM DESTINATION WEDDINGS RIGHT NOW...........

MAKE SURE YOU TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING YOURSELF!!!