I made the mistake of hiring Shelley Alexander Toussaint of McLean, VA to design my save-the-dates, wedding invitations, menus, place cards, escort cards and table names. The work she did was unprofessional and subpar at best. My save-the-dates fell apart weeks after she made them. In fact, some had started to come apart as I was handing them out. I should have stopped service then, but I was doing her a favor by trying to help her to try to get her name out there, but I wish I had gone with my gut and just said, "Thanks but no thanks".
She never made any deadlines I gave her, either. In fact, I had to pull the plug with her three days before my wedding because she hadn't completed all of the things she had promised me she would be able complete, including centerpieces and an arbor, which I had to last minute order from the florist. Not what a bride-to-be should be worrying about three days before the wedding. Oh, the best was the menus. She hadn't even finished those. It took my mom, my dad, my sister and two family friends the morning of my wedding to get those done. How she thought she would be able to finish in time is beyond me, but rather than being honest and saying, "I am not sure I can get these done", she told me to give her a couple more days. I am glad I didn't.
Then, my mother would constantly ask her for the cost of each item as she was making them but she would not provide a bill. This was a huge red flag, but we made the mistake of continuing to allow her to go on, for the reason above. At the end, for her shoddy workmanship (oh, and I paid for the majority of the materials she used), she charged us $3000. Bear in mind, that if she were a professional, I would not have had a problem paying almost 15 dollars an invitation or for calligraphy (not included in the $15). She had also said she was part of the calligraphers guild. Well, we checked and her name is not on there, so she lied about that. She was trying to charge all this money for horrible calligraphy (I got an invitation returned to me because she wrote the address completely wrong- I even sent her to a website that showed how to address envelopes. For the amount she charged, she should know how to address an envelope. Heck, she should know how to address an envelope full stop).
I told her from the beginning how I wanted my invitations to look and what I wanted and she could not follow directions. I understand she is creative, but when I say I want something to look a certain way, I don't want a creative spin or something totally different. I am not trying to be difficult, it was just that I even gave her a link to a webpage that had the exact invitation I wanted (it was a UK website and if I had been smart, I would have ordered it from there and just paid the money to have it shipped overseas- I would have saved a lot of time, energy and money and would have been happy in the long run, since it was professionally done and I wouldn't have had to guess as to when the invitation would be compeleted).
Then, to make things even worse, she put together the bill a full year after the wedding. Yes, not within a week, but a whole year later. Oh, and her husband comes out of the woodwork (we had only talked to him once and only as her husband) and starts demanding it be paid immediately (it's okay for them to wait a year to provide a bill but they want 3K paid within a week? How does that work?). He talked all this crap about being her business manager when he showed up at my parent's door (with no invitation) to demand money. That was news to any of us. It was so ridiculous. Talk about unprofessional.
So, my advice is to not hire this woman at all. If you do decide to hire her, make sure you have prices up front or that as she makes a prototype, that she gives you a price per item. Also, I would suggest to have an attorney draw up a contract protecting you if you work with her (ensuring that you have the right to stop her from doing things at any point) so that there is no way this woman can fleece you. Also, if someone's crafts start to fall apart on delivery, don't continue working with that person. Just a suggestion.
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