DBY Events & Invitations

Kasey added a lot of unnecessary stress to the wedding planning process. We assumed that Done By You Invitations meant that we worked together with Kasey to come up with the final product. When we met with her to see the rough draft, we assumed that was the time to make some modifications in font choices and design. Wow were we wrong. Instead she snapped at us and scolded us during the rest of the appointment over any changes we wanted made.

The final products were so-so. For all of the stress working with her brought, it was definitely not worth it. I wish we would have either spent a little more money to go somewhere else with someone not so rude to her clients, or just made them ourselves and printed them at FedEx.

Update: Per Kasey's comment below, a full refund was offered. Unfortunately that was not the case, otherwise we gladly would have taken it.

I wish I was as organized, thorough, & knowledgeable about all things event... but I'm not... so that why I hired a professional! One of my customers, quite well-known in jewelry circles, mentioned that Kasey (the owner) , had planned her daughters' very elegant Chicago wedding for close to 300 people from all over, keeping her eye on the budget agreed upon, while fulfilling their very exacting wish list. I had seen some of the impressive photos & called Kasey to see what we she could come up with for a business anniversary VIP appreciation event, for a group of 50.

The invitations really set the perfect tone, & Kasey followed through with some wonderful ideas for decor, music, food, & all the other lovely details that I probably would not have thought of... and all tied in perfectly with the rest of our company brand & made our best customers feel appreciated, while staying right on the budget. All of us brick & mortar businesses have to compete with the internet these days, but those online businesses just can't show the love and care we have for our customers.... and as a client of dBy, I could not be more pleased with the care & professionalism that made our event so exquisite and memorable! You made me & my company look fantastic... & I will be calling you about the branding topics we discussed!!(She's not just for weddings, folks!!) Thank you, thank you, thank you!! & just WOW!!!

Kasey, we were never rude to you. If anything we complimented you on your work, thought your couture invitation was gorgeous. I never had put down your work, the craftsmanship or the detail. What I did is feed off of YOUR attitude and your tact of business. If people feel that they are being spoken to in a condescending way, of course they will feel defensive. I have worked alongside top surgeons and they have never treated me in such a way. Your claims that we were rude or belittling towards your business or your invitations are completely false and couldn't be further from the truth. You never told us about options and you did not excuse yourself from us when receiving an "emergency call". The accusations being leveled against is such as being rude to you and your business are completely untrue and make us wonder if you were talking to somebody else or have mistaken us for somebody else.

In reviewing previous reviews, it's pretty evident that we can see that we are not the only ones that feel this way about your customer service.

The only redeeming quality about this company is that the invitations themselves were beautiful. I didn't have any trouble designing or ordering the invitations when first meeting with Kasey, but problems started to arise when the invites were finished. There was delay in when they were supposed to be done, which she blamed on an employee ordering the wrong size envelopes. No problem, she added on a free return address printed on the envelope flaps. However, when the invitations finally were completed, she kept putting me off about when I could come pick them up. "Oh, I'll get back to you in 10 days." Two weeks would go by, then, "Oh, yes we'll schedule a pick up time soon." I wanted them early so that I would have plenty of time to address them, but she put me on the back burner because she thought I had "plenty of time" to get them out. But that wasn't the worst of it.

I also ordered thank you notes, which were not ready when the invitations were. This was fine, as she wasn't sure if I wanted to put a sentiment inside. I never heard another word from her as my wedding day came and then passed. A couple of weeks after the wedding, I emailed her to find out the status of the thank you notes. Kasey said she had expected me to reach out to her in August (the month of my wedding) to finalize the order info. As I was a little busy getting married in August, I didn't, but she didn't take the initiative to reach out to me! We finally got the order straightened out and she told me they would be ready in 10 days. A couple of weeks went by, and I was concerned because I again hadn't heard a peep from her. I had my husband contact her only to find out she just expected us to show up 10 days later to pick them up! Without informing us that they were actually done!

I've completely washed my hands of her at this point, and we can't get our money back. I finally went to Target and bought some beautiful thank you notes for $30 just so that I could be sure of getting them out in a reasonable amount of time. I already feel terrible that my thank you notes are going out so late. The work Kasey does is beautiful, but not worth the trouble and energy of dealing with her. Do yourself a favor and STAY AWAY!

I will start off with what people came here to find out: Kasey does beautiful work. Our invitations were stunning, and we received many compliments on how elegant they were. In the end, we got what we wanted. The path to get there however, was far from ideal

We got our Save the dates, and they were beautiful. The problem is that what she showed us as an example was 2 pieces of paper glue together to give the front and back look, instead of printing her example EXACTLY as it would be, printed front and back on one sheet of paper. She DID say that it would be only on 1 sheet of paper, but it doesn't help the customer truly understand how thin the save the date would be. We were thinking it would be a harder cardstock, but it was not. Our save the dates were flimsy. In retrospect we should known to mail them out with envelops, however we were never urged or recommended to purchase envelopes, nor were we offered any from DBY. Given she has been doing this for years, a customer should be able to trust that she would make sure the client was well aware of any issues that may arise. Well, in the end a solid 30% of our save the dates never made it to the homes they were addressed to. My own MOTHER never received hers. It was disappointing, and though we can certainly take blame for some parts, we were not properly advised by the person we were paying to help make our wedding a success. She claimed she has NEVER had that issue before.

Next we were scheduled to do our final proofing of our invitations. Now I'm not saying we need to be babied by any means, but not once did she contact me to say we needed to schedule this proofing meeting soon, or anything. Literally ANY contact I had with her was MYSELF emailing her to see where we were at, or me calling her. Not once did she try and contact me. I understand she is busy as well, but at the same time we're planning a wedding and keeping many contracts in line, and yes, dates and times slip away especially when you sign contracts so far in advance. Like I said, she shouldn't have to baby her clients either, but following up with them after they have paid so much would be nice, but I guess its a take-your-money and let the clients figure it out kind of deal.

When we finally realized that we had missed the proofing date we tried to call and schedule our proofing appointment. Basically between the 4 of us we had a very hard time scheduling a meeting-we had a nice long phone conversation with her trying to figure it out, and she was very blunt, and cut us off every time we would give a possible time to meet up. I had emailed her a few times trying to figure what to do next, when she finally emailed back and asked me to call her. In the end, I did not go to the meeting. I was unable to adhere to her schedule availability and had to work.
My mother in law got there first, my husband was running late. Kasey was in back, and refused to even come out and acknowledge my mother in law until my husband got there. They had had a bit of a disagreement on the phone when we had all spoken. Once he got there, she STILL ignored my mother in law. Wouldn't even look at her. It didn't seem like the behavior of someone who harbors very good people skills, which is something I feel should be crucial in running a business. - anyway, Kasey had printed the proofs of each piece of the invitation. rsvp sheet, general invitation, and the insert with the timeline. (we had filled out a questionnaire with the timeline times on it, and she did NOT put these times in the proofs as they were in the questionnaire) My husband and mother in law made changes, and signed off on them. They received a copy of the photo-proof contract with signatures and all changes that they had made, which they brought home for me to look at as well. They only change I wanted to add was a change in the flourish she had put on there- I wanted to see what else she had available. SO I emailed her and asked to see what else she could do- she emailed me a sheet with different options and we picked our favorite. She sent a of the page with the flourishes, and I approved THAT CHANGE.
She printed the invitations, and upon pickup they had ALL the original info on them! She said I approved it, when the only page she had sent was the page with the flourish. The timeline was all wrong, and she ignored our first contract and said it was my fault. she agreed to print for free but wanted US to buy new paper! absolutely not.

I have reached my character limit so I will sum it up:

ALWAYS KEEP A PAPER TRAIL. Use email, even though she will claim she responded EVERY time. Call her and follow up on her. Then maybe things will end well for you.

She did beautiful work, but she was a HORROR to work with. The girls she has working for her are sweet and helpful. If you are up for a challenge, choose DBY. If not, there are many places who do beautiful work with exponentially less of a headache.

Rebecca.

Kasey at DBY is fantastic! When my fiancé (now husband) and I met with Kasey she brought up so many things for the invitations that we would not have thought about. We ordered save the dates, wedding invitations, seating tents, table numbers, menus and we rented a card box. I am was a bit of a wreck through the wedding process and some of the other reviews didn't like that things weren't ready to see until last minute but Kasey always had everything ready when promised. If you order a cake they aren't going to bake it early to show you, sit back and let Kasey do her thing. She will not steal you wrong!!!!!!!

I ordered my custom invitations from DBY Invitations for my 15th anniversary vow renewal. We originally got married at city hall so this was our time for our dream wedding and it was was 'dreamy'. Kasey was AWESOME! Everything was perfect, boxed invitations, place cards, and programs all beautifully coordinated. I would show you a picture if I could. My guest could not stop raving about the invitations, they were so beautiful that they did not want to break the seal to open the invitation. They did not want to return the RSVP card because they did not want to break up the set! (too funny). I recommend DBY for all of your stationary needs and events. The family was going through a rough time; however, despite this, Kasey still managed to complete the order and the finished product was flawless.

My only complaint was the slowness to respond; however, Kasey kept me updated with the current struggles that they were experiencing and I was understanding of the situation.

I would definitely recommend DBY!

Pros: The quality turned out wonderfully. We got everything we asked for, and were very pleased with how everything turned out in the end. There were some delays along they way, but none were significant enough to become a major issue, so ultimately everything was on time. We built buffer time into our schedule (recommended in any case) so that when things did come up, we had time to get them fixed without it being a problem. We were proud of the way our invitations and save the dates looked. They did look very nice! We also had a few address changes come up after we submitted our spreadsheet to Kasey since we had a few guests move, and she did accommodate them with no complaints.

Cons: The first round of invitations that we received back did not open up the way we had specified, and they had to be redone (Kasey did fix everything). Second, there was one instance where emails were going back and forth for several days, and Kasey kept saying that she had attached a PDF for preview of a proof, but we never received any PDF. Eventually I just asked my (now) wife to call her and solve it over the phone, since it was annoying that we couldn't seem to solve it over email. Lastly, Kasey has a pretty strong personality. I would describe her as very high-energy, which some people may really like and appreciate, but I didn't care for it all that much. She definitely has a bit of sass, and I did feel talked down to at times.

If this review was solely based on the quality of the final, finished, correct product, I would have given Kasey 5 stars. But considering all aspects from start to finish, I gave it a somewhat mixed review.

Save your money!!! What a rip off. I should have listened to my wedding planner and gone through Etsy or anywhere else. The owner had the audacity to say I should have a chat with my wedding planners because of how unresponsive they were. But it all actuality, I had to have my planners bug Kasey to even respond to any of my emails. And don't believe her when she does anything complimentary (ie, the addresses for your envelopes). What a mess and I have to do them myself anyways!!! I sent Kasey an Excel document with the addresses but unbeknownst to me, the document didn't save correctly and therefore had several missing addresses. It is my belief that a competent vendor would AND SHOULD have come back and asked me if there was an error with all the missing addresses. But no, she never said one word and printed up the envelopes. Some are blank, some have only a name, and some do have addresses. And when I brought it up to Kasey, she basically blamed me and then said I didn't even have it in the format she needed. Well how about you tell your clients how you need the addresses. Moral of the story, SAVE YOUR MONEY and go elsewhere! Absolutely terrible experience.

We worked with Kasey for our wedding invitations, programs, table names, "guest book" and seating chart. Everything we received was beautiful and the guests raved about it all. We have both the seating chart and our guest sign page (complete with our own personal logo) displayed in our home. They are too pretty to stuff in a closet.