mimister's reviews

I can't even say enough about Grace - not only was she my wedding planner, but she became my friend through the whole process. I joke to other people that the thing I miss the most after the wedding was Grace!

When I first went through the whole wedding planning process, I thought I could do it myself. Okay, so I was being overly optimistic. When I realized that I was in when over my head, I started to look for wedding planners and met with several. I was seriously like Goldilocks (but with black hair) - the Grace was just right! I was instantly comfortable with her: she didn't laugh at my budget (which one planner almost did); she didn't try to impose her ideas; she didn't try to shuffle me off to an assistant; and she wore jeans and sneakers to the initial meeting. Awesome.

We were totally on top of things until two months before the wedding, when my venue decided it would be a good idea to have a 5000-person, 3-stage concert right next to my wedding. (Yes, it was THAT concert. I was supposed to be married next door. My friends told me they could hear it from the Bay Bridge.) Given that my invitations had gone out, people had bought plane tickets, our hotel block reserved, our florist and photographer reserved, our caterer reserved, and our wedding planner reserved, it was not exactly practical to change the date. Needless to say, I was extremely unhappy. In between my bouts of depression and anger and uncontrollable sobbing, I managed to call Grace. Grace called 50(!) different venues (who all asked if it was for next year), and finally found one for us. In the end, our wedding turned out better than I could've imagined, all thanks to Grace. One of my friends asked for her number during the wedding. No joke. Even my hubby loved her!

A few more things about Grace (and I'll stop before this turns into a novel): She's extremely organized, keeping me up-to-date on all the stuff we had to do (or that she could do for us). She was calm and collected, and fixed everything behind the scenes. (For instance, my hubby told me there was a problem with the chairs right before the wedding, and Grace took care of it - and I didn't even know anything had gone wrong.) She recommended great vendors - I LOVED our florist (Spiral Hand) and photographer (Lisa Lefkowitz). And she LISTENED to what I wanted - even if it changed from one week to the next.

So, what I'm trying to say is (albeit somewhat verbosely), hire Grace. It'll be the best thing you'll do for your wedding. No kidding.