7 reasons you should NOT hire Tropical Occasions (especially if your wedding is during the high season) 1)If you’re looking for attention from your wedding coordinator, Tropical Occasions will not have time for you, especially during high season 2)They will push the most expensive vendors 3)They will rip you off 4)On the day of your wedding they may show up late 5)On the day of your wedding, the “coordinating team†will not know your schedule 6)If something goes wrong, they will blame you and your guests 7)Even if they admit to their mistake and promise a refund, you will never see the money 1)If you’re looking for attention from your wedding coordinator, Tropical Occasions will not have time for you, especially during high season Maybe these people used to be good, however, now your wedding will not get the attention it or you deserve unless you don’t care about how much it costs. The owner lives in Colorado and only visits Costa Rica for the over the top large weddings. For those of us, who were looking for an intimate small wedding (isn’t that what destination weddings are all about - mine was 30 people), the owner, Aimee Monihan will give you one phone call to “design†your wedding from afar and Karen Ogden, her coordinator in Manuel Antonio, on the ground in Costa Rica will “arrange†it. When I was planning my wedding, I was in the middle of a big project at work as well as looking for a job, so that my then fiancé and I could eliminate the long distance between us after the wedding. So as I was interviewing wedding planners in Costa Rica, I was looking for someone professional to step in and take the lead. Aimee assured me that “they will be managing†the process. The promise was a lie. If I didn’t hunt them down for every detail, my wedding would have been completely cookie cutter. For something like that, I could have gone to any large resort with those 3 option wedding menus, and paid a fraction of what I paid Tropical Occasions. I had to keep emailing and calling, and was lucky if I was able to get the “coordinator†on the phone once every couple of weeks. They told me they did not have time for phone calls due to other weddings of the high season and to use email for any correspondence. However, even through email, any time anything was promised to me by “end of the weekâ€, I would not receive until the following Tuesday. They would also routinely lose my emails. The following answers were given on multiple occasions: “sorry your email went to my spam box†or “my server crashedâ€. If I’m a client, why wouldn’t they put me on the list of trusted emails? And while the server excuse would have made sense for Costa Rica, given that this excuse was given by Aimee Monihan, the owner in Colorado, it is just unacceptable. But at the end of the day, this was my small wedding, so I hunted them down or patiently waited for their responses. 2)They will push the most expensive vendors Tropical Occasions will push the most expensive vendors on you. Until about 3 weeks before the wedding they were pushing a caterer on me that would charge $1,700 fee just for catering outside of their own facility. That would have made a $107 per person plate cost. The excuse was there was nothing else local in Manuel Antonio. In Manuel Antonio? Really? All I wanted was buffet style meal for 30 people that represented the local cuisine. No filet mignon, no shell fish, no special food to be imported, nothing extraordinary. Only after I started to finally yell and calling the owner, did miraculously three local caterers appear. One of whom we hired at $37 a plate and the food was absolutely fantastic! After arriving to Manuel Antonio, it was obvious that the vendors they chose either gave Tropical Occasions the best kick back or they were friends with the planners. 3)They will rip you off Tropical Occasions DO NOT have your best interest in mind. After talking to people around town, one thing was clear, Tropical Occasions is very good at ripping people off. I strongly believe that since you pay Tropical Occasions, not the vendor, they skim off the top to rip you off. One example I have, is that we hired two locals to help cut down bamboo for our Chuppah/Alter. Tropical Occasions found them for us (one of them was the coordinator’s brother-in-law) and I pre-paid $40 for their work for couple of hours. When we met these guys they were not paid, so we had to pay on the spot and they expected much less. While I understand that possibly they were supposed to get paid later, we did inform the “coordinatorâ€, but the money was never returned to us. The problem here is not the $40. It’s not that much and the guys were great, so I would have paid them the $80, but I doubt they saw that $80 and I don’t know where else Tropical Occasion skimmed off the top some more. Tropical Occasions is very good at finding a way to charge you extra. For our wedding, we rented a beautiful large villa/house for the week and wedding festivities. 22 of my 30 guest were staying there with us. The celebration was on the roof top and I wanted a few paper lantern lights hung up for the dancing at night. The coordinator told us exactly what kind to buy and where. I brought them with me from US, since these were hard to find in Costa Rica. However, the coordinator refused to let us hang this up ourselves and charged us $150 for the convenience and to guarantee that it’s “done rightâ€. Let me just mention that half of my guests were various types of engineers. So hanging up a few battery-powered lights should not have been a problem. Regardless, I went along with this. Still before we turned over the lights to the coordinator to be hung up, they were all checked for proper working and battery life by my farther, the electrical engineer, and best man, the physicist. However, on the wedding day, as we entered as the new husband and wife, we realized that half the lights were turned off and my new husband and family had to try to get them turned back on. What did we pay the $150 for? Evidence of where they ripped us off, is that the budget of details would never add up. It was difficult to get them on the phone for explanations. There were multiple unclear charges and multiple “math†mistakes which seem to always work in their favor. Even if those were honest mistakes, they definitely showed lack of attention to detail. In the end I even received a final invoice with my numbers, but another client’s name at the top. At every chance they get, Tropical Occasions will find a way to make more money from you without actually doing any work – on top of a lavish planning fee. 4)On the day of your wedding they may show up late On the day of my wedding I was promised a team: the main coordinator, Karen Ogden, and two others to assist. True they all showed up, but the assistance was completely useless. The main coordinator was late (although for a valid reason of a sick child), but that set the whole day behind. Given my ceremony was planned on the beach right before sunset; the delay meant no daylight for half of my wedding. After my ceremony, according to a Jewish tradition we were supposed to have a moment alone, I’m not very religious, so the “moment†was set up in the garden where we could still see all our guests. The coordinators were supposed to get us after a few minutes for pictures on the beach. However, they completely forgot about us. We were kept too long in the garden and by the time we got to the beach, the sun was gone. So much for my childhood dream of wedding pictures on the beach – the whole reason I wanted a destination wedding in the first place. I’m now an owner of wedding family pictures with a black background instead of the beach, which I could have gotten done in my living room. 5)On the day of your wedding, the “coordinating team†will not know about your wedding schedule. It was obvious that the coordinating assistants had no clue of what was going on. It was as if they had never done a wedding before. For example, on the day before the wedding, during the rehearsal, I asked one of them where I was to go and they spent a few minutes looking for me in their binder. In addition, the day before the wedding, I was contacted by my photographer, requesting the schedule for the big day. According to the coordinators they were taking care of all that, yet, at 7am on the day of my wedding I was emailing the schedule to the photographer because he didn’t know where to show up. This is not as bad, as the fact that the main coordinator actually left my wedding without telling anyone. She had a sick child, so I completely understand – I would have done the same (with a warning to someone). The assistant team was clueless. After the ceremony, the schedule completely fell apart. We had arranged a slide show of our pictures to be shown in one of the rooms of the house. Yet, it took a ridiculous amount of time to get 30 guests there because they were not told where to go. After the slide show, my guests stood around near the dining table, because they weren’t sure if it was ok to seat. Given the delay in schedule and all the confusion, the “coordinating team†told the caterers to stop grilling, so even after everyone was finally seated, we were informed that the food was not ready. Once finally served, some of my guests were asking me if the meal was vegetarian b/c they weren’t served the fish/meat. It turns out, since the caterer was told to stop grilling, half of the people didn’t get served the main course. Finally once the dinner and toasts were done, we sat there looking at my so called “coordinator team†to figure out how and when we can cut the wedding cake. The coordinators were actually asking me, the bride, on what I would like to do next. After the ceremony, my husband and I had to step-in and run our own wedding. The people that we paid ridiculous amounts of money to organize our wedding were completely useless. The wedding was a disaster from a coordination point of view. 6)If something goes wrong, they will blame you and your guests After the wedding, I felt that I should discuss all this with the owner and the coordinator. Aimee Honihan, the owner, admitted that some things went wrong. However, she stated (from Colorado) that the reason for coordination issues for my wedding (in Costa Rica) is mainly due to my guests being “difficult to deal withâ€. Again, I had 30 guests. If Tropical Occasions can’t manage to inform 30 people of where they should be, or when it’s ok to be seated for dinner, how do they manage larger weddings? 7)Even if they admit to their mistake and promise a refund, you will never see the money Even after insulting my close family and friends group of 30, Aimee admitted that I deserved a better team to coordinate the big day. She also admitted that I deserved to get a refund of the wedding fee. It has now been a few months, and I have not seen a penny. She does not return my emails. Finally… We made the best of that day and given my persistence and my loving family it was still a special and beautiful day. As we all hear, there are always things that could go wrong during the wedding day, but if you want to minimize those things and avoid getting ripped off, DO NOT HIRE Aimee Monihan and Tropical Occasions.
7 reasons you should NOT hire Tropical Occasions (especially if your wedding is during the high season) 1)If you’re looking for attention from your wedding coordinator, Tropical Occasions will not have time for you, especially during high season 2)They will push the most expensive vendors 3)They will rip you off 4)On the day of your wedding they may show up late 5)On the day of your wedding, the “coordinating team†will not know your schedule 6)If something goes wrong, they will blame you and your guests 7)Even if they admit to their mistake and promise a refund, you will never see the money 1)If you’re looking for attention from your wedding coordinator, Tropical Occasions will not have time for you, especially during high season Maybe these people used to be good, however, now your wedding will not get the attention it or you deserve unless you don’t care about how much it costs. The owner lives in Colorado and only visits Costa Rica for the over the top large weddings. For those of us, who were looking for an intimate small wedding (isn’t that what destination weddings are all about - mine was 30 people), the owner, Aimee Monihan will give you one phone call to “design†your wedding from afar and Karen Ogden, her coordinator in Manuel Antonio, on the ground in Costa Rica will “arrange†it. When I was planning my wedding, I was in the middle of a big project at work as well as looking for a job, so that my then fiancé and I could eliminate the long distance between us after the wedding. So as I was interviewing wedding planners in Costa Rica, I was looking for someone professional to step in and take the lead. Aimee assured me that “they will be managing†the process. The promise was a lie. If I didn’t hunt them down for every detail, my wedding would have been completely cookie cutter. For something like that, I could have gone to any large resort with those 3 option wedding menus, and paid a fraction of what I paid Tropical Occasions. I had to keep emailing and calling, and was lucky if I was able to get the “coordinator†on the phone once every couple of weeks. They told me they did not have time for phone calls due to other weddings of the high season and to use email for any correspondence. However, even through email, any time anything was promised to me by “end of the weekâ€, I would not receive until the following Tuesday. They would also routinely lose my emails. The following answers were given on multiple occasions: “sorry your email went to my spam box†or “my server crashedâ€. If I’m a client, why wouldn’t they put me on the list of trusted emails? And while the server excuse would have made sense for Costa Rica, given that this excuse was given by Aimee Monihan, the owner in Colorado, it is just unacceptable. But at the end of the day, this was my small wedding, so I hunted them down or patiently waited for their responses. 2)They will push the most expensive vendors Tropical Occasions will push the most expensive vendors on you. Until about 3 weeks before the wedding they were pushing a caterer on me that would charge $1,700 fee just for catering outside of their own facility. That would have made a $107 per person plate cost. The excuse was there was nothing else local in Manuel Antonio. In Manuel Antonio? Really? All I wanted was buffet style meal for 30 people that represented the local cuisine. No filet mignon, no shell fish, no special food to be imported, nothing extraordinary. Only after I started to finally yell and calling the owner, did miraculously three local caterers appear. One of whom we hired at $37 a plate and the food was absolutely fantastic! After arriving to Manuel Antonio, it was obvious that the vendors they chose either gave Tropical Occasions the best kick back or they were friends with the planners. 3)They will rip you off Tropical Occasions DO NOT have your best interest in mind. After talking to people around town, one thing was clear, Tropical Occasions is very good at ripping people off. I strongly believe that since you pay Tropical Occasions, not the vendor, they skim off the top to rip you off. One example I have, is that we hired two locals to help cut down bamboo for our Chuppah/Alter. Tropical Occasions found them for us (one of them was the coordinator’s brother-in-law) and I pre-paid $40 for their work for couple of hours. When we met these guys they were not paid, so we had to pay on the spot and they expected much less. While I understand that possibly they were supposed to get paid later, we did inform the “coordinatorâ€, but the money was never returned to us. The problem here is not the $40. It’s not that much and the guys were great, so I would have paid them the $80, but I doubt they saw that $80 and I don’t know where else Tropical Occasion skimmed off the top some more. Tropical Occasions is very good at finding a way to charge you extra. For our wedding, we rented a beautiful large villa/house for the week and wedding festivities. 22 of my 30 guest were staying there with us. The celebration was on the roof top and I wanted a few paper lantern lights hung up for the dancing at night. The coordinator told us exactly what kind to buy and where. I brought them with me from US, since these were hard to find in Costa Rica. However, the coordinator refused to let us hang this up ourselves and charged us $150 for the convenience and to guarantee that it’s “done rightâ€. Let me just mention that half of my guests were various types of engineers. So hanging up a few battery-powered lights should not have been a problem. Regardless, I went along with this. Still before we turned over the lights to the coordinator to be hung up, they were all checked for proper working and battery life by my farther, the electrical engineer, and best man, the physicist. However, on the wedding day, as we entered as the new husband and wife, we realized that half the lights were turned off and my new husband and family had to try to get them turned back on. What did we pay the $150 for? Evidence of where they ripped us off, is that the budget of details would never add up. It was difficult to get them on the phone for explanations. There were multiple unclear charges and multiple “math†mistakes which seem to always work in their favor. Even if those were honest mistakes, they definitely showed lack of attention to detail. In the end I even received a final invoice with my numbers, but another client’s name at the top. At every chance they get, Tropical Occasions will find a way to make more money from you without actually doing any work – on top of a lavish planning fee. 4)On the day of your wedding they may show up late On the day of my wedding I was promised a team: the main coordinator, Karen Ogden, and two others to assist. True they all showed up, but the assistance was completely useless. The main coordinator was late (although for a valid reason of a sick child), but that set the whole day behind. Given my ceremony was planned on the beach right before sunset; the delay meant no daylight for half of my wedding. After my ceremony, according to a Jewish tradition we were supposed to have a moment alone, I’m not very religious, so the “moment†was set up in the garden where we could still see all our guests. The coordinators were supposed to get us after a few minutes for pictures on the beach. However, they completely forgot about us. We were kept too long in the garden and by the time we got to the beach, the sun was gone. So much for my childhood dream of wedding pictures on the beach – the whole reason I wanted a destination wedding in the first place. I’m now an owner of wedding family pictures with a black background instead of the beach, which I could have gotten done in my living room. 5)On the day of your wedding, the “coordinating team†will not know about your wedding schedule. It was obvious that the coordinating assistants had no clue of what was going on. It was as if they had never done a wedding before. For example, on the day before the wedding, during the rehearsal, I asked one of them where I was to go and they spent a few minutes looking for me in their binder. In addition, the day before the wedding, I was contacted by my photographer, requesting the schedule for the big day. According to the coordinators they were taking care of all that, yet, at 7am on the day of my wedding I was emailing the schedule to the photographer because he didn’t know where to show up. This is not as bad, as the fact that the main coordinator actually left my wedding without telling anyone. She had a sick child, so I completely understand – I would have done the same (with a warning to someone). The assistant team was clueless. After the ceremony, the schedule completely fell apart. We had arranged a slide show of our pictures to be shown in one of the rooms of the house. Yet, it took a ridiculous amount of time to get 30 guests there because they were not told where to go. After the slide show, my guests stood around near the dining table, because they weren’t sure if it was ok to seat. Given the delay in schedule and all the confusion, the “coordinating team†told the caterers to stop grilling, so even after everyone was finally seated, we were informed that the food was not ready. Once finally served, some of my guests were asking me if the meal was vegetarian b/c they weren’t served the fish/meat. It turns out, since the caterer was told to stop grilling, half of the people didn’t get served the main course. Finally once the dinner and toasts were done, we sat there looking at my so called “coordinator team†to figure out how and when we can cut the wedding cake. The coordinators were actually asking me, the bride, on what I would like to do next. After the ceremony, my husband and I had to step-in and run our own wedding. The people that we paid ridiculous amounts of money to organize our wedding were completely useless. The wedding was a disaster from a coordination point of view. 6)If something goes wrong, they will blame you and your guests After the wedding, I felt that I should discuss all this with the owner and the coordinator. Aimee Honihan, the owner, admitted that some things went wrong. However, she stated (from Colorado) that the reason for coordination issues for my wedding (in Costa Rica) is mainly due to my guests being “difficult to deal withâ€. Again, I had 30 guests. If Tropical Occasions can’t manage to inform 30 people of where they should be, or when it’s ok to be seated for dinner, how do they manage larger weddings? 7)Even if they admit to their mistake and promise a refund, you will never see the money Even after insulting my close family and friends group of 30, Aimee admitted that I deserved a better team to coordinate the big day. She also admitted that I deserved to get a refund of the wedding fee. It has now been a few months, and I have not seen a penny. She does not return my emails. Finally… We made the best of that day and given my persistence and my loving family it was still a special and beautiful day. As we all hear, there are always things that could go wrong during the wedding day, but if you want to minimize those things and avoid getting ripped off, DO NOT HIRE Aimee Monihan and Tropical Occasions.