Ellen Dubin is phenomenal…read more
We chose her based on a referral from friends who've had her do their various bar/bat mitzvahs and weddings. There were several things that made our wedding planning rather challenging - an April wedding in DC with unpredictable weather, a wedding taking place at a private home requiring everything to be imported to that site, and a bride, a groom, and parents that were in three different locations in two different time zones. Ellen was very flexible and adaptable and cleared her schedule to make the most of the limited time we had with her when all three of us were in town.
I think one of the best and most useful things about using Personally Yours was the access that Ellen had to various vendors - three things - the tent, the decor, and the food - were the most important part of this wedding and all three were phenomenal. Our wedding was on somewhat short notice - about 8 months to plan - and she was able to acquire Joel from Occasions and Jeffrey from Fox Ventures and Davis from Sugar Plum Tents. All three were exceptional and made multiple trips to our wedding site to plan and coordinate the event. All three had rave reviews about Ellen and it was clear that the people and vendors she surrounded herself with were all people very familiar with each other and worked well with each other.
Ellen was able to provide experience, wisdom, and advice about the way we were trying to shape our wedding. She listened carefully and made significant efforts to understand what we wanted for our wedding. There were certain things she was adamant about that we had never really considered including the flow of the guests, the rhythm and scheduling of the band in conjunction with speeches and meals being served. How to introduce a WOW factor for guests when they stepped into our tent. And she paid close consideration to the theme and atmosphere we wanted to have.
We wanted to go for a vintage chic / garden wedding that was intermingled with the natural beauty of the house where we were getting married. She advised us on the position of the tent, the dance floor, ways to accent the natural warmth of the home, and how to make sure everyone was fed and watered without any glitches.
Ellen is experienced and has done what I'm sure are hundreds of weddings. Before hiring her we had concerns that since she does bar and bat mitzvahs too, that the wedding wouldn't have the perfect wedding feel- but that was not an issue whatsoever! Our wedding was a dream come true. It was perfect - like a work of art in motion. If wedding planners could be named artists she's a Van Gogh or da Vinci. She works so hard and is brilliant at it too!
Ellen listens, executes, is efficient, and gets the job done. She is very much about business and there are some times when she might say some things are less feasible than others. It's not difficult to believe her because for most things she'll bend over backward to execute and have her staff work accomplish. But she is honest and will let you know when she disagrees with a suggestion or would like to tweak something and see if you'd like it better that way.
The second place where her brilliance comes in is the day of the wedding and ensuring everything goes smoothly. The order of the ceremony, the flow of guests, collecting gifts, re-bustling my dress as she predicted the bustle would come undone, directing bridesmaids/groomsmen, getting the crowd onto the dance floor, and making sure shuttles are coming and going etc. Things were flawless! We wish we could go back to last weekend and relive it all over again! Thank you Ellen!