Julie Occhino Makeup Artist

Writing this to let everyone know she is most likely lying on her website. She is claiming to be a makeup and hair “celebrity stylist” but I see no body of work with a celebrity. Now I bet a lot of stylists use the “celebrity” term as a selling catch to try and get a higher price and I think this is what she is doing. She has no evidence of ever having worked with a celebrity. This paired with other recent posts makes me believe she isn’t trustworthy. I reached out to her to get clarification and got nothing back for an answer, please be careful.

To start I had a contract with Julie for 1 bride, 5 bridesmaids, 1 family friend, mother of the groom, mother of the bride, the groom's hair and 1 flower girl. No small party by any means! This contract was over forty five hundred dollars for the day for everyone labeled above. I went with Julie as she called her company luxury and I wanted the smoothest day possible so we could just enjoy the day and not be stressed, boy was I wrong! I got a text less than two hours (7:40am) before the scheduled time to begin services (9:00am) that half of her team would not be showing up. I had been given a timeline with (4) stylists, 2 makeup and 2 hair. She claimed this was due to COVID but being in a post COVID world how is there no backup plan for when this happens? As you can imagine I had no time to try and fix this situation with any of the party. Whether that be bringing hair tools or makeup for people to do themselves. Her attitude on the situation was to pretend nothing was wrong! This destroyed the schedule for the day especially for the photographers! We had to take pictures during cocktail hour to finish. Touch ups were not given obviously as there was no time. The groom also did not receive his hair service because of the schedule being thrown out the window and 3 bridesmaids not being done at the time. The day was perfect other than the Makeup and hair! This added unneeded stress and unhappy people who had not been done until the ceremony was about to begin. There was no time for touch ups, no time for redoes if someone was not happy with a service absolutely nothing! When I called about getting some compensation as it was not the customers fault in this instance that things went wrong I got a completely different woman on the phone. When I brought up that there were two stylists missing "Well in the contract nothing states that you will have four artists". What?! How could you say that when you knew that there was a party of 11 people to do?! When I brought up that the groom did not get his service "Well if he refused there's nothing that we can do about that." Of course he's going to refuse. There were 3 bridesmaids not done and the photographers were trying to get any pictures they could possibly get done, done! When I stated that the timeline was not met whatsoever "Well the timeline we just curate for you this is not actually in the contract." When we tried to implore her for a discount she stated "I can't do that I have to pay the other stylist that came with me I would be in the hole." Absolute lies! I would have been charged the same amount for 4 stylists. How are you in the hole? Lies on top of lies, excuses on top of excuses until finally she stated "I am not going to do this song and dance with you." and we ended the call. Her form of compensation was a free hair and makeup appointment that as of right now has not been given but honestly I'm not going to use this as I am not comfortable with Julie's business. There could be hidden fees or as some of the other reviews have stated she would reschedule 8 times until you give up. Thinking about that now she did reschedule the makeup/hair trial last minute and I had to scramble to try to make other dinner reservations. I should have taken that as a sign for future difficulties. For future brides know this: Julie Occhino has NO backup plan if a stylist calls out and you will not be compensated for this. Julie Occhino will hold YOU the customer to her timeline but NOT herself. If the timeline is completely off because of her decisions you will not be compensated.