If I could give Nico Events 10 stars on yelp, I would. Marilyn is as good as it gets! I got married in August 2009. We had a very small wedding of our closest friends and family. My husband and I had been dating for many years and we wanted to celebrate our relationship but it was by no means a traditional "give the bride away" type of situation. I thought a small wedding would be easy but I soon found that I needed help and that on a small scale, every detail needed to be perfect. From creating our timeline, site search, guest gifts, menu cards, menu selection, invitation consulting, Marilyn helped me every step of the way. Marilyn is down to earth and has an uncanny way of connecting with us as a couple to find out what our vision was and improved upon it. I began as the "anti-bride," trying to bypass some of the traditional steps and trying to emphasize the low-key ceremony/reception that I wanted. Marilyn helped me find my inner bride and while understanding that I wanted to keep the experience organic, she helped me re-find the part of me that had been dreaming about my wedding day my entire life. Marilyn not only helped with the logistics, she helped me realize what was truly important to us for our special day. Once you begin working with her, you will feel like you have known her for years. She is a wonderful communicator. She's patient, understanding, but even at the peak of stress will make you feel like everything will be under control. Working with her, it really will be! Marilyn also did calligraphy on our invitations and place cards. Her work is exquisite and went beyond what I had asked for. Marilyn also planned my bridal shower at Sunda and it was beautiful. She found a bakery that made custom cookies to match my handmade invitations. How she was able to pull upon a theme of my wedding that I didn't even realize I had, is still amazing to me. Every detail was worth a million bucks. I can't even explain how it felt to celebrate with my friends and see all of the details of my wedding come together at my shower. I cannot recommend Marilyn enough. She has a sophisticated taste that can be translated into any situation - whether it's a small nontraditional ceremony or a 300 person wedding at the Peninsula, Marilyn is your girl. She will help you in ways you never even expected. If you're reading this and unsure of whether you need a planner/day of coordinator, understand that you need to schedule a meeting with Marilyn and see how she can help. You may not understand how she can make your day even more special but believe me, she can and WILL. THANK YOU, Marilyn! read more

I would, without hesitation, highly recommend Marilyn and Nico events. Marilyn provided day-of coordination services for my March, 2011 wedding which, for your perspective was a pretty big 250 person downtown Chicago reception and with a large number of out of town guests and a church that did not offer an on-site church coordinator. Everything was handled professionally and without a hitch (she did have an assistant but not at an additional expense to me). I work in event planning myself so I would like to think that my standards are somewhat high, and I also have to say that hiring Marilyn probably the best wedding money I ever spent! Because then I could actually enjoy my own wedding! I also found it extremely beneficial to use a professional day-of coordinator because the whole process of going through things with helped me to realize gaps in my plans. As we were preparing for the big day, it was great to have Marilyn's professional advice on last minute details ... I had no idea how many people you needed to tip or what order to have the bridal party proceed into the church and what not. Anyways, once I went through things with Marilyn and went through the exercise of getting her all the information that she needed to do her job, it was so nice to wash my hands of things. I found myself able to trust her quite easily so I did not stress at all on the day of the wedding. Everyone in my family and bridal party really appreciated the fact that I had Marilyn because it also enabled them to enjoy the festivities and not have to worry about things. For what it is worth, I also found her to be very flexible not only in terms of her services (she is open to only day-of coordination or she can do full scale planning) but she was open to focusing on what I wanted her to focus on. My biggest worry was the busing and so I wanted to make sure that that received extra attention and obviously she gave it the attention I asked her to. She also respected all the decisions, vendor selections, and what not that I had made prior to bringing her on board. My final "praise" of her is that, to this day, I do not know if anything went wrong on my wedding day (they say something always does, but if it did, it was handled perfectly! read more

I've known Marilyn for many years and know how incredible she is, but never knew how great she was in her craft until she planned and organized my bridal shower and wedding. Let me begin by saying I had never been to a bridal shower or wedding before so I didn't know where to begin. Living in NY, bridal showers are traditionally a surprise, so Marilyn secretly collaborated and organized the whole shower from creating the budget, picking the venue, flowers, decorations and favors, all from out of state!!! I am hard to surprise, so pulling off this surprise took a lot of work on her part. She even created a fake invitation to a make believe party to get me to the venue! Speaking of invites, Marilyn was so particular and creative that she designed the invites because she couldn't find the perfect one to match my theme. My wedding colors were black and red, so Marilyn orchestrated my shower to be an Asian theme, knowing those colors were prominent. She knew the girly- shower stuff didn't interest me, so she went with a clean, modern approach that was anything but traditional!! Needless to say, I was very surprised and loved how it all came together. I couldn't have asked for a better shower! Marilyn also helped me with my wedding. She acted like my personal consultant helping me answer questions regarding vendors and contracts, and even flew out to NY to see the venue and help me with final touches. The day of the wedding, Marilyn took over. She kept the day moving and even helped with some drama that I was unaware of to avoid me from getting upset on my day. Marilyn also did the calligraphy for my invitations and place cards, which were another beautiful touch! I was so surprised at how well Marilyn handles stressful situations and remained calm the WHOLE time. She has great creative instincts and possesses the ability to see how all the pieces fit together without ever losing sight of the final vision. She has impeccable taste, excellent judgment and shows great attention to detail. I only have praise for Marilyn and would highly, highly recommend her to handle all your planning needs. read more

I was married in December, 2010 and used Marilyn for Day Of Coordination services. She was fantastic!!! We were recommended to Nico Events by a friend of ours who used Marilyn for their wedding and were were equally as satisfied. I work in the events field and knew that I needed someone who I trusted enough to take over all of the details for that day, leaving me without any worries. She did just that! Marilyn is extremely organized and detail oriented. She was helpful before the wedding by recommending vendors (I did use her recommendation for photographer and couldn't have been happier with her) and getting me organized with the detailed spreadsheet that she provided. She also came with us on our final walk through and was helpful in walking us through the evening and making creative suggestions. The day of, I was a ball of nerves. Working in the event field, I am high strung already and I saw this as the biggest event I've planned to date. Marilyn took all of the details that I had planned and executed them perfectly. There were a couple of bumps in the road throughout the evening but she dealt with each of those things and never once came to me with problems - 100% why we hired her. I have recommended Nico Events to friends and will continue to do so. Marilyn is very thorough, detail oriented and is absolutely wonderful at what she does. I must have said it a million times but this was the best money I spent for my wedding! read more

While planning my large wedding (411 guests), I worked very hard to save money where I could, but still maintain a high level of elegance and class. While working on my invitations, I realized that I was not going to have the time, patience, or skill to write the outer and inner envelopes in the way that I wanted. I heard raves about Marilyn's calligraphy skills from many other brides who had worked with her. After seeing samples of her work and learning of her very reasonable prices, I got in touch with her. She was wonderful to work with and went above and beyond what I ever would have imagined! For example, she looked up all of my addresses to make sure that they were correct and actually existed. When she came across one that didn't register correctly, she contacted me about it. I was able to double-check and, sure enough, the address I had given her was incorrect. She also worked to make sure that the names on the envelopes followed proper etiquette. Her attention to detail was amazing! When I got my envelopes back from Marilyn, I, literally, couldn't stop looking at them because they looked so perfect! Her style was exactly what I was looking for - clean and beautiful! I even had several guests comment to me on the calligraphy! I would absolutely recommend Marilyn for her calligraphy skills! She was one of my favorite wedding vendors! read more

While trying to plan my sister's bridal shower from 600 miles away, I came across Nico Events on Yelp and decided to enlist the help of Marilyn. I'm so glad I did! Marilyn did all the leg work and provided me a detailed proposal of venues and options. I never could have dreamed that I would have been able to host a Michigan Avenue bridal shower on my budget, but Marilyn made it happen! She is professional, comprehensive and so super kind...it was more like working with a friend I had known for years! It was obvious to me that Marilyn has an excellent rapport with many venues in Chicagoland. Her ideas for invitations, favors, bridal shower games, guest book, flowers and our menu really created a beautiful, tasteful and elegant shower for my baby sister. She made sure everything came together for me and was even on-site the day of the shower to be certain everything was perfect. Marilyn's service level is top-notch. She is creative, detail-oriented, so kind and very talented! It's obvious she has a passion for service and event planning. I highly recommend her for any of your event needs! read more

I recently used Marilyn to do my Calligraphy for my wedding which took place in September of 2009 in New York. The work she does it absolutely exquisite! I have nothing but great things to say about Marilyn! From start to finish I was shown nothing but professionalism from Marilyn. I have to admit I was a little nervous using Marilyn because she was in Chicago and I was in New York, but after speaking with her she put my mind at ease. She easily answered any questions I had and was readily available to me and my concerns. She proved to me over and over just how much devotion and pride she takes in her work. After all the stress of my wedding choosing Marilyn was the easiest and smartest decision I had to make. I would highly recommend her services if you are looking for someone responsible, dependable, does beautiful work, and actually loves their job! I hope this review has been helpful to you and I wish you the best of luck with your party planning!! read more

I used Ms. Frisz's services for my bridal shower. She helped organize the event on the day-of and she also wrote out my placecards with caligraphy. I couldn't have asked for a more professional, upbeat, and charismatic person to help to ensure all went well. I had a rather larger shower, out at a venue. Instead of the traditional "gift unwrapping" process, Ms. Frisz helped to organize a display table. All the gifts were unwrapped, displayed, and tagged (in beautiful caligraphy) before the guests went in the room. When the doors opened it was an amazing sight - it actually looked like Bloomingdales showroom. Without Ms. Frisz's help, the day would NOT have run as smoothly as it did. I would and will use her again! read more

Marilyn was our day of wedding planner, but did so much more. She not only helped our wedding day run smoothly, but helped us pull together all of our vendors and found spots in our schedule that needed to be tightened up. She got all of our vendors on the same page and then even worked with our band to renegotiate the contract three days before the wedding to get them to work within our schedule and give us everything that we were looking for at an affordable price, allowing us to concentrate on preparing for the day. Thanks Marilyn and Rosanna for a smooth day! Don & Nicole read more

Marilyn was incredible to work with! She did the calligraphy on my place cards for the reception. I contacted her only a week ahead of time to do over 100 place cards with three lines of text (usually it's just two) and she fit me in and did an incredible job! My only regret is that I didn't use her calligraphy services for my invitations. The quality of her work is impeccable and her pricing is extremely reasonable. She was very flexible and professional and quick to respond to any questions. Worth every penny and then some! read more

There really is no way to express what Marilyn did for me and this speaks not only of her skills but her character as well. Due to poor planning on my behalf, I only had about three days to address and send my invitations. Marilyn took on the job and not only did she have it done by the deadline, but the work was so beautiful and elegant. I was concerned that she didn't have enough time and the rush job would reflect on my invitations. Her work is amazing. I received many complements on her calligraphy. I'm deeply thankful. read more

Marilyn was wonderful! Her calligraphy ws beautiful! I had so many compliments on it at our wedding. She worked all hours of the night to help me with my last minute tasks. She will go to any extent to help you finish and make it look beautiful. She has very reasonable pricing and she is loyal to her clients! I would recomend any bride I know to her! Thank You So Much!!!!!!!!!!!! read more

I used Marilyn for my 2006 wedding and was THRILLED with the calligraphy she did. I got so many compliments on it from all of my guests. I thought she did a beautiful job! Marilyn was very easy to contact and great to work with. I would highly recommend her to family, friends, anyone! read more

I used Marilyn for wedding calligraphy. She made wonderful table cards for each table with Cinderella themed names and put them in picture frames. Her attention to detail is incredible!! Her prices are very reasonable and she is always willing to go the extra mile for her customers!! read more

Marilyn did the calligraphy on our wedding invitations, and I couldn't have been more happy with the beauty of her work. She provided the expertise I needed, and her price was the best around. I will be recommending her to all my girlfriends as they plan their weddings! read more