Yanni Design Studio

This is a mid-​stream review hoping for improved performance.
We have been underwhelmed by the service thus far relative to the initial sales pitch. Hopefully the final product will live up to the original promises.
While planning our daughter’s wedding, my wife and daughter were so energized by Yanni and excited by the ideation stage. But later after we committed and paid several installments, we experienced persistent up-​selling and inconsistencies relative to our originally stated desires. When we expressed our concerns about the fall-​off in attitude and service, we received no sincere attempt to rectify the situation, and references to our contract by his assistant. This is NOT a sign of a serious commitment to stellar customer service.
My daughter’s wedding is July 23^rd. Hopefully Yanni and his team will turn our experience around and improve the situation. I would love to follow up this lukewarm interim review with an updated five star review exalting Yanni and his team for their ability to deliver the «Wow» he originally promised.

We worked with Yanni Design Studio and their designer Shari for our ⁵⁄₁₅ wedding. Everything looked unbelievable and we are extremely happy with the end result. Shari was very easy to work with; she is kind, creative and pays attention to detail. We highly recommend Shari and the Yanni Design Studio team.
Astrid & Dino

If you are looking for that «WOW» factor for your wedding Yanni Design is
the place to use! Yanni and his staff are so creative, unique, and amazing!
When you see everything come together at your venue… it takes your breath
away!!! Highly Highly recommend them!

They made my wedding look absolutely stunning. 3 years later, I still get compliments. Their customer service isn’t the greatest and you’re going to spend a lot of money, but it’s so worth it. I couldn’t believe how beautiful my wedding turned out, it was better than I even imagined.

This company excels in creating and designing a beautiful wedding experience.
They are creative, unique, and will offer you a magical experience from the very first time you meet with them. Sylwia is great to work with. She is very organized and keeps the birde/​groom on track up until the day of the wedding.
Overall, a very highly recommended company to work with.

From the very beginning, we had a wonderful experience with Yanni Design Studio. I can not say enough good things. We used them for our wedding on ¹²⁄₂₀ at a venue Yanni does not commonly work at. Our first meeting was so exciting and full of great ideas that I felt excited my whole way home and knew I wanted to work with Yanni and his team. Yanni helped to transform a venue that was not at its best. His team, including Stephanie, made the place stunning the actual day of our wedding. I could not even imagine it would look the way it did. They improvised a bit day of and made it even more beautiful than we originally talked about. We received countless compliments on the décor and some people did not even realize our ceremony and reception were in the same room after the team flipped it from the ceremony to reception. Overall, Yanni Designs is VERY organized, on time, professional and just all around great! Working with them was a pleasure and they are truly talented. I HIGHLY recommend Yanni Design Studio for any event. This was my favorite part of the wedding and was not disappointed. They are worth every penny! Thank you to Yanni, Stephanie, Char and the production team!

I cannot say enough about Yanni Design! We worked with Shari for our July 2014 wedding, and the flowers and room design transformed both our church and wedding venue into a breathtaking romantic garden. I am still getting compliments on how exquisite the centerpieces and bouquets were. In addition 3 different centerpieces motifs and the bridal party bouquets, we reused reception flowers for the church, decorated the pews of our church, draped our entire ballroom reception venue (which they had never done before), had room uplighting, and had a cake topper and floral detailing created for the cake– all of which were flawless. Yanni Design is extremely professional and accommodating when it comes to scheduling and working within your budget. Shari was always upfront with cost differences and ways to get a similar look while saving a bit of a money. A week before the wedding she even threw in a few wired single flowers as hair pieces for my flower girls for free! In addition to the fantastic results, the single most remarkable thing to me was Shari’s artistic ability with flowers. She was able to create a beautiful experience for us off of my very loose ideas of what I wanted. I literally told her some things I didn’t want, have her a few adjectives describing what I was going for, and gave her a collection of Pinterest photos of bouquets I liked. That’s it: I didn’t even give her any names of flowers or specific colors, and she blew us away with the entire design scheme. I was simply amazed with the result. We are recommending Yanni Design to all our friends getting married. You can’t go wrong if you chose them – you will not be disappointed!

I worked with Yanni’s Design Studio for my wedding three years ago and I am extremely pleased with the outcome of the venue I had my wedding at.

We used Yanni for our ⁶⁄₂₁ wedding at the Palmer House. His team exceeded my expectations in creating a wedding fantasy of beautiful flowers. Everything was extremely professional and all of the workers did an amazing job converting our beautiful chuppah into an amazing reception room. It seriously looked like it was a movie or fancy magazine.
I would say that when you go in to talk with Yanni you have to know what you want and have good pictures. They have a distinctive style they will default to if you are not absolutely clear with what you want. For example, my own bouquet was not quite what I wanted… the flowers were tightly packed in together like a ball and I had explicitly stated I did not want that. However, it was a tiny detail in an otherwise absolutely gorgeous day.
Also– shlepping out to Wheeling when your wedding is downtown is really annoying especially if you have to deal with after work traffic. Each appointment ended up taking us about 4 – 5 hours including traffic/​commute from downtown.

We used Yanni Design Studio for our ceremony and reception décor and the Belvedere Events and Banquets. See that gorgeous bouquet in my profile pic? Yup that was Yanni. The ceremony was so beautiful! The lighting and the canopy was perfect. We still receive compliments a year later. Thanks Yanni :) They are pricy but it was so worth it!

I worked with Yanni and his designer Katie, for my June 7^th wedding and I was blown away by the beauty they created!
I walked into the initial meeting not knowing exactly what I wanted, but after brainstorming and looking through photos, Yanni knew exactly what I was looking for. The outcome surpassed my expectations!
Working with Katie was great– she was very accommodating to all of my many requests and on top of things!
Day of: Flowers arrived as scheduled and everything from the custom birch-​wood Chuppah, to decorated gift holder bird cage, to centerpieces and up-​lighting were incredible. I loved my bouquet and bridesmaids loved theirs. Very fresh flowers.
I know his cost might be higher than some, but honestly, the piece of mind knowing I was going to have a beautiful decorated event was well worth it!
HIGHLY RECOMMEND Yanni and his team!

We had a very poor experience with Yanni’s business practice and their customer service. We paid Yanni everything upfront and an entire year prior to our wedding date. Then it was 3 weeks until our wedding when they called and said that they were understaffed and required an extra $ 500.00 or else we could get another vendor to do our wedding. Which I’m sure you know, at 3 weeks it’s too late to find someone else to design your wedding. This pretty much forces you to cough up the extra $$$. Apparently what they do is quote the venue and what you request to be done, then the design team /​management doesn’t look at anything until its 3 weeks from your reserved wedding date. To me this is very poor business practice, because if anything needs to be changed or additional charges arise you will be hit with these charges right before your wedding and I’m sure you can imagine that this is the worst time to have to deal with such things. Also, the customer service we received throughout this was poor and they came off as arrogant. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I would have NOT hired Yanni and searched for another design studio.

I recently got married and used YDS for a majority of my wedding needs. Their services exceeded my expectations! YDS listened to all of my requests and created a true fairy tale wedding. Our guests are still in awe of how beautiful the décor, flowers, lighting, etc was. I would highly recommend YDS to any bride!
Sincerely,
Kimberly Merz

Even though the flowers turned out beautifully, the process of getting us there was far from pleasant. We felt that Yanni and his assistant Kati tried to deliver the least and charge the most. It took a lot of work and back and force negotiations to finally get the results we wanted.

Like an earlier post said. If you are not going to spend more than 5,000 don’t bother. We had multiple issues with them. Our budget was actually 7,000 and we were willing to go higher. They kept reminding me how good their customer service is… Char told me «we usually work with people who have a much higher budget than you.» Ok. Apparently 7,000 to 8,000 isn’t enough. «Customer service» should be replaced by «arrogance». Just know your budget and you’ll be ok. Of all the vendors we talked to from hotels, photographers, dj’s, florists, limos, etc. they were the worst customer service hands down. I honestly have never posted a review of anyone but after dealing with Char felt it necessary.
The funny part is we are getting married at a hotel downtown and they gave us a price list for Yanni. The range of pricing was from 3,000 to 10,000. So when we picked the 7,000 package thought we were good. Then Yanni didn’t honor their own 7,000 contract with them.

I originally discovered Yanni Design Studio’s beautiful work from a bridal magazine. I immediately felt comfortable with Tara when I told her all of our ideas for the reception. We brainstormed together and came up with the most incredible centerpieces I could have imagined. The flowers were everything she had promised. Fresh, full, simply beautiful. Tara and her team also created a canope over the dance floor with 75 hanging blue and white mason jars with votives in them. I wish Tara could have seen my reaction when I walked in for the first time! It was so, so beautiful. Our wedding was 6 months ago and I’m still hearing how gorgeous the décor was. I owe it all to Yanni! I would recommend them a million times over. They are professional, caring, creative and talented. I can’t thank them enough!

Shari is great, ask for her. She’s a do-​er. She’s always super friendly and works with your budget. I really didnt care for a lot of the details so she told me where I can save, and where I should def spend to enhance the hall. She was right.
Be careful though, they tell you that the flowers for the bride is starting $ 250… I paid $ 150. AND IT WAS HUGE AND HEAVY!
Another tip :) Put the nicer center pieces near the dance floor (where all your pictures will be taken throughout the night)
One more! In the church, you don’t need flowers for every single pew… do the first few (again, where your pictures will be).

If I could give Yanni 10 stars, I would do so in a heartbeat. Yanni Design Studio is by far the best wedding florist in the Chicago area. I would highly highly highly recommend Yanni’s work for any special event or celebration.
We were lucky enough to have vendors that did an amazing job with our vision for the wedding. However, Yanni went above and beyond what he was asked to do. Initially, I took pictures to Yanni’s office and basically said «Copy these flowers». Yanni put together a sample, and I returned with my family to see the sample. The sample was even more beautiful than the pictures I had fallen in love with. The other 6 people that were there with me that day were also amazed at how beautiful the sample was.
Fast forward four months, on our wedding day, I thought I knew what flowers and centerpieces I was going to receive. I was wrong. The centerpieces on the day of the wedding were many times prettier than the sample centerpiece we had seen a few months ealier. Each flower was perfect and arranged by hand. The hanging crystals were tastefully done. And my bouquet? OMG. I miss it everyday. The bridesmaids’ bouquets were also gorgeous and matched the décor of the wedding. EVERYTHING WAS STUNNING. I cannot think of anything that Yanni did not do perfectly.
I never realized how important flowers are to a wedding, but we still get compliments on the flowers. We had many guests tell us, and continue to tell us, that it was the classiest and most beautiful wedding they had ever been to. I am sure that’s because of the amazing job that Yanni Design Studio did with the décor of the room.
Yanni is definitely worth the price, and if you book him, you will not be disappointed.

From the Bride’s perspective:
I was able to work with Tara during my wedding planning journey and she was phenomenal! I came into her with some ideas of what I wanted, but more so with the «feeling» that I wanted the room to have. She was so intuitive and she listened so well that she captured everything by time we saw our first demo! I was able to communicate with her via email, which I loved. Tara was flexible with last minute changes I wanted to make and did not judge me for making them. The best part is that she was able to stay within my budget! She took it upon herself to jam pack as much as she could into the décor without spending all of my pennies.
I would highly recommend working with Yanni Design Studios. It’s been a month since our wedding and people are STILL reaching out to us to tell us how beautiful everything was!

We chose Yanni design as our decorator for our wedding and made the best choice of our wedding :) Yanni was very helpful in helping us choose the perfect centerpieces that suited our tastes and budget and was there to answer any/​all of our questions. The huppah looked absolutely incredible and the centerpieces were just breathtaking, the orchids were beautiful, the candles made the atmosphere, we could not be more happy with the way everything turned out. There was a little mixup on the day of the wedding with the color of the centerpieces, but Yanni came to the rescue before any of the guests arrived and everything was perfect. Mistakes happen all the time, but a real professional is the one who makes those mistakes dissapear. We will reccomend Yanni to all our family and friends, because people could not stop talking about how beautiful everything looked. Yanni deserves 5++!