Jigsaw Events

Unfortunately, I have to agree with most of the posts here. My experience with Jigsaw events was horrendous. I will first list the strong points:
1. Vendor referrals were fantastic– all vendors were amazing and extremely professional and seemed to pick up the pieces that Kelly was not able to do herself.
2. The day of went fine and were excited that our planner showed up for the event.
Opportunities:
1. Communication is not a strong point. I found the communication to be harsh and even heartless at times. All responses to questions were not had in a timely manner.
2. Professionalism– I would agree with other posts as even when we tried to give our planner feedback she became extremely defensive and did not listen. We also found that she did not present her self appropriately on the day of the reception or the morning of the wedding. She was also late on several occassions to vendor appointments and even cancelled or told us she needed to leave early on appointments.
3. Planning– As stated in the contract as others have noted as well our planner was to review vendor payments and keep me updated on time line to pay. She however did not do this and when I asked she noted that I had it all myself. So in other words she was letting me know that I could just do it on my own. She also did not provide final contracts and payment due on several vendors until I pretty much begged for the information less than two weeks before the wedding. Once I reviewed them, I actually found that she over ordered and I needed to adjust!
I could go on, and on, citing so many different examples of poor service, lack of professionalism, and overall lack of execution. I would however just say this. Your wedding is one of the most important days of your life and my husband and I certainly did not let this ruin it, but I would absolutely not recommend the services of Jigsaw events. It did certainly seem to be cheaper than most, however if you end of doing all of the work your self why spend anything.

Hi. We had a great wedding experience with Kelley. The reception, food, table settings, music & cake were all great. Our friend’s, the bride & groom loved Kelley and her services.

I wonder if there’s been a change in how things are done since all the other reviews. My wedding was 3÷26÷10 and it came out fantastic. Kelly was a great help and I’m pleased with how everything went.
I haven’t had any problem with communication. If I sent one email or four in a day, she responded to all of them. Usually right away, and never more than 48 hours later. We usually worked via email, but I never had problems getting her on the phone if we needed to talk about something.
Re: vendors… we met our fabulous DJ through Kelly. He was amazing, and I don’t know who I would’ve found without her. Ditto with the caterer and the cake. I already had the venue when I hired Kelly, but she worked really well with everyone there. I wanted to use a photographer I found (friend of a friend), and she worked well with him too, even after we chose my guy over a couple of her recommendations. I had ups and downs with the florist (a friend of hers), primarily because the flowers were low on my priority list. It’s hard to see eye-​to-​eye with someone when they care a LOT and I don’t care much at all. Still, the flowers were beautiful and Kelly was very helpful in smoothing over my final misunderstandings with the florist. Another vendor example: we wanted the rehearsal dinner to be at a BBQ restaurant that Kelly hadn’t worked with before. Still, she tracked them down (even driving there to talk to the owner in person), negotiated a lower per-​head price for us, and people are STILL raving about how fantastic dinner was. I don’t have time to chase people down to set up agreements, but Kelly did all the legwork for us. It was the perfect start to a wedding weekend.
Re: rehearsal and day-​of: smooth. I have nothing to complain about. I sprang a complicated community ceremony reading on her a day before the rehearsal and Kelly took it in stride and organized it quite well. She ran the rehearsal with humor and grace depsite my smart-​ass wedding party cracking jokes at every opportunity and not listening. We handed over all sorts of paper products and stuff to display and she had it all in place perfectly.
Wedding day was also perfect. I hardly saw Kelly, which I think is the ideal way of working behind-​the-​scenes to make things happen. Everything was set up in plenty of time and running smoothly, so I got to enjoy talking to my guests and flowing through the evening. We talked once about extending cocktails because people were having such a good time chatting, once about signing the marriage certificate, and once at the end of the night to pack everything into cars. I can’t say enough about how perfect my wedding was.
Regarding how different my review is from the others, I wasn’t at their weddings, so I can’t say why the discrepancy. Things I learned that might help others in the future:
1. Wedding coordinators don’t make decisions for you. They set up meetings and point you towards choices you might like, but the onus of the final decision is still on you.
2. Watch your own budget. Kelly helped us, but she can’t possibly know all of my fluctuating financial circumstances. Or yours. If your wedding budget is set in stone, great. She can probably manage it. If you’re like me, where day-​to-​day considerations (need car repairs? period of unemployment?) affect how much you have available to spend (or how much you THINK you have to spend), she can’t possibly know what you attitude about money is on that particular day.
3. Big events have hurdles. I’m fortunate in that I produce events for a living, so I already know that there will be unforeseen problems, cost overages, and timelines that do not dovetail the way you want them to. I also know that all of these can be fixed. Go into it with a sense of humor, agency to make your own decisions, and the knowledge that everything is negotiable, and you will be fine.
I might score Jigsaw with 4 stars because I don’t give many 5-​star reviews. But I think the current average from 1– and 2-​star reviews is inaccurate, and I want to bump it up. You’re in fine hands with Kelly.

RUN! Run very fast. Kelly/​Jigsaw Events is a nightmare. I had nightmares about this woman and would wake up stressing because of her. I had an amazing wedding, no thanks to Kelly. Essentially I took a wad of money, put it in the toilet, and flushed it. Kelly was of no value and she was the only change I would make to my wedding. I would have fired her halfway through (knowing I’d still have to pay her the balance). Wedding planners are supposed to alleviate stress; this was the exact opposite with Kelly. She added so much stress I was in tears because of this woman. Kelly is fantastic before you sign a contract; once she has your money she is nothing but a greedy horrible woman.
1. Before I signed the contract with Kelly I asked if I could do a wedding at my venue of choice for a certain budget, she said we’d be able to have a nice wedding and would be able to take care of my priorities within this budget. She knew the entire time I had a certain amount I wanted to spend and nothing more. Kelly had no respect for this budget and just kept spending money. She then tells me «she feels there is no trust». Well of course not, she wasn’t sticking with the budget. I would have spent double my budget if I wasn’t on top of it (which defeats the purpose of having a wedding planner). This is even in her contract that she helps brides stick to the budget.
2. Takes approximately 2 weeks for Kelly to respond to emails. And when she does respond it typically does not have anything to do with what you emailed her about. My wedding was the beginning of Aug and I’m still waiting for shuttle pick-​up points and rental information. I had to take these over and deal directly with the vendors b/​c Kelly wouldn’t give me the information (even though she knew I was printing information for guests). I had to continuously go back through my sent emails to see what I was still waiting on b/​c she was so unorganized and could of cared less about her client.
3. Rentals — I asked many, many times for a revised rental order (months of asking). I finally received one a week before my wedding and there were $ 2K more charges on it than expected, we’d even chatted 2 days before and she said it was all set. There were errors on the rental order however she stated there weren’t any errors (even though I was paying labor for 335 chairs when I only have 220 chairs). It’s in her interest to charge those rentals up as high as possible.
4. Many wedding planners get discounts through vendors and most professional planners pass these discounts on to clients. Not Kelly, she just keeps charging more and more items so she gets her cut (I believe it is about 18%). I know for a fact she gets this on linens and rentals so beware and don’t trust this woman.
5. The rehearsal day Kelly showed up looking like she just came from the gym.
6. Day of wedding, I was holding out she’d do a good job, and unfortunately I wrong! I spent a lot of time on corks for seating cards, she was too lazy and decided not to put the cards in the corks and simply taped them to a table, so some guests put them on as name tags. I asked her about this and she said, well I put a sign up. I saw the sign and it was scribbled on a piece of paper (tacky). She did not keep us on schedule. She came to me at one point and said are you ready, I said I’ve been in the barn for 20 min, I’m ready, I’m just waiting for her. The lighting I wanted she claims the colors didn’t look good, but I know Kelly lies, so basically she was lazy and didn’t tell the lighting guy I wanted purple and red, not red and orange. In addition she gave away the girls bouquets and centerpieces (which I needed to return the vases to the florist she introduced me to). Lastly, she misplaced the veil and said «I never had it», but then she found it later.
7. Her attitude is atrocious, it as if I was the vendor and she was the client. She wanted to be catered to. I finally had to ask for weekly set meetings b/​c it would take a week via email to try to arrange a meeting. With these meetings she would often say sorry can’t make it and not give another alternative time. And lastly, she emailed me the day our last check was due to say she needed a cashier’s check written since she hadn’t gotten it, however she hadn’t checked her mail that day. Wouldn’t you wait to check your mail before you write a nasty email? She got the check that day, however never told me, so I asked her a few days later and she admits she got it. She was probably hoping we’d send a cashiers check too and she’d cash them both.
I am not a bridezilla. I’m pretty relaxed, organized and wanted a wedding planner to alleviate stress not add to it. Thankfully I had some other amazing vendors (whom Kelly did not introduce me to) that took pride in their work and executed it wonderfully.
Again, RUN, run very fast and NEVER hire this woman/​company. You will not be happy and she will try to ruin your wedding. I would never wish her on anyone.

The posters who have criticized Jigsaw had similar experiences to ours. The owner Kelly is a very poor communicator and very defensive when we expressed our concerns with her lack of communication.
Kelly sent her husband to our rehearsal and assured us he knew what was going on. He didn’t, and my wife basically ran the rehearsal. The only vendor we had a problem with was one she recommended.
Our location required us to use a planner, so we went with Jigsaw. We would have been better off without a planner.

My husband and I were married last summer in Calistoga. Although Kelly (of Jigsaw Events) has an eye for aesthetics, her communication skills need significant improvement. It would, on occasion, take several weeks for Kelly to respond to email inquiries and her attitude became highly defensive. Towards the end, Kelly had a rather unpleasant attitude. Lucky for us, our other vendors came through and saved the day. In the end, hiring Jigsaw events caused stress instead of alleviating it.

«CONTINUATION OF MY REVIEW»
I forgot something else, while the MC was talking right before the dinner Kelly took the mic away and said some comment like «lets get more alcohol» or something along those lines, your the coodinator you should never be on the microphone during an event and the coordinator should be incognito as much as possible. I think she said this because I remember her commenting on how drunk the guests were, as if she disapproved with it or disliked it. So what if they were drunk, its a wedding and there was an open bar. People were drunk, but they were not acting rowdy destroying the place or messing up the event in any way. Remind you most of the guests were in there late 20’s to mid 30’s and some a lot older, so it wasn’t like you had a bunch of high school or college kids running around all wild.
Oh and if your planning to get married and use «Montington Vineyards» as your venue keep in mind that having a Band or DJ as entertainment might not be suited for this place do to the noise restrictions. Imagine I only came there with a small PA system and if you were to have a band it would be 10 times louder than my system and there would be no way to lower the volume on a live band. Also the owner of the Vineyard made some of the guest feel uncomfortable because during the event he would drive around in his golf cart watching the people as if he were checking up on them and this made some of the guest feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. I know its a private property and all but there was really no reason for the owner to be out and about especially during the wedding, he was getting paid for the use of his property, at least he could’ve had the respect and decency to just leave the party alone while it was going on. This place would be perfect for a quick wedding during the early day (Noon or Lunch) without the entertainment. The place is beautiful but just be aware and do some research and ask plenty of questions before commiting to this place for your event.
All in all the guest had an awesome time and enjoyed the beautiful scenery at the venue. The party was not a trainwreck like Kelly described it, it actually went pretty well regardless of the restrictions and limitations. There were a few bumps here and there and things ran a little behind but it never ruin the final outcome of the wedding. I think Kelly could’ve done a better job if she would of had an assistant to help her out due to the size of the property. Also if she had two way radios or walkie talkies would of help especially with coordinating with me at the ceremony. Also I think she should not talk negatively about the wedding out loud even if its with a vendor (ME) just because things aren’t running to her expectations. I’m just glad no one heard her say the negative comments especially the bride and groom. She should just keep her comments to herself from now on. I think she needs to check her personality and keep it at a professional level. I’m not going to discussed or mention this to the newlyweds because I don’t want them to think badly of Kelly and Jigsaw events because they seem like they enjoyed themselves on their special day and plus they already hired her and the event is over with.

We got married last year, in September. My wife did an amazing job planning our wedding. We both have full time very demanding corporate jobs, so once that all our vendors were selected, we needed someone to take it from there and help us. We looked into several wedding planners and I have to admit that I was reluctant to pay a lot of money since to me half of the job had already been done by my wife. We met with Kelly Gistelli and she sold her services pretty good: she told us exactly what we wanted to hear and set a price tag which was half of the price of other wedding coordinators we have met.
As the wedding day approached, we were finding out that Kelly was not doing her job. Her contract said that she will review all the vendor contracts and get in touch with them, however, in different occasions we discovered that this was not happening. For example: We needed to get hold of the Band that we hire to coordinate what would be the first song, and when we asked if they have heard from our wedding coordinator the answer was NO (although we specifically ask her to do it) — and this happened with all other vendors as well. I was ready to ask her for a refund and let her go, but my wife didn’t have the time to look for another wedding planner, and we couldn’t go without one (so my wife end up doing a lot of the stuff that Kelly was suppose to be doing).
At the end, Kelly at least showed up the day of the weeding and managed to get some stuff done. I can see that not having her around would have made some other things challenging, but overall I think that she did a very lousy job with us. If it was for me, I wouldn’t have payed her the remaining balance of her services, but my wife didn’t want to drag this for more.
We had a very nice weeding and our entire guests raved about it, however, since I was part of the production I could see that there were areas that if we have had a good wedding planner would have made the whole experience and the day more memorable. There is a reason why Kelly does appeal to the cheap (like me), perhaps wedding planning is one of the things that you get what you pay for AND at least in the Wine Country, wedding planning is expensive (as everything else), so just deal with it.

I have many things to say about Jigsaw Events, but won’t say all in the interest in being professional. I hired them for full-​service wedding coordination. What I got essentially was day-​of coordination.
The wedding day went generally great, and I’m sure they played some part in making that happen (hence the two stars). Kelly also led us to a few great vendors, whom I might not have know of otherwise.
However, everything before that was another story. Communication is definitely not one of their strong points, which was immeasureably frustrating with planning the wedding from so far away. On occassion, weeks would pass before we’d hear back from her; when we did hear back, she’d be quite defensive. Her poor communication also spilled over to our vendors. They’d call/​email me with questions because they couldn’t get a hold of Kelly (wasn’t that her job??!).
My husband and I were so fed up with this unprofessionalism that I consulted with the (defense) attorneys I worked for — they heard all elements of the story, reviewed our contract as well as communications with her and advised us to «take the appropriate measures» with them. We didn’t, just more stress.
Jigsaw’s pricing for full-​service planning is much cheaper than the rest of the wedding planners’ in the Napa Valley. I think that’s for a reason — you get what you pay for… The real kicker is that Kelly could be a real pleasant and jovial person and had good ideas; she also spent time with us looking at venues and meeting with vendors. I had such a good feeling about her, at least in the beginning. There’s potential there, but it just fell short, very short.
Save yourself the headache and unnecessary stress and go elsewhere.

Kelly Gistelli was wonderful with planning our wedding. I’m an event planner so it was important that someone helped me let go! Kelly was able to match us up with the perfect vendors to match our laid back style. We got the 1920s meets clean modern wedding of our dreams. And our biggest goals were met — that our wedding day wasn’t stressful, and that EVERYONE at our wedding had a blast!