In short, Valeriya Sergienko, my wedding coordinator, double booked my wedding with another bride and lied to me about it. What resulted was a total and complete disaster on my wedding day, and she was no where to be found. She has since promised me a refund, which she has never returned, and is completely ignoring my messages. Below is a review I wrote of her with details of everything that happened.
This is the hardest review I have ever had to write. No bride should ever feel this way about their
wedding coordinator, about the person who was in charge of delivering and executing their
vision, a vision that my husband and I have had since the day we contacted her, and on the day of
our wedding, 9 months later, our vision was completely trampled on, so much so that my heart
literally sunk when I walked into our venue. Valeriya Sergienko (Val), our coordinator, was
nowhere to be found. I feel it is my duty to all of you to write as detailed a review as possible, in
order to avoid another catastrophe, and to shed light on Val and her unfair and deceptive and
business practices. Once and for all, she deserves to be shunned by all brides and vendors and
does not deserve to do business in my home country and in our beloved Punta Cana.
Let’s start at the beginning. But before I do, the best advice I have for all of the baby brides out
there is to follow your heart, and listen to your gut. From the beginning, my heart was set on
Kukua, but because of my extremely large wedding party (120+) I could not afford it. I was
quoted $31,500 by Bego, and this did not include any of the other expenses along the way (dress,
grooms suits, souvenirs, flights, resort, gifts, etc…). At this point, I was looking at a $45,000
wedding. Kukua was unwilling to negotiate any type of discount, because, and I quote “While
you will be bringing in a lot of guests, we cannot offer you a discount because we host weddings
of similar and larger sizes all the time.” The whole point was to avoid this expense by going
destination, while still enjoying the company of our loved ones. I didn’t appreciate this comment
or Kukua’s style of doing business. So, Alex and I looked into other options. We found two
venues at the time, Playa Blanca and Palapa Juanillo that offered us a BYOB option, all we had
to do was pay a small corking fee. We fell in love with the beach at Juanillo, it was secluded,
incredibly beautiful, and the perfect location for a wedding of our size. Juanillo is a blank
canvas, and it is honestly one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen.
So we contacted Mayte and Val for quotes. Mayte was a little pricier, and we saw the work that
Val had done for Rocio Torres’ wedding (which was stunning), so we decided to go with Val,
even though Rocio mentioned how lackluster her communication was. I should have listened and
my gut was telling me to reconsider. Regardless, we submitted our deposit on November 5, 2015
and became a Val’s Weddings couple.
At first, Val was great. We received an e-mail from her nine days later welcoming us to her
company with an invitation to a Pinterest board. She also included a ceremony form, cocktail
hour form, and reception form, which I later completed and submitted with careful and
meticulous detail. We had a skype meeting with her and her associate Maria, and we were pretty
confident we were in good hands. We had constant communication between that time and April,
when all of a sudden we were pawned off to another coordinator named Luiciana. We received a
link to a website with a presentation of the new palapa, which Val had explained to us would
host our welcome event and the cocktail hour. Val explained to us, and Luiciana confirmed, that
the old palapa had been moved a couple hundred yards away, but that it was still there and we
would be able to have our reception there. Hosting the reception in the palapa was one of the
most important aspects of my wedding. I chose the palapa because of its high ceilings and dome
like structure for the sole purpose of decorating the entire ceiling with bistro lights, as shown
below. I had never dreamed of what my dream wedding would look like as a little girl, but when
Alex proposed to me and I started looking, this was the only thing I knew I absolutely needed at
my wedding. Not only did I include this in my Pinterest board, but it was all over my wedding
forms. We spoke about it throughout the planning process and during the week of the wedding.
So let’s continue. I e-mailed Luiciana on April 16, 2016 to confirm that the old palapa was still
there, to which she responded in the affirmative, and that it was just being moved. In the same email
she confirmed that the bridal suite is also being moved and extended. When the renovations
were taking place, Val guaranteed that the bridal suite would be 100% complete by the time our
wedding came along. I asked Luiciana for some updated pictures, but it was still under
renovations, so there were no pictures available during the presentation. At this point, this is
when things took a turn for the worst. On May 4, 2016 I e-mail Luiciana with a couple of
questions, whether there was an area for the groomsmen to do a mock getting ready and whether
we could renegotiate the transportation costs. I did not hear from her. I again e-mailed her on
May 13, and no answer. We did not hear back from anyone at Val’s Weddings until June 1,
2016, nearly a month after my initial e-mail on May 4th.
At this point we were once against pawned off to another coordinator, this time to a woman by
the name of Anyeli. From the beginning she was rude, did not listen to our wishes, rebutted our
ideas, and never, EVER answered any of our e-mails completely if at all. When she did answer,
it was clear that she was either in a rush, or simply did not care enough to read our questions.
Between June and August, just one month before our wedding, Alex and I found ourselves
having to follow-up on numerous e-mails, including writing an e-mail to the company about how
insulted we were and how unacceptable the company’s lack of communication was. Val began to
use a new system to organize and plan the weddings, including a vision board and a floor plan
which was never actually completed on Anyeli’s part.
We also learned for the first time that the old palapa would be destroyed for parts and that our
entire wedding would be taking place in the new palapa, which was not big enough to fit our
wedding party, nor was it high enough for the bistro lights as shown above. Particularly of
concern was that there was a huge kitchen and bar separating the palapa, so Anyeli was actually
suggesting that we divide our wedding into two. We immediately voiced our concerns in an email
dated July 31st and then again on August 1st wondering if Anyeli was at all familiar with our original vision. She resulted to creating a new floor plan, which would add an addition, at an extra cost of course, in order to keep the wedding party together. This addition would cost us $1500. At this point we asked to speak directly to Val, because it was clear that no one knewwhat was going on and our wedding was a month away.
Val answered the next day, which really put us at ease. She provided us with some suggestions
about how to rearrange the floor plan. I responded to her e-mail with some additional comments,
but yet again I did not hear back from her. I e-mailed her against on August 8, still did not hear
back. Alex e-mailed her on August 11. We still did not have our final quote. Val responded on
Saturday the 13th that she was away and needed until Monday to respond. Alex sent another email
on Wednesday the 13th, following up that we were expecting to hear back from her, as she
promised. At this point we told her that if the wedding had not been so close, we would have
chosen another wedding planner due to the lack of attention we had received from her and her
company. Alex and I didn’t even know if we were having a wedding at all. There was simply no
reason why we should be chasing our coordinator for a final quote and scrambling with last
minute details. The wedding was two weeks away.
Val sent me a WhatsApp message apologizing for not responding to our e-mails. She got stuck in
Toronto due to a major thunderstorm. She sounded incredibly remorseful and even promised that
she would take charge of everything from thereon out. She also told us that Anyeli had been
fired, for obvious reasons, including not responding to many of my e-mails. She also proposed
moving my entire reception to a large tent, which would accommodate my entire party and give
the impression I was going for, based on my Pinterest board. She also said, and I quote “Having
the tent set up will also allow us to start with the set up time we want, so we will have everything
prepared well in advance before the ceremony time. I do not want you to doubt for a second the
wedding, you can rely on me and my team 100% as well as your guests.” I felt at ease with this
response, to know that the person we had originally hired, and who knew our vision from start to
finish, would finally be taking over. After one final Google Hangout meeting for about two
hours, I felt confident that Val would be able to deliver the wedding of my dreams.
We met with Val in Punta Cana on Tuesday, August 30, 2016 for the site visit and tasting. We
spoke in detail about the timeline of the wedding and tasted the food, which was
PHENOMENAL. There was just one little issue during the site inspection. The bridal suite was
not completed and the AC was not dependable. Val suggested getting ready at Now, which I was
hesitant about because of the vendor fees, but she promised that she would be able to speak to
Anyeli, who was now working at Now, to allow Anna to come in with a guest pass. Alex and I
decided it was a better idea and our group would be more comfortable at Now. We just wanted to
have a good wedding day, so we agreed.
All in all, everything seemed like it was coming into place. Val and her food and beverage
manager, Ivan, went shopping with us for ingredients for the welcome and cocktail hour drinks.
When my father arrived with the alcohol on Thursday, we even visited Val’s Weddings offices to
deliver the alcohol and had coffee with Val and her staff. I was really beginning to feel like a
member of the Val’s Weddings family and felt like I could finally relax until the day of my
wedding.
On the day of the wedding we ran super later because of hair and makeup. I was in contact with
Val about this up until the moment we left the resort, at around 3:53pm, when we were finally
picked up by Renny’s. We arrived at Juanillo at around 4:37pm. Our ceremony was supposed to
begin at 5. As I walked up to the tent the first thing I noticed was that Val’s team was still setting
up the tables. Then I looked up and noticed that there were no bistro lights anywhere on the
ceiling. I immediately approached Ivan about this, who was the only person I knew that was
there, and he said, verbatim, “We will be putting those up later, we had some issues with a short
circuit”. I accepted that as an answer because I was so busy running around trying to take some
pictures with the bridesmaids on the beach with our robes.
As I was walking back into the bridal suite, I walked through the tent and surrounding areas and
began to notice everything that was missing or that was just flat out wrong (complete list below).
The wedding had a semi-travel theme to it, since there were 14 countries represented amongst
our guests. The table numbers were supposed to be maps of all of the countries represented. I
walked by table USA and the map that was on the table placard was a map of another country,
and not the USA. I don’t even know what country it was, but it was really thin and long, clearly
not the United States at all. I almost threw up on myself I was so embarrassed. I can’t even
imagine what my guests would have thought if they had seen this. I informed Ivan and he
removed it immediately, leaving table USA with no identifying placard.
I walked back to the bridal suite and I just broke out into tears. Val was still nowhere to be
found. When Alex inquired about her whereabouts, he was told that she had a family emergency
and had to rush out of the wedding. This immediately seemed fishy to me because I had just
spoken to her not even an hour ago. Sebastian and Martin told me to take it easy to and breathe
so that we can get through the ceremony and take wonderful pictures. I had no choice.
After the ceremony and photo sessions my mother came up to me and asked me what happened
to the cocktail hour appetizers. At this point it was nearly 6:30pm, our guests had been drinking
for a good hour, and no appetizers had been passed around. I called out to Ivan and demanded an
explanation and he looked at me dumbfounded. He actually had the audacity to say, “I thought
we decided that those would be put out with the buffet?” I literally lost my cool and my mother,
brother, and Alex took over. The appetizers came out fifteen minutes later. I’m still not sure if
they simply forgot to serve the apps, or if they were just running that late.
When nighttime came I looked up to the ceiling of the tent and noticed no bistro lights had been
set up. At this point Alex and I both approached Ivan and another one of Val’s employees named
Igor. We demanded to know where Val was and demanded to speak to her. Ivan got her on the
phone but she would not speak to us. They reiterated that she had a family emergency. We later
found out from numerous people that Val was coordinating another wedding in Casa de Campo.
When we approached the team about this, they insisted that that was not true. Alex told Ivan that
the people who told us about Val’s whereabouts had no reason to lie about it. As the night
progressed, it was obvious that Val was at another wedding. Numerous other vendors confirmed
this for us. Val and her team literally made a mockery out of us.
Below is a list of everything that went wrong the day of our wedding. One or two things may
have been acceptable, three is one too many. More than ten is a catastrophe.
1. Val, our coordinator was not present at the wedding.
2. No bistro lights decorated the ceiling of the tent, which we paid $575 for.
3. Our wedding colors were gold, navy blue and green. Charger plates were silver, and not
gold. We also decided on rattan charger plates, not gold.
4. Cocktail hour appetizers were late and almost never served.
5. Photo booth sign said “Yolanda and Manuel” and not “Yoly and Alex”.
6. The wedding was still being set up when we arrived to Juanillo at 4:30pm.
7. As I was walking down the aisle towards Alex I noticed that the wedding was still being
set up, at around 5:15pm. Val’s promise that everything would be set up well before
ceremony time was unfulfilled.
8. We had to pay an additional $220 in vendor fees for getting ready at Now because the
bridal suite was not 100% complete, as promised when we signed our contract with
Val’s.
9. Cake cutting was never announced as per our reception timeline and we ended up having
the waiters cut the cake at midnight, when half of our guests were gone.
10. There was no “love” sign as promised.
11. No apps on the sweetheart table.
12. No ceviche on three of the 14 tables.
13. Dinner was served so late that the food was served cold and there were no warming
devices used. Just cold food. This is really too bad because the food was absolutely
delicious, and should not take away from the amazing work the chef at Juanillo does.
14. Vendor table was the closest table to the sweetheart table, and our parent’s tables were
the furthest away. This was due to the fact that we never received an updated floor plan,
and due to the fact that our coordinator was not present, and therefore the tables were set
up completely at random.
This disaster was no one’s fault but Val’s. The person who organized and planned this wedding
was not actually present at the wedding, but instead went to another wedding. The reason why
everything went wrong is because Val was not there. No one had any idea what was going on.
Before my dad left the wedding he said to me, “Despite all of the mishaps, it is the overall
experience that matters, and overall, it was a wonderful wedding.” That broke my heart. The fact
that people noticed ALL of the mishaps. I can barely even think about my wedding day at this
point it makes me cry so much. This was not my wedding, this was someone else’s wedding. The
wedding I planned for and paid for I did not get.
I called Val the day after my wedding, twice, but she never responded. Val finally sent me a
WhatsApp message stating that she had spoken to Ivan about what had happened and that she
would send Ivan to the hotel with a refund. She also asked me to tell her “exactly” what went
wrong. She never actually apologized in this message. After I sent her a lengthy 3 minute voice
message highlighting “exactly” what went wrong, she responded via message again profusely
apologizing and acknowledging that everything I sad was 100% unacceptable. Apparently she
received a phone call just ten minutes after she had spoken to me that the floors in the tent of
another wedding her company was decorating in Casa de Campo had completely collapsed and
they lost 30% of the décor on the tables. She made the executive decision to go to that wedding
because everything seemed completely under control at my wedding.
So here’s the thing about that, if what she claimed had happed was true and had Val been honest
with me from the beginning, perhaps Alex and I would have been more understanding. However,
from our perspective it is very difficult to believe that she left Juanillo just 20 minutes before we
arrived and everything was “under control”. The lack of attention to detail in the decoration of
our wedding is appalling. The fact that she missed the outmost important aspect of my wedding,
the bistro lights, is unforgivable. It is obvious that Val chose one wedding over the other, perhaps
because they paid her more in Casa de Campo? But nothing was “in control” had Val actually
left Juanillo when she said she did.
What is worse is that I am still waiting on the refund Val promised me. Ivan came to Now and
brought us a third of it and we signed a contract as to how the remaining amount would be
refunded (via Pay Pal or wire transfer, more than $2000.) I sent Val a WhatsApp on 09/07 asking
where the refund was, she responded via a lengthy message apologizing for the delay, and that it
would take four business days but that I should receive it soon. I sent her another message on
Monday, 09/12 and then again Wednesday 09/14 and she has outright ignored my messages. It has been nearly a month since my wedding and I have yet to receive the refund. All of Vals promises to date have been illusory. But this is a contract, which she has broken, and I will not let that slide.
To end:
Despite all of the mishaps, my guests had a wonderful time, thanks to my photographers,
videographers, DJ, live band, fire show, and the staff at Juanillo, including the servers and
bartenders, who did a wonderful job. Additionally the ceremony and the ceremony space itself
was beautiful. But unfortunately there were too many things that went wrong, and it would have
all been avoided if Val was present at my wedding, or if she had put as much attention to detail
in the execution of my wedding as she had planning it.
Future brides, the best advice I can give you is to be on top of your coordinators. I’m not sure
where I went wrong in this process, perhaps I trusted Val too much? But isn’t that the point of
hiring a coordinator? Val has since apologized, and has offered to give us a refund for services
we paid for and were never rendered. But the wedding is over, all of those hours of planning and
hard work saving for this wedding have passed us by, and I did not get the wedding of my
dreams.
Val's Weddings
Punta Cana,#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Sat, October 15, 2016
To anyone reading this review:
My name is Valerie, I am the owner of Val's Weddings. I have received the email from the person who wrote the review about my company a few weeks ago and in the time, I have written her a formal apology letter, addressing each and every point she has mentioned, as well I have refunded her over US$3000 for any of the services she has mentioned as not completed to her satisfaction or taste.
Below you may find a few of the main point addressed with the person: