Posed pictures are not bad, too far away to see faces. Many photos had portions of other people in…read morethem. Pictures that were taken during the ceremony and the bridal party walking down the aisle were terrible. Photographer did not prep people to smile or even take another photo if the photo was not good such as someone in the middle of a smile or blinking or just with a poor expression. Give 3 stars for the arranged photos, the ones that she had people pose for them. Give one star for all the other photos.

We had our engagement photos taken by Eddie and Kasia and they were spectacular. They were able to…read moremeet us at our home and were flexible to work with. They took their time to make sure all the pictures were what we wanted and even trudged through the cold and snow to get the perfect outdoor shots, which turned out great. I highly recommend them for any occasion. We will definitely be calling them again.

I don't have enough nice things to say about Jaclyn and Ryan, the owners and planners of Toopes…read moreEvents. They are such kind, professional, knowledgeable, and trustworthy people!!! I used them as day-of planners for my July 15 wedding, but wish I would've opted for a higher planning package because they would've made my life so much easier. Before my wedding, for the day-of package, we met with Jaclyn and Ryan several times to go over logistics. They also gave us access to an online portal, where we were provided with several helpful planning forms. I often emailed Jaclyn with questions and concerns that I had about different aspects of the wedding and she always quickly responded with a concise answer. On the wedding day, Jaclyn and Ryan were absolute rock stars. I rented tons of decor for my venue and had a vision of how everything should look. They set it up PERFECTLY and then packed it all up into a truck at the end of the night. In addition to setting everything up, Jaclyn and Ryan also made sure my ceremony and reception ran smoothly and that the timeline was closely followed. Because I had Jaclyn and Ryan, I didn't have to worry about a single thing on my wedding day (and that's a HUGE deal because I'm a Type-A worrywart). I HIGHLY recommend them!!!

Jaclyn and Ryan are amazing wedding planners! They kept everything organized with the vendors,…read moremade sure I was on track with everything, and gave honest, helpful advice when I had weird questions or needed help with something. Full disclosure, Jaclyn is my cousin and was a bridesmaid. She worked so hard even while also doing bridesmaid duties. I had a DIY loft type venue that literally only provided the tables (without linens) and chairs. My husband and I are also a little offbeat, and Jaclyn and Ryan encouraged and helped us to have the wedding we wanted with our own personal style/touches. It would have been completely overwhelming without their help, and I'm pretty sure the wedding would have been a mess without them. I highly recommend hiring Toopes events for any event planning needs!

Anticipation Events were so great in helping my Wife and me with our wedding! Heather and her team…read morewere always available, quick to respond, and effective in getting our wedding set up and executed to ensure it was as amazing of a day as it could have possibly been. They were knowledgeable of the venue and their people, and gave us recommendations based on previous events at the venue. Heather was instrumental in every way, and we couldn't be more satisfied with our decision to partner with Anticipation Events for our wedding.

I am a control freak. I repeat, I love control & I love planning events. To release control of an…read moreevent, geared for me, seemed UNIMAGINABLE. But now, I was planning my wedding, and not just any wedding, a covid wedding in my own backyard. I knew I needed a coordinator, I knew it would be worth it, but it did not fully hit until the day after my wedding just how different my wedding would have been if it wasn't for Elizabeth & Anticipation Events. Imagine your wedding day, imagine wanting to relax, but as the bride everyone asks you questions - nope not with Elizabeth. Imagine having to make random strange decisions - but instead just letting someone else do it & know it will be a-okay. Imagine coming home after your wedding to every little thing picked up, organized, locked up. Imagine being on the dance floor wanting a drink but not wanting to leave - wait suddenly theres a beverage in your hand! Imagine trying to delegate those tasks to your friends/family and GUESTS of the wedding who should be there to fully enjoy and celebrate WITH you. The best choice I have made was to give up control and give it to Elizabeth. You can trust her and her team. You can rest assured that she is aware of what will stress you out and she protects you from all of the small things that will happen (and they do) but you would never know - because BAM she just DOES it. Thank you so much to the little elf behind the scenes who made our wedding day one we will forever remember as a day of celebration. xx

My wedding was perfect and it was all because of Jenna and her vendors! Everything was all planned…read moreout a set months before my wedding date, which left time for me to relax! Everyone had a blast and my husband and I were very happy!

I struggle with severe anxiety and am easily overwhelmed by large tasks....so when the time came to…read morestart planning my wedding, I knew that I needed some help. My budget was not large enough for most wedding planning services, so when I stumbled upon Jennarose Mostacchio at A Family Affair 2 Remember, it was a blessing! The price was right, and Jenna made me feel more at ease about the entire process from the very first phone call. Jenna is the most responsive vendor I have ever worked with. It was rare for more than ten minutes to pass by without a response to my text or email, and this meant SO much to me and saved me so much anxiety and worry. Our frequent check-ins, to do lists that Jenna provided, and her calm responses to my panicked questions kept me ahead of schedule throughout the entire wedding planning process, and it was such a comfort to know that a professional was monitoring my progress and ensuring everything got done on schedule. However, where Jenna really shines is day of coordination. Her expertise was so essential to our rehearsal, as none of us had any idea what we were doing. She was organized, prompt, and had us in and out in record time! On the wedding day, Jenna was a huge advocate for me, communicating with all of my vendors, making sure my requests were met, and insisting they delay the weather call so that I was able to have my dream outdoor ceremony (I will be forever grateful for this.) She checked in on me frequently despite being incredibly busy, and retained her cool, professional composure no matter what was thrown at her. Jenna even did some quick rearranging to improve upon some of the decor setup by the florists, and it looked perfect! I am so grateful to have had Jenna as my advocate and planner throughout this incredibly stressful, but rewarding process. I had the wedding of my dreams, and she helped make that dream a reality. If you want your wedding to go smoothly and feel like you are well taken care of, do yourself a favor and rely on Jenna, I am definitely happy that I did. :) -Sarah E.

We used Stacy for our wedding this November, and although she was our "day of" coordinator, she…read morewent above and beyond to make sure that our day was perfect in the weeks and months prior. Stacy is responsive, creative, detail-oriented, organized, professional, and overall a total pleasure to work with. We always knew she was on our side, making sure that our vendors followed through, finding us the best pricing on rentals, and advocating for us whenever necessary. Stacy takes such pride in her work and helped us and our families feel well taken care of. We were able to fully be present and enjoy every minute of our weekend thanks to Stacy, and truly could not have done it without her. When I first spoke with Stacy she promised to be "the first to arrive and the last to leave," but what we got from working with her was so much more than this! Thank you Stacy for helping to make our dreams come true this weekend - we look forward to hopefully working together again in the future!

Stacy has become more than a wedding planner; she has become part of my family. She has not only…read moreplanned my wedding, but has planned various other parties and events, including my son's bris this past summer. Stacy is a joy to work with. She is incredibly organized and has done an amazing job of transforming my vision for each event into reality. She is extremely responsive and I have never found that she does not return calls/emails as a previous reviewer mentioned. I also felt that she was a great advocate for my interests when interviewing, selecting, and negotiating with vendors. In regards to day of services Stacy is a total pro. I was as relaxed on my wedding day as I think anyone could be. If anything went wrong (which I'm sure things did) I didn't know about it. Stacy and her team took care of everything and my wedding was flawless. I cannot recommend Stacy more highly. She will fulfill all of your expectations and make you consider using a planner for all of your events!

We knew when we met Krys that we wanted to work with her to plan our wedding at the Woman's Club of…read moreEvanston. She had a creative and energetic vibe and we instantly felt like she understood our vision and would help bring it to life. She really delivered - and was a pleasure to work with. Having her made all the difference in knowing that our event would run smoothly. It did of course, thanks to her, but along the way she provided so many great resources and suggestions, emotional support, and even items for the event (like table number holders). She's just a great, warm person who is fantastic at her job and cares about making your event special. She's an excellent day of planner, but she was so much more for us - helping us every step of the way. I can't recommend her highly enough!

I want to start this by saying that everything about my wedding was so perfectly smooth that I…read morecan't thank Raegan Mae events enough.  Krysti and Nicole were there every step of the way to answer any questions, even ones I didn't think to ask.  They were always one step ahead of me for my entire wedding planning process and helped make my day go exactly the way I imagined! From the beginning I knew I had made a great choice to have help with my big day.  I had a florist cancel on me three months before my wedding, I panicked but Krysti and Nicole jumped into action.  The same day that I informed them of the cancellation, they had a list of florists picked out for me to talk with and had already called with inquiry's to advise me who would best jive with my particular sense of style. It was wonderful! I had no idea how much planning goes into family photos, but they made sure to help me map out eveything before hand so eveything ran smoothly from our first look to the many family photos.   They were there the day of and I began to call them my wedding fairy godmothers.  They handled everything I needed, even the little details I forgot.  I needed baby's breath, and they ran out to get it.  They even helped figure out where to do our first photo op (and there were so many at my outdoor venue Starved Rock) which is now one of my favorite pictures! You don't just need someone to just be a planner for your wedding you need to hire someone so invested, you feel like they are a long time friend.  Someone who can understand your vision, who can work with you to add all those personal touches, someone who is always thinking one step ahead of eveything.  I found this with Raegan Mae Events and I can't thank them enough for everything, what they did for my wedding was more than just a service.  Krysti and Nicole were my Wedding Fairy Godmothers!

If you're looking for a planner this is the place to hire. We did the month of which included the…read moreday of; completely fair prices and worth it. Sandy has such a kind soul and she is so organized! We got so many compliments from our wedding day and it honestly wouldn't have been so smooth without her. She created a timeline of events, helped organize our rehearsal, made sure I had a completely GF accommodated meal, and so much more. I couldn't imagine having any other future event without her. Thank you so much Sandy!

I would give Sandy 10 starts out of 5. That's how amazing she was. Let me dive into everything…read moreshe did for us! First of all, we live in Oakland, California and our wedding was in Chicago (home for us). We knew we wanted to have our wedding where we met and where our families are for convenience for them, but it was a real inconvenience for us. Our wedding, for us, basically became a destination wedding, and we couldn't have done any of it without Sandy. It was a logistical nightmare, but having someone in Chicago to handle aspects of the planning for us was amazing. From our first consultation with Sandy, we knew she was definitely the right fit. Sandy listened to us, our vision, and our budget. We did not want a cookie cutter wedding by any means. From the ceremony, venue, coloring and timeline, we wanted things different. We wanted things "us". Our wedding was 100% ours and us. She was detail oriented. When we would go through invites, ceremony handouts, menus, signage, our wedding website, etc. Sandy would notice every little detail. I only noticed a few typos here and there that MAYBE occurred, but she was in the details about changing things to be aesthetically pleasing, to fit better, be more centered, etc. She was way more in the details of my wedding than I was! She's incredibly detail oriented and wants everything to have an organic and nice flow to it. Something I love about Sandy is her honesty. She would not just blindly agree with me to make me happy. She definitely put in her opinion and always had a reason why that she was suggesting something different (and it wasn't suggestions to make it hers, just things that made sense from a wedding professional!). She would alert me if something would look off, or if what I had in mind didn't work or would work, but needed tweaking to make it happen. She also had amazing suggestions for our vendors. With those vendors, because of the relationship she has built with them over time, we would actually get discounts from them (she basically paid for herself with this feature!). On the same token as vendors- she organized EVERYTHING WITH THEM. From walkthroughs of the venue the week of, to communicating with them, sending them the timeline, letting them know what we wanted and our vision, EVERYTHING. After our vendors were hired (we hired many before we realized we needed her) she would have us intro her via email, and then communicate with them separately if she did not need anything else from us, which was so nice. Some nitty gritty details you just do not need to be a part of, and she recognized when it was appropriate to cut us out. The day itself went off without a hitch. If there was an issue day of, we did not know about it at all. She handled everything and was on point the entire time. Timeline, vendors, our families, everyone knew who Sandy was and where to ask questions, which is great because the bride and groom are a bit overwhelmed that day! I highly highly recommend Sandy. She is worth the stress she cuts out during the planning process and day of wedding. A lot goes into a wedding and she is an absolute professional about everything. She is an amazing communicator (via whatever method you prefer, we would chat on instagram, text, email, phone, FaceTime... the works!). She made everything so easy and our wedding was a dream. Thank you does not come close to enough for what she did for us. Do not look anywhere else for your Chicago Wedding Planner than here with Splendid Weddings. XOXO, we love you, Sandy!