JM2015

Booking the Cars & Prior to Our Wedding
My husband and I booked Pure Limousines for our wedding transportation. Our wedding involved getting ready in both Shellharbour and Sydney, with the wedding in Sydney. We went to Pure Limousines looking to book two limousines for the day one for the groom/groomsmen in Shellharbour and the other for the bridesmaids in Sydney, in addition to the bride/bride's father's car and a getaway car. At the time of booking, the owner convinced us that two limousines were unnecessary. We took her advice and booked just the one limousine to pick up the groom & groomsmen from Shellharbour, drop them at the church in Sydney, then go pick up the bridesmaids in the same limousine and drop them at the church also.

At the time of paying the deposit to secure Pure Limousine's services for the day, as a client, you must complete a Job Sheet. This Job Sheet itemises all the details for your wedding day including: the date, the bride's address and contact details, the groom's address and contact details, the number of bridesmaids and groomsmen, which cars are being hired, the number of hours the cars are being hired for, the pick-up times, the church address and time, the reception address and time, the getaway car details, the cost of hiring the cars, payment information and any additional comments. We completed all of the information required and emailed it back to Pure Limousines.

Two and a half weeks prior to our wedding date, the owner contacted me to finalise the information on the Job Sheet and organise our final payment. The owner was going on holidays and wanted to get all the weddings for my particular wedding weekend organised in advance, I was happy to oblige. I revised our initial Job Sheet and made changes to the bride's pick up address (I had moved houses), corrected the street number of our reception venue (our venue has three different street numbers for their venues along the same street in Riverwood) and I added some additional contact details should there be any questions or problems. Subsequently, I emailed our final Job Sheet to Pure Limousines, pointing out the key changes that had been made, the main change being the bride's pick-up address. I also advised Pure Limousines that the final payment had been made. The owner responded to that email with a simple “Thanks”. This demonstrated to me that Pure Limousines were aware of all the important information regarding our wedding day and would make the necessary arrangements from their end.

Our Wedding Day
Basically, several pieces of important information detailed on the Job Sheet were completely disregarded on our wedding day. It started with the driver of the sedan which was for the bride/bride's father showing up at bride's former pick-up address instead of my current pick-up address as per the final Job Sheet. This was the first incorrect address for the day.

By the time the sedan made it to the correct address, there was then a further problem. The driver refused to accept our overnight bag for the getaway car. The driver insisted there was no getaway car in our package, and argued about it with my bridesmaids and my parents about it. Eventually the sedan driver called the owners who confirmed that yes, there was a getaway car included in our package and then driver accepted our overnight bag. Had this not been resolved then and there, we are very annoyed to think that we would have been stranded at the reception venue at the conclusion of our wedding. It was very stressful trying to sort out the getaway car on my wedding day, especially after it had been confirmed twice, both at the time of booking and two weeks prior to the wedding when the Job Sheet was finalised.

On the groom's side of things, the limo driver drove from Shellharbour to Sydney via the most convoluted, long, indirect way possible. The groom and groomsmen were picked up from the correct address in Shellharbour five minutes early. The drive from Flinders to Randwick is approximately 1.5hrs-1.75hrs maximum. This would have been more than enough time to allow the limo to drop the guys off at the church and drive back to Brighton-Le-Sands to pick up the bridesmaids. However, the driver of the limo drove all through the suburbs of Southern Wollongong, which incurs several sets of traffic lights and adds unnecessary time to trip instead of just joining the F6 highway right next to the groom's house in Flinders. My husband immediately questioned the driver why he was taking the long way to Sydney; however the driver did not change his route. Once the limo had reached Sydney, instead of just staying on the Princes Highway and taking the most direct route to the church in Randwick, the driver veered off into Sylvania and drove through the suburbs of the St George area, also adding time to the trip. As a result, the limo which should have very easily reached the church in Randwick by 12:45pm at the very latest (even allowing for traffic), arrived at 1pm. The total trip took 2 hours and 5 minutes. It was baffling trying to understand why the drivers took the routes they did, instead of the most direct routes which any GPS would direct you on as well as Google maps. The timing schedule that the owner Limousines put together herself, allowed for unforeseen traffic and weather conditions, but certainly not her drivers to drive long, unnecessary routes.

This convoluted trip to Sydney then had a flow-on affect for the picking-up of the bridesmaids in Brighton-Le Sands. The limo did not arrive at until 1:30pm, 30 mins later than scheduled in the Job Sheet. We were unclear why it took 30 minutes to get to Brighton-Le-Sands from Randwick, when the drive takes 15 minutes, 20 minutes at worse case. Incredibly, the limo driver did not know the bride's address and had to have that clarified by the groom. It was stressful for the groom to need to provide this information yet again. I do not believe it is the client's job to direct the limousine driver on both routes and addresses on our wedding day; we may as well have booked a taxi.

It was already 1:30pm by the time the sedan left for the church; 1:30pm was the scheduled start time of our ceremony. This in spite of the fact, the bride and the bridesmaids were all ready to be picked up at 1pm, the agreed time in our Job Sheet. On top of that, the sedan drive proceeded to take a slightly longer route to Randwick then necessary. Both the bride and my father, and the bridesmaids all reached the church at 2:30pm. We arrived at the church One Full Hour after the designated start time of the ceremony. Our guests waited for over an hour due to this combination of mistakes made by Pure Limousines. This stressed out everybody involved in the wedding, (it was especially frustrating those guests who travelled from the South Coast to be at the church in Sydney on time).

As a consequence of losing that whole hour, we had to reduce our two photo locations to only the one location. It defeated the purpose of having an early ceremony and late reception in the first place. We are incredibly disappointed that we lost all the time that we had allocated for photos due to Pure Limousines' mistakes. So much time was wasted with getting the incorrect bride's address sorted out, getting the getaway car reinstated as per our package and driving from Shellharbour to Sydney via the longest route possible.

It gets worse, on the way to our reception; both drivers also took an unnecessarily long route from the Sydney CBD to Riverwood. We travelled through the back streets of Narwee and neighbouring suburbs instead of just staying on the main roads. My husband and I finally reached the reception venue in the sedan, to see the limo parked out the front of 269-270 Belmore Road where the main Conca Doro building is instead of the smaller Conca Doro building at 290 Belmore Road where our reception was (also specified in our Job Sheet). My husband and I had to get our sedan driver to speak to the Limo driver and get both cars driven over to the correct venue address. This was in addition to our bridal party correcting the limo driver, and the limo driver not budging. This was the second address that was completely wrong for the day.

After Our Wedding Day
Two Incorrect Addresses, No Getaway Car, Constant Misguided Routes and Taking Us to Our Wedding Late - Needless to say we were very let down by what we got from Pure Limousines on our wedding day. We felt it prudent to let the owners know of this very bad experience we had had. This is not what we thought we would get when we booked with Pure Limousines, we expected that the service would be superior and that we would be looked after on our wedding day, but we were not. The confirmed Job Sheet was not followed at all, which begs the question why we bothered putting time and effort into getting all of the details correct for Pure Limousines at all. It should not have to be our problem, nor our responsibility to direct the drivers with addresses, routes or the like on Our Wedding day. To put it plainly, we had paid for a service that was not provided.

Once we had returned from our honeymoon, we raised a formal written complaint to Pure Limousines about the events of our wedding day. We simply wanted answers as to why Pure Limousines made so many mistakes on our wedding day and we wanted an apology. The owner gave my husband a call, stating that she would forward our written complaint to her two drivers and get back to us after the two drivers responded. The drivers responded to the owner with several false statements, basically implying that we had made-up the events of the day and everything that we were unhappy with was in fact our own fault. My husband was terribly distressed that our integrity and morals were being questioned and he was disturbed by the fact the blame was put back on us as clients. Consequently, we requested a sit-down meeting with all parties to discuss both our complaint and the false statements made by the drivers. The owner was not willing to facilitate a sit-down meeting, told my husband that she would speak to her drivers again and get back to us regarding our formal complaint. The owner was rather difficult and accusatory towards us. All we wanted was an apology, but when our integrity was questioned in such a way, we pursued the owner for a full investigation into the events of our wedding day.

Two full weeks passed without any correspondence from the owners of Pure Limousines. We contacted them again to ask for an update on what stage the handling of our complaint was at. It was apparent from the emails we received back that absolutely nothing had occurred since the conversation with my husband two weeks prior. The owner simply sited that weather and traffic were the cause of all of our grievances and she would not do anything further in regards to our complaint. The reality is that weather and traffic had nothing to do with the complaints we made. Obviously we can not blame Pure Limousines for weather and traffic issues when those two things are beyond anyone's control. The issues that we complained about could have been controlled and all stem back to the Job Sheet not being followed and Pure Limousines failure to hold up their end of the contract. Why was the incorrect dresses provided to the drivers? Why was our getaway car a problem? Why was the Job Sheet not followed at all? Why did the drivers take long, indirect routes to the venues? The owner did not offer any kind of sincere apology, did not offer any kind of compensation for their mistakes and made the decision not to bother investigate our complaint at all.

Once again, we went back to Pure limousines and requested that the issues which we had raised, which were close to our hearts not to be dismissed so easily without any empathy or a fair handling the complaint. We did expect more professionalism as clients than we had received up until this point. What kind of business accuses their clients of being dishonest? What person has the time or inclination after their wedding, to write a long, detailed complaint about events that did not actually occur or slander Pure Limousines' drivers' reputations? We pointed out the inconsistencies in her response and hoped that the owner would provide a more adequate response/explanation. Once again, the owner decided that no investigation would be carried out, and no apology would be made for the plethora of mistakes that her business made on our wedding day.

Since, the owner refused to deal with our complaint now that our wedding had passed and the money had been paid, we spoke to the Department of Fair Trading to see if that would prompt the owner to want to resolve the issues with us. The owner said no twice (we asked the lady from Fair Trading to try twice). This means that we had asked Pure Limousines a total of six separate times to investigate our complaint and offer a genuine apology, and six separate times the owner said no. We were very disappointed with the owner's attitude towards us as her customers.

In summary, we spent $1900 on wedding cars to arrive to our ceremony one hour late and to direct wedding car drivers like taxi drivers all day long. Due to Pure Limousines' mistakes, our Wedding Day was far from the proposed schedule and the day that we had hoped for. We were stressed out over our wedding transportation when we should not have been. Pure Limousines ruined our wedding day, and instead of saying sorry on this occasion we got it wrong, they accused us of making up the whole timeline of events. We were dissatisfied with how our complaint had been handled, or basically not handled at all shall I say. We were saddened and we were angry about Pure Limousines' seemingly disinterested approach to the fact that our wedding day was so detrimentally affected by their actions. Pure Limousines has proved to be both unprofessional and dishonest in their dealings with my husband and me. The owner was unapologetic and difficult in all of her communication towards us. We definitely did not receive value for money or even good service. Due to this experience, I could never recommend Pure Limousines to any single person. To all future brides and grooms, if you want to arrive at your wedding on time, I highly recommend steering clear of Pure Limousines.

Approximate cost: $1900

I ate dinner here for the first last night, and I thought it was a tad average. One friend was over the moon with her food and visits quite regularly, but myself and the other friend had not been here before and we were underwhelmed with our food. I ordered the Pad See Ew, and I ate it, however I have had much better Pad See Ew dishes at other Thai restaurants. I had a good time with my friends, but I doubt I will return to this restaurant. The decor could use some updating, and it is quite dark inside the restaurant. The staff were friendly and helpful.

I used Miriana Bandeski-Krimizis (also know as MBK) for my wedding make-up for both me and five bridesmaids. Miriana provides a professional mobile service of make-up artistry to brides and their bridal party. I met Miriana at a bridal expo at my reception venue, the Conca Doro Riverwood and I liked her straight away. Miriana is a warm, and welcoming lady and I made sure I locked her in on the same night as the expo. Miriana has a large portfolio of work for you to look at her work firsthand, the different looks that she can create for you and the finished product.

Miriana helped me so much during the wedding process. She understands how busy brides can be in the lead up to their wedding, so Miriana regularly checked in to see how I was going with everything. She also made sure I booked in my make-up trial before my schedule became too crazy. She was also kind enough to help me try and sort out my bridesmaids dresses, I mentioned that I was sold ill-fitting dresses and even though it was not her problem, Miriana immediately started researching all different solutions for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed my make-up trial with Miriana, we worked together on developing a look that both suited me, would be long-lasting on my wedding day and look amazing in my photos. Miriana listened to my ideas, and was patient as we tried all different options.

On my wedding day, Miriana was very professional. She was punctual and brought an assistant. Both ladies were friendly, and fantastic to be around on such a special day. My bridesmaids loved their make-up, and it complimented their dress colour and hair & skin colouring perfectly. I also loved my make-up, it made me look both flawless and radiant. I received many compliments on my make-up.

I would recommend Miriana to anybody and everybody I know, she is a delight to deal with and she produces quality make-up artistry. Miriana is very professional and has a strong work ethic. Her training and experience is clear when you see her the quality of her work. Her pricing is very competitive for the industry, what you receive when you book is 100% value for money. Miriana will help you create your best look possible for you special day, which is exactly what a bride wants on her wedding day.

I really enjoying going for dinner at Caminetto in the Rocks. This restaurant has a wonderful setting, it feels very European, it is almost hard to believe that you are in the heart of the city. the food is delicious, however I do find the service a little bit slow.

Camden Valley Inn is a great place to catch-up with family and friends. I love eating in the garden area on a nice day, it is quite relaxing. The pricing is cheap considering the large portions you receive. Plenty of parking available also. If you have not been here before, it worth the drive to check it out.

I really enjoy having a few drinks at The Australian, this is another must-visit if you are going on a pub crawl around The Rocks. They have a very interesting pizza menu, unlike any other pizza place that I know of. Plenty of beers on tap and a fun, lively atmosphere. If you have not been here before, The Australian is worth a visit, you will feel all patriotic by checking it out :-)

I stayed in this hotel the last time I visited Melbourne for the Formula One, it was the best value for my budget at the time. The Rendezvous Hotel is in a very convenient location in the city and close to the shops and main attractions. The hotel was clean, the service was good and I enjoyed my stay. Bare in mind, the bathroom was quite squishy and the queen bed we booked was more so a double. Nonetheless things things were fine to put up with since we only stayed a few nights.

I love getting pizza from Jailhouse Rock Pizza Restaurant, their margarita pizza is awesome. The restaurant has a great selection of pizzas, pastas and meat dishes, everyone will find something to eat here. The staff are friendly and the prices are decent. I enjoy looking at all the Elvis memorabilia around the restaurant.

I go to the Slip Inn quite regularly to meet friends for lunch or drinks, it is a really cool and fun bar to hang out at. During the day, they have a decent Thai menu and regular pub food menu to pick from. After work drinks at the Slip Inn is also good, the bar has a great atmosphere and cool beer garden area. When it becomes a club on the weekends, that is also worth checking out. They could benefit by more bar staff, as sometimes the queues to order lunch are quite long and take the better part of your lunch break.

I love coming to Caffe Amici for my morning breakfast and coffee. Caffe Amici has an Italian feel and this is reflected in the quality of the coffee and the food. They sell a range of breakfast food options, so Caffe Amici is bound to have something that you feel like eating. The guys there are lovely, and you always leave with a smile on your face.