WEDDING PLANNER *****

<p>I met with Anneke Macdonald in May of 2016 to discuss being my wedding coordinator for my November wedding in the Western Cape, South Africa. Although I have family in South Africa I am actually English, living in London so it was very important for me to find someone living and working out in South Africa so I could have a point of contact who would help advise with suppliers and coordinate them on the day of the wedding. I met Anneke Macdonald from 'It's Me on Main' after googling wedding planners in that particular part of the western cape. She seemed nice, a little bit airy fairy, but nice and enthusiastic about my upcoming wedding. We discussed a price for the job and settled on R10,000 (approx £600.00) to coordinate the wedding on the day and also to put me in contact with two suppliers (an AV hire company) and a wine company that could supply us two barrels to use as tables. Since both myself and my wife work in events we didn't see the need to have Anneke planning, designing and negotiating with suppliers as we do that sort of thing everyday as part of our jobs. We just needed help with two and someone who could coordinate the day itself.</p> <p> </p> <p>She said she wanted 50% payment upfront and the rest the week before the wedding. I promptly paid the R5,000 on my return to London and didn't resume communication until about three months before the wedding when I needed to confirm the AV (sound and DJ equipment) and the barrells from the wine dealer. And this is when we started to run into problems. Anneke stopped communicating with us. We would send emails asking for the telephone numbers of the AV hire company and / or a confirmation email from the wine cellar to confirm we could have the wine barrels - only to get, next to zero response. This went on for about two months until (three weeks before we were due to fly out to South Africa) we sorted the barrels and we sorted the AV and then wrote Anneke an email complaining about her failure to do the only two tasks she had before the wedding - provide us with a number of an AV hire company (somethnig I sorted in about 20mins) and confirmation of the barrels (5mins). </p> <p> </p> <p>She responded with a rather childish email saying that she no longer wanted the job and would we send her our bank details so she could send us back our R5,000. Long story short, the money never came, and actually it still hasn't come, despite me chasing several times! What has surfaced since then (after my mother went to the address on her invoice) is that she is no longer 'On Main' (Main is the name of the street that her office was on until she 'did a runner' from there one night without paying her rent). We were told from her previous landlord that we should just 'write off' the R5,000 as we will never get it back from her.</p> <p> </p> <p>If you come across Anneke Macdonald, DO NOT HIRE HER!!! She is a charlatan and a *****. Actually if you are unfortunate to come across this woman who masquerades as a wedding planner then ask her where my money is!!!</p>