Emilie is "As good as it gets!" and then some. If someone were to ask me for advice about wedding…read moreplanning, I would say "Hire Emilie."
Now, a lot of people think that hiring an event planner/coordinator is the first place to cut costs. "I can do that myself!" they say. No. Don't be fooled. We saved a lot with Emilie. We saved headaches, hassle, disaster. We probably even saved money based on her recommendations and calculations on rentals and other items.
Not that it necessarily would've been a disaster, but the peace of mind I had on my wedding day is unparalleled by any other bride I've ever witnessed. All because of Emilie.
First, we came to Emilie with a lot of the wedding already "planned." We already had our venue, invites, flower vendor, cake vendor, music, photographers, etc. etc. I dabble in event planning a bit myself, so I'm used to thinking through certain logistics. But with her experience, Emilie was able to think through little details that weren't even remotely on my (rather developed, I think) radar. She took everything I envisioned, and refined it, made it work.
Emilie's services can be customized to fit your needs/budget. We actually started with another coordinator, but she was going to be charging way more than Emilie, and mostly for things we didn't need (like services in finding some of the vendors we already had). I kind of think of the planning phase as separate from the day-of-coordinating phase. Even though we (sort of) had a day-of coordinator through our venue (and don't get me wrong, she was great), Emilie went above and beyond making everything go smoothly the day-of. And she helped a lot with the planning too, after our own abilities had reached their limits.
My wedding had an unconventional schedule on a holiday. We started with a (late) cocktail hour before the wedding. We had an early reveal. Cocktails went directly to ceremony, directly to reception with no time in between. Emilie knows how people move and how herd mentality works, so this all went off without a hitch (as people probably weren't used to this setup). She even thought to bring my groom and I a plate of food after pictures and before the ceremony.
That's not the only thing though, just one example. Here's another: Emilie was watching my mother, and noticed FROM THE LOOK ON MY MOM'S FACE FROM ACROSS THE ROOM, that something was missing from the tables. My groom forgot to bring the mints his family traditionally makes for weddings. They were in his freezer... in DUBLIN. We were downtown Columbus and realized this during our reception. Emilie had one of her minions go get them (in freezing weather with crazy NYE traffic). There were a million little things like that -- most of them I probably don't even know about because Emilie is just that good.
The character limit for this review and your attention span won't begin to allow a full review for Emilie, nor all the praise she deserves. The bottom line is that she made it not only so that I could enjoy my wedding day to the fullest (including before during, AND after!), but also so those closest to me didn't have to bear any of that burden either. She made it a special day for my mother and really every single one of our guests, invisibly.
Oh, and one last note if you're still here -- check out her website and blog! Emilie has done such a variety of weddings -- casual and rustic to black tie and metropolitan. Big and small. I have no doubt she can make any event into something special.
Our post on her blog: http://blog.emilieduncan.net/catherine-brad-12-31-13
