Mary Baker

Our experience with Mary was just as bad if not worse than Julia & Travis. The shame is that we live in Chicago also and actually contacted Julia before our wedding about her negative review but unfortunately for us...we didn't connect. We actually ended up paying her a lot of money to plan our OWN freaking wedding! We can only PRAY that someone reads this and the many other reviews we plan to post around the internet so that no other couple will experience what Julia & Travis and now Julia (same name, different bride) and Kendall have just experienced. Just a few notes on the MANY things that went wrong:

Liquor/Bar: Just like Julia & Travis WE ended up going to the store to buy liquor. We are lucky my husband is in the military as we found an PX in Aguadilla and got ALL the liquor pretty cheap.

Cab Rides: not on time and last cab never showed up. We actually had to have our guests drive other guests back to their respective hotels AFTER WE HAD BEEN DRINKING ALL NIGHT!!. After we confronted her, her response was "I don't know why it didn't show up" after we pressed her she said "we'll, the first bus only had 5 people on it" WELL THAT'S BECAUSE OUR OLDER FOLKS WANTED TO SLEEP! WHO'S GONNA LEAVE A RECEPTION WITH FREE DRINKS A LIVE SALSA BAND AND A DJ EARLY?...really?!

Rehearsal Dinner: She was unprepared didn't have answers to our questions, and did not provide wedding itinerary (as noted on our contract). We actually didn't even rehearse! The Food for the rehearsal dinner was also a MESS! This was negotiated in November 2011 and the caterer was not contacted until Thursday 3/15/12. She never confirmed with the villa that it was possible to roast the pork. It ended up being not possible to roast the pork at the villa resulting in over a two hour delay in food arriving. My family ended up helping in chopping the pork and serving it. We paid for chopped pork at 5pm. We sent payment well in advance and The day of, And the caterer stated he was never paid. It was a horrible mess...unacceptable

Catering: Bread served with no plates, soup served in salad plates, water was served with one pitcher for all tables. She even sounded surprised when one of the wedding party went into the kitchen to tell her people were sitting upstairs hot and thirsty. her response was "We don't serve water"...when we pressed her she got the waiter to serve 45 people with one freaking pitcher!

Payments: DJ was not paid and resorted to asking US! were his payment was at end of the night! and Friday rehearsal dinner was not paid (again he freakin asked US! where his money was!)

Reception Decorations: I wanted tea lights everywhere..not done. Bar was not decorated considering she didn't have much to do this should have been done, had two floating ducks never placed in pool,

Post cards: We wanted post cards for our guests to sign. She claimed she only found 7. So we ended up buying the post cards and found HUNDREDS in a local Walgreens. They were located anywhere! Walgreens, hotels, pharmacies. She didn't even make an effort.

Decorations: boxes with decorations arrived scattered. Leaving last minute running around. She didn't even setup the dining room area my cousin Ernesto did it all.

Ceremony decorations: My cousin Ernesto created beautiful decorations for the beach and on the way to setup she was told to take them separate. She then crammed it in her car/truck and one broke . She then replaced with much smaller ones which was no way near what we originally had. And had the nerve to ask me with freaking attitude "Well how much was it?"...are you freaking kidding me

Sunday morning tear down...she showed up with only her husband and no disrespect to the elderly but Mary and her husband are both getting up in age and tried to tear down and store all the tables and chairs themselves. Mary was actually carrying 2-3 cups at a time and her husband 2 chairs, the owner of the resort actually had to start helping them...

There are at LEAST 5-7 more major incidents that I don't have the space to write about. If your thinking about using her...don't. If you've already started down the path with her...stop. If you've already contracted with her and you want your wedding to be what you dreamed, you have one of 2 options...hire a lawyer to get you out of it or make sure your ready to get in her face IMMEDIATELY when something is even slightly amiss. If you read this Mary..I hope you spend your lottery money wisely, because you hit it big with us.

I did not have a good experience with Mary. I live in Chicago, so I figured I should hire a wedding planner who lives in Puerto Rico and near Rincon to make logistics easier and act as my advocate for different the various vendors we planned to use.

There were a wide array of issues in the planning stages involving vendors mis-quoting prices to her and her coming to me to ask what we should do. THIS, in my opinion, is the main thing a wedding planner should do- PROBLEM SOLVE.

I was very honest with Mary from the beginning- letting her know that in no way did I want our friends or family to have to lift a finger the weekend of our wedding. I let her know that whatever extra staff she would need we would be willing to pay for. That didn't happen and if not for my wedding party the lanterns in the tent would not have been hung and other decorations around the property would not have been put up in time.

She actually rolled her eyes at me the day of my wedding when I outlined everything that still needed to be done. These were things we had gone over several times prior to my arrival in Puerto Rico and should have come to no surprise to her.

The morning of the wedding she asked if I had the cups for the bar. I did not- why would I. I told her she was going to have to take care of that- she was NOT happy. Seriously!

Among other things she didn't provide any sort of garbage receptacles, didn't go over the playlist with the DJ (who she recommended), nor did she put my mind at ease about ANYTHING!

She was an added stress to my wedding day.

Also, I am not the only bride who has had this experience. Another woman and I exchanged emails and Mary failed to purchase any sort of beverage for this other brides reception- leaving the wedding party and family to make a last minute run to the store.