Post # 1
Member
2 posts
Wannabee
Hey all! Wondering/Announcing to anyone who will listen to please be careful when researching wedding vendors and going by the reviews on http://www.weddingwire.com….
I have recently posted a REAL review about a negative experience we had with our wedding photographer and it has been “disputed” by this photography team. I have received an email saying I will be contacted by a Wedding Wire rep to “verify” that we actually did work with these photographers and that all statements in the review were true… I have YET to be contacted by anyone from wedding wire…ironically, I had actually reached out to the website FIRST, because these photographers accused my husband and I of “stiffing” them on the final payment in a “response” to our original review, which was a 100% lie.
Although I am not completely giving up hope that my review will get re-instated on Wedding Wire.com, after doing some research, it seems this website has a habit of “verifying” any negative reviews, and these particular reviews tend to conveniently disappear… which defeats the ENTIRE purpose of having a website LIKE Wedding Wire…doesn’t it??
Post # 3
Member
77 posts
Worker bee
i’ve noticed other people complain about similar things happening on here. i’m not sure what you can do besides make a duplicate post on the boards here as a FYI-type deal, so in case your weddingwire review gets pulled, people who run a google search could still pick up your regular weddingbee post.
Post # 4
Member
245 posts
Helper bee
Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of terrible things about the wedding wire reviews. Apparently, the vendors can make any negative review disappear somehow. It makes me wonder how great any of those vendors are and if you should go with vendors with fewer stars than the ones with perfect ratings.
Post # 5
Member
858 posts
Busy bee
Personally, I think that is bad business practice. Some people will have bad experiences with vendors and other brides need to know and they have that right as well. It is incredibly unethical on anyone’s part to remove a bad review.
Projectwedding.com used to be very good about not removing the bad reviews and they were practically the only review site that followed an ethical business practice in that respect. Then WeddingWire took over and all bad reviews were removed. Use that site as a guideline with a grain of salt and then follow your gut (which is 99% correct) when you interview vendors and receive word of mouth reviews from others. It’s a shot in the dark either way, unfortunately.
Post # 6
Member
2297 posts
Buzzing bee
My understanding is that the only thing they need to “verify” is the fact that you actually used that vendor. For example, you could show them contracts, receipts, e-mails, etc. Have you had any indication that this will not be enough?
Post # 7
Member
113 posts
Blushing bee
I don’t understand why weddingwire is business if it removes the reviews of brides. I get that they want to verifiy, but they should actually do it instead of just removing the review. I’ll have to remember this when its time to do my reviews and just plan on reviews my vendors on a bunch of websites.
Post # 8
Member
313 posts
Helper bee
Ugh, that is totally obnoxious, but I certainly believe that it happens. I am suspicious of any vendor with placeholders in their review list for reviews that are being disputed. If I see that, I assume that the vendor got a bad review AND that they are the kind of pain-in-the-ass vendor that tries to remove all bad reviews.
My favorite on weddingwire is when the vendor tries to respond below every negative review with a nasty rant, and in doing it comes off as completely unprofessional. I would much rather choose a vendor with a couple of bad reviews than one who seems to slander their customers! There is a seamstress in my area who has mostly good reviews on weddingwire, and amongst those has two reviews that weren’t 100% positive. She wrote the nastiest responses to those reviews that insulted the brides and did not quite use correct grammar while doing so. I was thinking about using her, but after seeing those rants stayed far away!
Post # 9
Member
2 posts
Wannabee
Hey Everyone! I just wanted to update you and let you know that Wedding Wire has contacted me to get “proof” that we did work with the vendor I had originally posted my review about. Hopefully providing them with the contract AND the receipt of our final payment (which our photographer claimed on a national website that we DID NOT PAY) will resolve any and all “disputes” that have been going on. I agree with what everyone has said on here…and once you see “this review is being verified” under a vendor’s name…I would keep browsing!!! (Or … even worse, if they have posted their own “response” to a former client’s review… GET A LIFE!!!)
Post # 10
Member
318 posts
Helper bee
Wow, I didn’t even think of that! Who knew that negative reviews would get stalled or pulled. It does make you wonder. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Post # 11
Member
514 posts
Busy bee
Gosh, this is such helpful information. Thanks so much!
Post # 12
Member
1668 posts
Bumble bee
that’s terrible! i never knew they did that… i guess you have to be careful where you get your information from. i agree with AMikes120 that you should post your review here.
Post # 13
Member
134 posts
Blushing bee
bummer… i hired one of my vendors based on the fact that they had such excellent reviews on weddingwire and they were the only ones that had not one negative review on one other site.. so here’s hoping.. but i’m really glad you brought this out.. i hope your review goes through!
Post # 14
Member
319 posts
Helper bee
I have reviewed some, not all, of the vendors/businesses I used on Yelp. I trust yelp reviews, and it actually also does allow vendors to still respond to reviews–but I have never heard of them being pulled.
Post # 15
Member
319 posts
Helper bee
That is ridiculous! So do they hold onto positive reviews to verify that you really used the vendor? Probably not. So vendors can enter their own good reviews or have any friend or relative give them a glowing review very easily, but a person who has had a negative review has to jump through hoops to prove it. Utter nonsense & really makes me think twice about placing any stock in any online reviews 
Post # 16
Member
209 posts
Helper bee
I had the exact thing happen to us! I’m a little late on this thread, but was searching for something to post on. And most recently, I posted the same review on here as a comment (not a review) and the vendor flagged my username for spam. WeddingBee removed the post. Clearly you can tell I’m not a spammer, since I’ve posted on here since 2008!
So where can brides write an honest, but negative review. Not everyone has 100% positive experiences with vendors, and it’s important to showcase reviews from all spectrums. Obviously a vendor will dispute a negative review- but do you know the real way to make them dissapear? Don’t act in a way that will cause a negative review to be written!
Has anybody else had this happen? I’m curious if @AMIKES120 review ever was re-posted!