JJGaffers — Local services in Des Moines

I was searching for a special unity ceremony option for my fiancé and I when I found a company that gives you crystals to blend during your ceremony to be made into a custom glass piece after. They contracted Jesse, owner of JJ Gaffers, to make the pieces after the wedding. As soon as we found this, my fiancé and I knew that is what we wanted to do. Shortly after our wedding, the owner of the company that orchestrated our order unexpectedly passed away with no plan in place for who would pick up the pieces after his untimely departure. Jesse reached out to all of the clients of theirs to let us know of the unfortunate news and that he had collected our combined crystals (along with about 100 other couples') to help us make our unity pieces. He hadn't been paid by that company to do the work but had collected everything out of the kindness of his own heart and passion for his work. We decided we wanted him to make our pieces still but needed to figure out when and exactly what we wanted. Unfortunately, COVID threw a big wrench in our plans which meant more time in waiting for our pieces. This posed a lovely silver lining that I hadn't considered before. We decided to wait until the studio was re-opened for classes so we could make our pieces, as a couple, with him. He was able to fit us in his schedule and we were able to make even more pieces than we anticipated! Never forget that when you work directly with an artist, the price of your finished piece(s) goes down. Cutting out the middle man made this project much more affordable for us. This was a bucketlist experience for us and one that we will never forget! If you are one of those people that was effected by the closing of the middle man business, reach out to Jesse! He is busy, but he will make it work! Additionally, if you want to take a class in general, even just for fun, I would highly recommend going here. Jesse is very professional and made our first-time glass blowing experience a breeze AND a learning experience! Thank you for everything Jesse. I appreciate all your time...

Jesse runs one of the most unprofessional businesses I’ve ever came across. I ordered a wedding momento in early February after emailing with him to confirm we could do so, and paid him upfront. Three months go by and I haven’t heard a thing or seen my glass, so I follow up. Says he doesn’t know what my order was but he’ll check it out. A couple more weeks go by, and again I hear nothing. After following up multiple times within that time, he finally responds with an excuse on why nothings been done. Things happen, I get it, so he says he’ll check in on it now. And so the cycle repeats for 7 months, always some new excuse IF he even answers. My husband finally had to get involved threatening getting officials involved after denying me a refund and continuing to string me along. Within 48 hours, I finally got my refund, but it shouldn’t have taken this long to get some sort of resolution. This has been a very tough year for everyone, but he could have handled this 100 different ways and any one of them would have been better than how it went down. My advice to anyone looking to order from him: see the product before you drop the money otherwise you could be out hundreds of dollars with nothing to...

This place is awesome we have traveled all over on vacations and we try to find a glass blower on each vacation to buy a hand blown vase we have been to a few shops where they will let you make a Christmas ornament or paper weight but this guy helped us make a vase he even allowed us to get in his oven and get our own glass out this is by far the best experience we have ever had as a plus their price are some of the best prices on all...