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Deesha Jethava
Deesha Jethava
1.5

1 year 1 month ago

This review is specifically for foreigners in need of a planner looking to have their wedding in India – if you, like us, are looking for a team that can execute to the best of their abilities, while alleviating the many stresses and burdens that come with planning a wedding in a country you are unfamiliar with, unfortunately, we cannot say Mpire is the right choice. Our wedding was not like the extravagant ones Mpire is known for – it had a relatively small guestlist of only 150 people, and a budget of 100K CAD. The Mpire team was well aware that this project would be different in terms of scale and cost, but assured us that it would be of no issue. In fact, they left us feeling very convinced that we were in the best of hands. As anyone familiar with the stress of a wedding can attest to, clear and consistent communication with your wedding planner is an absolute necessity. Often times, our messages to Mpire were ignored. For several months, we were overwhelmingly anxious about the team holding off on starting work for our wedding. We asked persistently when they would begin taking action, but were always told not to worry and that things in India are done “last minute.” Putting off all of the coordination until the very last month was exactly what we had feared – we did not want the additional stress of coordinating these details while we were taking care of other aspects (such as shopping for outfits and having work commitments) and made this very clear. Yet again, our request was ignored. As a result, we ended up working long hours each day on coordinating massive details, right up until the last week before the wedding. This left us feeling stressed as well as emotionally and physically drained - not how you want to feel leading up to your wedding. From the get-go, we made it clear to Mpire that we wanted our wedding to stay within our budget. This request was also not respected. Mpire gave us an approximate cost plan when we told them our budget, yet as time went on, each item was costing much more than budgeted for, and because these details were being worked out so last minute, we had no choice but to pay the extra money. In fact, when Mpire promised us a priest who spoke English within out budget, not only did they find someone above our budget, but this person did not speak English. When we asked for an alternative, we were told that no other priest in India could do this within our budget and that we should look for someone ourselves. This happened more than once with other vendors. At the very least, we expect our wedding planners to be responsible enough to find us vendors that stay within the budget, and meet our basic requirements. Moving on to the lack of professionalism. My husband and I often expressed our concerns with the Mpire team, and in response, rather than acknowledging the many flaws and issues we were trying to work through, we were faced with defensiveness. For this reason, my father-in-law began joining in on our calls with Mpire in an effort to keep the team accountable for their lack of delivering. In response, the team told us that they were uncomfortable with someone like him joining in on the discussions. One of the most important aspects of a destination wedding is managing the accommodations and arrivals and departures of all guests. This was one of the biggest pieces we were looking to the Mpire team to handle with care. Mpire had assigned someone with very little experience to work on the guest tracking, and this created countless problems. We had several guests complain to us about the person they were in contact with, and many had no idea what to expect when they landed. We had asked Mpire to organize transportation from the airport to the resort, but some of our guests ended up taking taxis because of the lack of clarity and coordination. As well, I spent hours creating plans for graphic designs and decoration ideas, which should not have been my job to begin with, that were not carefully looked at. One of the most important pieces of our wedding was to have a table to commemorate our loved ones who have passed away. Mpire provided us with broken, duct-taped frames and fake candles, and it was truly appalling considering the quality of work we see in Mpire’s portfolio. I had asked for pictures of what decoration pieces would be used countless times for this reason, yet never received a reply and had no idea what to expect. Another example – the graphic designs we wanted for our wedding were not only printed at the last minute, but contained errors. And just when we thought it couldn’t get worse, the blame was put on us for these errors. This is one of many examples of Mpire’s focus on blame rather than solution seeking. And finally, when Mpire asked us if they could post pictures from our wedding on their social media, we gave them a strict no. However, they went against our wishes and still decided to do so. Despite all this, we will give credit where it is due. A handful of Mpire team members left us with a very positive experience, and we are grateful to them for their service. Karishma was professional and helpful throughout, and gave us many useful ideas and suggestions. Stef and Kamlesh, who were our shadows, truly went above and beyond during the days of the wedding events to ensure my husband and I, as well as our families, had everything we needed at all times. They were attentive, patient and professional. In addition, Mpire did suggest some great vendors to us. Our graphic designer Anushka from The Art Thesaurus was able to transform each idea we had into the most beautiful creations. And finally, although there were several hiccups and details missed along the way, Mpire did manage to pull off the wedding.

Mpire Weddings

Sometimes the best act you can do is let an intense emotion run its course for someone! True to this thought, we waited for a very long time for a feedback. Once the wedding was completed, the family, bride and groom thanked us endlessly; but we asked them for an official review. Few days later, when we messaged them to congratulate, we left a gentle reminder that an e-mail feedback is welcome. While we are still waiting on that review, we managed to lay our eyes on this one! Since there can we many versions of the same story, we would like to leave our response with factual account of things, limiting the whataboutery. Over the last seven years and after close to 100 weddings, we have received a few dozen videos and e-mails from brides and grooms. We tend to keep our reviews limited to our social media accounts or office folders, rather than requesting them to post on public platforms, as we like to look at them as a reminder of our mini-victories (or failures, as the case may be). Learning is an infinite process, and wedding planning is constantly evolving. We use the reviews we have received to help us celebrate or improve; however the case may be! When Deesha first got in touch with us, before our first call we sent across an average cost sheet / estimate of a wedding in Goa. We work on 6 to 8 weddings in Goa in a year, which helps us know what's a realistic cost, so the best way to start is to guide the prospective client of what they are getting into. We also made it clear that all the costs mentioned are directly related to vendors and they are free to choose who they wish to work or not work with, i.e. we as wedding planners are not fixated on a set of vendors. We work in this case as guides to what we think works best for them! Once we ran this entire sheet with each element in detail over the call, we proceeded on signing the draft as their wedding planners. We mutually knocked off elements that seemed unnecessary in lieu of the budget. We then took over coordination with every vendor that they were in talks with. Most planners who are one stop shop aren't comfortable making clients meet their vendors. Budgets are shared and if agreed upon, work begins. We have a different process in place, and we prefer to let the client see and know what and who is working on their wedding. So during the site inspection / recce visit prior to the wedding, we called the decorators and let the family openly negotiate the budgets. The expected budget was less than half of an average Goa wedding decor budget. The final figure that was locked on was further lower, and less than the cost estimate we had shared on excel at the beginning. Similarly, our priest was called for a face-to-face meeting. The budget he shared was lower than the estimate shared in the original excel. Due to his personal non-availability (his assistant was to conduct the ceremony), the family hired another unknown priest. The eventually hired priest, who was unknown to us, took hour longer than estimated for every ritual and also asked us if we could serve him liquor at the end of the event (a case in point why we always recommend our experienced vendors, who set a high standard, even if they happen to be more expensive - which wasn't even the case here). Moving on, the family didn't have the process of tying saafa / turban for guests, but as per the ritual, wished to have the groom wear a turban. They had already purchased the cloth in Mumbai. This was absolutely fine besides the fact that it would be a challenge to get a professional to come and travel to the venue to just tie one turban, the cloth of which is also not purchased from him. We called the best wedding saafa supplier in Goa to come meet and work out a suitable price during the site inspection. He was hesitant on taking up the job of just one saafa / turban; as usual orders are over 100. Since he was someone who worked closely with us, he agreed to take this up at a small cost, which included the broach and the alteration to the cloth provided. While the above are two instances where we asked vendors to fit in budgets and scope of work (which would usually work way below their general revenues), there were a handful more closer to date where we bent backwards to accommodate the family's wishes and budget constraints. An important detail that wasn't covered in Mpire’s review - there were two Hotels booked by the family. There were quite a few room dropouts at the second Hotel (Sterling Resort), closer to date. Although the retention deadline was crossed, we managed to waive off complete cancellation charges for the family through our relation with the Hotel. Since transport was mentioned in the above review - the contract of the family with Zuri Resorts (the main Hotel), clearly mentioned airport pickups being charged. We managed to procure complimentary pick-ups and drops for wedding guests in groups, a breakthrough that easily saved us around INR 50,000. On learning that group arrivals were complimentary, the family insisted on having Hotel coaches wait for 45 minutes to an hour to pick up multiple guests. Nor the Hotel, or the guests waiting after long journeys were comfortable with that, which is when few guests took taxis. All the guests who preferred their independent commute were also reimbursed upon their arrival in Hotel. It’s a known fact that Goa has taxi unions that dictate terms and vehicle movement in every Hotel. This makes commuting between two Hotels oddly challenging (a fact which was shared with the client on the first call). The Hotel sales representatives also intimated the client about this on e-mail. Yet, when the groom’s father was introduced he kept questioning why we couldn’t manage Sterling Resort’s guests being picked up by Zuri vehicles. In the same manner, we were questioned for a lot of the set protocols of the Hotel towards meal plans, timings etc. most of which we had nothing to do with, since the Hotels had laid the terms with the family during contracting, long before we were hired. While the bride and groom were always kind, the bride’s father-in-law spoke rudely to our company staff on multiple occasions. The most important thing in any business is respect - I think every employee yearns for that, as much as growth. When we realized our staff was being disrespected or spoken rudely to, we informed the couple (since they were the original clients for us). We however continued with work and hoped to have a more pleasant atmosphere during the wedding. When the wedding began we saw continued unpleasant behavior by the groom’s father. It reached a point where our staff was apprehensive to even send an update on the wedding what’s app groups to guests with the concern that the groom’s father may find something to go off the deep end. This was communicated to the groom in a private message on the second morning of the wedding festivities, specifically mentioning that we just want the wedding to go off smoothly, and the couple to enjoy every moment. During the wedding day, since there were budget constraints, we decided to sponsor a small part of the celebrations. Everyone in the family and the couple liked the idea of cold pyros, a small celebratory mark at the end of the wedding. While we ordered it from a local vendor, we decided to throw this in complimentary from our end. All guests present appreciated the moment, as it was an ideal end to a beautiful ceremony. The family was also informed before hand that we have absorbed the charges for this. Shadow for the bride and groom was also not part of our original contract. We felt it’s the best way to ease off the stress the couple goes through, so we added more people to the team without any addition to their cost. As far as social media coverage is concerned, we did ask the couple if they were comfortable. They mentioned not to tag them, which was immediately respected and informed to our digital team. Some of the online stories were even shared by the bride on her personal account, so this comes as a huge surprise! We give the same coverage to all our weddings and couples, regardless of the budget, scale or social media influence of theirs for our personal benefit. The idea has always been to try our best to create magic and share a bit of it with the world! Lastly, a fact that would have been best left unmentioned here, but since there has been multiple mention of the word stress… a large chunk of the amount / payment wasn’t cleared during the wedding dates. The wedding being a weekend, we were requested to accept it on Monday. While our contract as well as most vendor’s contracts stated complete payment prior or on the date of the wedding, we accepted the road block they faced. In most cases, wedding planners and family work as one team, with everyone else as the outside source. With that in mind, we cleared all the service providers from our personal accounts and received the balance from their bank account in Zurich post our return from the wedding to Mumbai. This was stressful and scary, as we had zero common contact with the client or family. This was also over and above our purview of work! When a wedding planner takes up a role, there are tons of things they do, which weren’t in their original scope of work. Most of our clients have now become family, because they treated us as one, and we treated them as ours. We never felt the need to point each thing we did, but sometimes if we were lucky, they would see it clearly and appreciate it, respect it and cherish it for the rest of their lives! That doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes! But more often than not, we forget the mistakes and remember the lesson. This being a strong case in point!