WH Hostess

You get one star only because that’s the lowest. This business deserves 0 stars because I received 0％ of my order! Then kelly ignored my emails and was upset when I commented on her Instagram and told her how are you posting and not responding. Finally after starting a dispute on PayPal she’s magically not busy any more and responds… Accuses me of slander which is far from true all I did was write my experience then says she’s going to refund me my money although I should receive my package that day! Which is 8 days after expected delivery but she still can’t provide me with tracking info… Long story short ms. kelly your attorney doesn’t scare me I know what slander is honey and me telling the truth about your crappy business isn’t it! So please don’t ever order from her EVERRRRR! It will just ruin your party when your items NEVER arrive.

I placed an order from the «Bows and Kitty» collection well in advance of the party we had scheduled for my grand daughter’s 3^rd birthday party last fall and had a similar experience to what Carla A. had. I ordered over $ 200 worth of party décor and fabric and didn’t receive anything. I have repeatedly written emails and tried to contact Kelly Lyden but she didn’t return my emails nor did she honor my requests for a refund. I am writing this now because I came across Carla A’s review and realized that it was not just a fluke. Kelly is apparently in the habit of doing this. I think it is shameful… especially when children are looking forward to a particular party.
Please do not order from WH Hostess. You are setting yourself (and your child) up for disappointment!

I’ve seen Kelly’s work on many of the design blogs that I follow, and never thought twice about placing an order. I am normally someone that reads reviews prior to ordering new products or services, but I was completely confident about my transaction because I felt WH Hostess had been endorsed by several websites that I trusted.
To be fair, I think this needs to be a two-​part review.
Products — Five stars. I ordered a customized birthday party invitation, food table cards, and two different types of coordinating stickers (some for the birthday favor bags for our guests, some to adorn the drinks). All of the pieces that I received were gorgeous, of the highest quality, and the invitations were printed on the thickest card stock that I’ve seen for children’s stationary. Which is what makes me so annoyed about the next part of my review…
Customer Service — Zero stars. When I first placed my order online, all of the customization details that I had typed into her website disappeared at checkout. Since I was not at home, and didn’t feel like typing all of those details into my iphone again, I went ahead and placed the order with a note, then sent in all my details the following morning (which was a Monday). I read that the order wouldn’t arrive for two weeks, which I thought was kind of long, but can’t really complain about since I knew that upfront. I was emailed a generic order confirmation, but never received any acknowledgement that my customized information was received. After about 10 days, with no correspondence from WH Hostess about my order shipping (to arrive within the 2 week deadline), I followed up.
I received a response that my order would ship the next day, and I asked (and received) a tracking number. Items arrived, very beautiful… just one problem, I was missing one sheet of stickers for my favor bags for the party guests. I sent a thank you email for the beautiful goods, pointed out that I was missing twelve stickers, but that it wasn’t a big deal, since there was plenty of time for them to send out a second order to me as the party was three weeks away. No response.
Over the next few weeks, I sent three more emails to the different email addresses that I had for Kelly (gleaned from her website), on the off-​chance that she was having technological problems. Never a response back, an apology, or a note saying that they had refunded me the money I paid for items I didn’t receive.
I’m really annoyed because I like her work so much, and if she had handled the order appropriately, I would have continued to use her site for both of my children’s birthday and holiday parties for the future. I also would have given her website out to the several party guests that commented on how cute the invitations were.
Sadly, I cannot recommend this business. After having such wonderful customer service experiences with Minted, Etsy, etc for paper goods, I was quite frankly shocked at WH Hostess’ disregard for the customer. If you have people like me that love parties, love planning every detail, and are willing to spend money to have those parties, you should realize that they expect every detail to be as gorgeous as planned. The day before the party I was scrambling to find a coordinating sticker to adorn on the other half of the guest favor bags… and yes, I realize that it’s just a kid’s birthday party, and this little detail didn’t matter to anyone but me in the slightest! BUT… I’m the type of Mom that her site caters to, so some Business 101 is in order!

My little girl just adores Elmo so when I was planning her 1^st birthday, I wanted to make it girly with polka dots, chevron print and pops of Elmo everywhere. I didn’t want the whole sesame street birthday you see everywhere in stores. I wanted more of a «Modern Elmo» concept for her party so when I came across the girly elmo design the WH Hostess carried I was so excited that it was exactly what I was looking for!
The birthday party was on Saturday April 20^th, I ordered the items from WH Hostess on April 4^th (over 2 weeks before her party). I ordered elmo stickers to stick on her lollipop favors and to stick on kids party hats, a big round happy birthday sign with elmo on it, food tent cards and a sign for my dessert table. All of these items to me were the icing on the cake to tie everything together for her birthday. They were all personalized with her name, age, along with the signature drinks names and food names for the party. When you place your order you also put when you need the items by, which I did.
It was the Monday before the party (⁴⁄₁₅) and I have not received anything from WH Hostess saying that my order is shipped so I sent a follow up email to check status (If their was a phone number on her website or order confirmation I would have called but their was only an email address), reminded her that the party was on Saturday. I told her if I needed to pay for expedited shipping, please let me know. She responded with your order is due to ship out tomorrow.(I’m thinking tomorrow? that would be Tuesday, that’s cutting it pretty close!) She asked what day is the party, and said standard shipping takes 2 – 3 days and I should have it by Friday at the very latest. Just let me know so you can receive it on time. I sent her 2 emails after that just to make sure she received and told her when it was and told her I wanted to pay for expedited shipping just so I get it on time and I got no response.
Well Friday came along and after a long day of getting ready for the party, I come home excited for my girly elmo goodies, and there was no package that was promised. I emailed Kelly, the WH Hostess, that night when I came home telling her how upset and disappointed I was especially since I told her earlier in the week I would pay more just to expedite it. I told her I deserved my money back. Again, no response, nothing. How do you run a business and not get back to your clients? So unprofessional! It’s Thursday May 2^nd and I still never got the package! I called my bank to get my money back since she never got back to me. Don’t waste your money you won’t get a response or your items.