I Do Belize Weddings Keli Belize Wedding Planner - Unorganized, Unprofessional, Unaccomodating San Pedro Town, Internet

If you are considering having your wedding in Belize do it, its an amazing experience that all of your guests will love.  If you are considering hiring I Do Belize Weddings to plan your wedding, THINK AGAIN.
 
 We decided we wanted to have a casual, but elegant, private wedding in Belize and eventually found Keli from I Do Belize Weddings to help us plan it.  She seemed extremely responsive, friendly and knowledgeable.  Additionally, unlike some other independent wedding planners, she was able to provide us clear breakdown of the anticipated costs.  We were sold!
 
As we started the wedding planning process, Keli assured us that we would be able to tailor the wedding to our desires and that she had planned many weddings the size of ours (50+) throughout Belize.  Moreover, she suggested that she had planned several larger weddings at the very house we had rented for the occasion (Villa Incommunicada).  Again, we were sold!
 
 As wedding planning continued, the initial excitement of finding a great wedding planner quickly dissipated.  Our interactions with Keli became the MOST stressful part of the planning process.  Overall, Kelis behavior could be classified as unorganized, unaccommodating, and unprofessional.  The following are a few of the many available examples highlighting the way we were treated and the service (or lack thereof) that we received.
 
Unorganized:
In the initial planning stages, we asked Keli to send us a list of things we hadnt thought of and set up a meeting to discuss.  Given that there were several open items such as alcohol, guest transportation, decorations, etc. we expected Keli to come prepared with a list of the things we should be making decisions about and/or thinking about.  Instead of coming with a list, a timeline, or any materials to guide us through the open decisions she simply stated that there was nothing else to think of but she would be happy to answer any questions that we determined. 
 
Unaccommodating:
When investigating floral arrangements, Keli offered 2 centerpiece options. Since we didnt care for either option, we asked to have flowers delivered so that we could arrange the bouquets ourselves.  Keli assured us that this was not possible.  After some brief research and a quick phone call we had arranged for flowers to be delivered the day of the wedding no thanks to our wedding planner.
 
Unprofessional:
Over time, Keli became short and sarcastic with her responses.  When questions or issues were raised, she would insist that the issue resulted from lack of communication between us ( (future husband and wife)    Additionally, she would regularly suggest that we were her most difficult clients. Instead of offering suggestions about how we could work together more effectively, she just kept stating that she was doing a great job and it was outrageous that we didnt trust her.
 
A great example of Kelis trust-building professionalism was exemplified by her handling of the invoicing process.  Before finalizing our invoice we asked Keli to provide a consolidated list of everything that we had agreed upon throughout the planning process.  She insisted that this was impossible and threatened to quit (again!).  After apologizing profusely to avoid having to losing our wedding planner 2 months before the wedding, we moved forward with the invoicing process. 
 
Keli suggested that we split the payment into two parts over a 2-3 day period.  After paying the initial installment, Keli stopped communicating despite committing to request the second payment immediately. Obviously, this made us a bit uncomfortable seeing as though we had just paid someone half of our wedding funds who recently tried to quit and was now deciding to go incommunicado  On day 5 we emailed to say that we were concerned, and she finally replied with another aggressive email stating how difficult we were and that we should find someone else (after we had paid!).  She attempted to quit two more times after this up to a month before the wedding. 
 
At this point, we felt as if we were being held hostage by this individual because there was no feasible way that we could have re-planned the wedding in the time available.  We crawled back to Keli with our tails between our legs and apologized at length regarding our behavior as her CUSTOMERS.  Additionally, we decided to stop asking Keli questions about OUR wedding because each time we interacted with her she would get defensive and threaten to quit.
 
The Result:
In the end, we had an amazing wedding.  Our guests had a blast.  Due to the tenuous relationship we developed with Keli, she decided to hand our wedding off to her assistant Ari who turned out to be great (professional, accommodating, and pleasant).  The services that they did coordinate turned out to be great (good food, good music, a nice ceremony, and a beautiful arch and floral bouquet).    
 
However, we came to realize that Keli was not interested in helping us plan OUR wedding.  She wanted to provide us with the wedding she had thrown for every other one of her clients.  She only allowed us to tailor our wedding to the extent that it fit with what she had done before.    Additionally, we realized that Keli, despite having great connections on the island, was not an effective project manager (a key ingredient to planning and facilitating a wedding).  So we worked with the house manager to arrange the majority of the orders and deliveries, we worked directly with the florist to get flowers, we worked with the water taxi company to coordinate transportation, kept our fingers crossed that Keli would actually perform the duties we had agreed to, and relied on our friends and family to help us pull off a great two day party.
 
If youre thinking about getting married in Belize - do it!  If you want to work with a wedding planner that acts in a professional manner and treats you with respect dont consider Keli at I Do Belize Weddings.