ANOTHER UPDATE... 7/2/08…read more So lucky me... I did receive my wedding album last week (3 weeks before my one year anniversary). And I do have to say the album turned out wonderful. But I didn't receive the free portrait that was included in the package I purchased. I do admit that when I first emailed the order I forgot to include which picture we chose. I did write it on the order that I mailed in with our money (that they never got). So I realize that they didn't know which picture we chose, but were they planning on asking? It's called customer service... I shouldn't have to micromanage them. The worst part was that I paid them already in cash. Since I was giving them the money when they dropped off the pictures at my work, they requested cash... just in case they gave us the pictures and we gave them a bad check. It's ironic that it turned out the other way around... I paid them in good faith that I was receiving everything that was suppose to be included in my order. I was hoping that I was done dealing with them... but I guess not.

I got stuck using Whispers. I had originally booked the a place called Footprints at the same…read morelocation in Addison. We gave the deposit and set the dates and they told me we didn't need to do anything until about 1-2 months before the wedding and they would call me to finalize details then. Call with any questions. Time goes by it is now a month before my wedding and I haven't heard from them. I called and noticed the voicemail now said Whispers! I left a very concerned message. What happened to the company I booked with and paid a nice deposit to, do they still have my wedding on their calendar, am I going to have a photographer at all??? I was terrified! A few days go by and no one has called me back. I demanded to get a call back that day. Someone called me back. My first question was where was Footprints and why wasn't I notified there had been a change? I felt I had a right to meet with a new company and see what they were like. The man didn't answer my question. He just kept saying oh we are the same if not better. I asked about the photographer we had reserved and paid extra for, I was told he wasn't there anymore, but they too had someone even better. I asked if I could get my money back that we spend to request the other gentleman. No. They said I had to pay the remaining portion of the contract as soon as possible. I said I wanted to see a new contract listing out everything that was on the original contract. I was told it would be mailed that day. I said I will pay when I get the new contract. Waited a few days no contract. Called and left several messages. I finally got the contract 2 weeks before my wedding. It all looked good so I signed it and send it back with a check. By this time I had looked everywhere for a new photographer and there was nothing. I asked about the place cards that were part of the package. We got them 3 days before the wedding and they were so ugly! It was supposed to have our picture on the front. It didn't. Finally the wedding day arrives and the photographer gets lost coming to the house, even though I had given them directions when I picked up the place cards. He was only 20 minutes late, but still. Everything at the house goes smoothly The church went fine. After the ceremony we did the standard wedding party and various parts of the family. I told him that was all I wanted for posed pictures, except one large picture of my family at the receptions. The reception went well except for the hour I spent in the hallway doing all kinds of posed family portraits. When I said we were done he said no I had all night to dance. I reminded him that we agreed no more posed pictures. We wanted more candid shots of people dancing and being part of the reception. There were 2 songs worth of candid shots. We are told the proofs will be up in 3-5 days. Two and a half weeks later they were up, but they looked terrible. I called and asked why they seemed blurry or wide angled? I was told they would fix it. They did. We had said we wanted the more photo-journalistic style and that was why we were paying more for a specific photographer. Nope didn't happen. No one could order on line yet so I collected all the orders and turned them in. I asked when we could do our order for our digital album (that we paid extra for) and was told to get all the other orders in first. I had to organize the entire album myself. I am not creative. I paid you to do this. No one told me how it could be done. This is months later after all the orders are in turned in to them and the money they called me and said something about needing my album order ASAP or we wouldn't get an album. By this point my husband and I moved out of state and we had to do this in person. It was right before Thanksgiving. I told them we wounld't be home until Christmas. They didn't care. So my mom went it with my drawings of how I wanted the pictures laid out. And what I wanted in the backgrounds. I asked them to call me to go over it with me via phone. They didn't. They weren't even there the day my mom went to drop it off. So finally I go in over Christmas to finalize everything for our album. There were lots of changed to be made. The only thing they did right was use the pictures I put it. The page order was wrong and the backgrounds were terrible. Our album got ordered, but none of the pictures family had ordered had come in yet. I started called again; I got a voicemail saying they were out of the country!! They left a number to call in case of emergency. I called it the next week figuring everyone gets a vacation. Well that person never called me back. After 5-6 calls to that number I stated the next call would be from my attorney. We got our album 3 days before our first anniversary.

Our daughter's wedding was May 27th, 2012 at the University Club in Chicago. It was the most…read morewonderful day for all of us, largely due to the efforts of Lisa & her team. She is amazing! I was introduced to her through a college friend (thanks MB) and after just one phone call I knew she was a perfect fit. She has great experience, a wide range of contacts in everything from bands, venues, photographers and florists to ceremony ideas, invitation design specialists, welcome bag and gift options, hair & makeup options .....and everything inbetween. After meeting with us, she had a great sense of the wedding vision we had and her suggestions & ideas were spot on. She was always available, even as a busy, working mom mom of 4 kids!! And most importantly, I always felt that out wedding was her number 1 priority, even though I knew she had another wedding the same weekend as ours! That is a great skill! We had some unique challenges along the way.... with our date, which she helped us through....with our ceremony details, which she helped us through....and with the day of details, which she again helped us through. Lisa is always cool, calm and collected which is unbelievable considering the potential stresses of planning and organizing a large wedding. I myself am really happy I have just one daughter and 2 sons!!! That being said, Courtney & I would like to thank Lisa & Ryan for their work in creating a most wonderful wedding day...It was Perfect! PS Lisa, My husband Mark, says it was the most beautiful wedding he has ever been to...Big compliment from the man who was not into the details!!! Love Mary & Courtney

Lisa is fun, organized, creative, timely and generally so easy to work with. We loved her vender…read moresuggestions and she kept us on track with the budget. She made my daughter's wedding vision come true. Our day was so smooth and I was comfortable just having a good time, not at all worried that things wouldn't get done. We had our event at the reopened Chicago Athletic Association ( now a boutique hotel) on August 6, 2016.

Toni is amazing to work with! I got amazing compliments on my flowers. She gave me exactly what I…read moreasked for and on budget. I highly recommend them!

Toni who owns Joseph Leigh Designs is a wonderful, talented, reasonable and organized florist who…read morerecently did all of the flowers for my wedding. I gave her the budget that I had in mind and she accomodated it without hesitation. The flowers at our reception were unbelievable. There were SO many of them, the best quality and it looked so rich. Every detail was taken care of, there were no mistakes, misunderstandings, or delays. It was smooth, done with attention to detail and I HIGHLY recommend Joseph Leigh Designs. They were simply excellent. I wish I had another event to throw!

Where to even begin?! From the FIRST meeting with Arin, I knew this was going to be a special…read moreexperience- she had pre-reserved our dream venue (The Field Museum!) just in case we wanted to get married in November... which we did! Arin is so full of ideas, kindness, and energy- she took my vision of color and RAN WITH IT... leading all of our vendors to create the absolute night of my dreams. Arin is incredibly responsive (nights, weekends, ALWAYS), organized, and creative. She wished me luck and sent me coffee before my dress shopping, asked for updates during my bachelorette, and even texted mere DAYS after giving birth to wish me well on wedding day. Arin shines so bright - and is a safe space in what can be a crazy/confusing industry. I am so thankful to Arin for the happiest night of my life- looking back, there isn't ONE THING I would change. It was perfect.

If I could give BCB 10 stars, I would. They are amazing!…read more We recently worked with BCB to plan and execute my son's Bar Mitzvah (they do more than just weddings!). We had the privilege of working with Susan and Johnna. Susan is a visionary who can help you dream big and tap into your imagination, and Johnna makes all your dreams realities. Our event was held at 1970 N Lincoln (formerly Stanleys), which has been closed for almost a decade. Susan and Johnna were magicians and made the venue come to life, ensuring we had the epic dance party we envisioned. No detail was left unattended, from the creative catering to the security to the coat check to the lighting, the DJ, the party's flow, and then some. After the event, there was an issue with our bus company in which one bus never arrived. BCB was able to get a last-minute bus to come, all without letting me know, so that I could enjoy the party and not stress. I cannot recommend them enough. I only wish I had another party to throw so I could work with them again. If you're looking for an incredibly creative, thoughtful, detail-oriented, fun-loving, caring team to throw your next big event, look no further than Big City Bride. They are THE BEST!

Working with Lori was a dream! We did the full planning package with Lola based on a recommendation…read morefrom a friend who had worked with Lori to plan his own wedding. She also planned his brother's wedding...then his other brother's...we were sold. Lori and the Lola team have all their ducks in a row. They have the tools, templates, and timelines needed to plan and execute a successful wedding. But more importantly, they have the many years of vendor relationship-building, the hard-earned knowledge of what works and what doesn't, and the unfaltering dedication to making your vision come to life that takes your wedding day from special to stratospheric. Of course there are many (manyyy) decisions for the couple to make when planning a wedding, but Lori put in so much of the back-end work to help streamline them for us. Her vendor recommendations were top-notch and our regularly scheduled meetings were as pain-free as they can be for two people who aren't "into" event planning. The day-of support was critical - I think we would have been 2 hours behind had Lori not be ushering us through the timeline like the pro that she is. Lori also gets an A+ on vibes: she's like your planning bestie that is your biggest cheerleader or your sage reality check depending on what you need in the moment. She also has a great eye for design, color, florals, etc. and was an invaluable input for those types of decisions. Multiple guests came up to us at our wedding and said it was the best wedding they had ever been to. Maybe everyone says that but if it's true (we think it is!), we have Lori to thank for it. We had the time of our lives at an absolutely stunning ceremony and reception, and we couldn't be more grateful.

Even weeks after our multi-day Indian wedding finished, we are still receiving heaps of praise…read more Multiple guests told us that not only was it the best wedding that they have ever been to, but it is also going to be the best wedding that they will EVER experience. People constantly mentioned the attention to detail, and one guest even highlighted that the most impressive thing about the wedding was not the extravagance but rather all the logistics, how everything operated so precisely. All that praise is due to Michelle, Kristy, and the entire LOLA team. Our wedding was from Tuesday through Sunday morning, with four large events in four separate venues and numerous smaller rituals and mini-events, involving over twenty separate vendors. Calling it complex would be a massive understatement. Yet, nothing fell through the cracks. We are in the process of building a house, and we half-joke that we should hire Michelle and Kristy to run that project even though it is so out of their ballpark simply because we don't know what to do without their organization. On our wedding ceremony day, we were faced with torrential downpour and unpredictable weather. From the beginning, our biggest desire was to have our ceremony outdoors. Michelle and Kristy worked tirelessly, fighting for our dream to somehow make that outdoors wedding a reality, coming up with some brilliant ideas with the help of Lori. See, they didn't take the easy route of just sticking with the rain plan. They cared. They cared a lot. We can't stress this enough because you can't figure that out by looking through portfolios or interviewing planners. It is found in all those moments where Michelle and Kristy picked up on one of our discomforts and gave us some quiet space, where they understood what we wanted (sometimes even better than we ourselves realized), where one of them would dive to the ground to look through their bag for a pair of scissors or to help place dance shoes on the bride right before she had to go onto the stage, where they literally helped rig an important décor installation when a venue installer did not show up. When the wedding was over, the saddest realization that dawned on us was that we were not going to be able to spend as much time with them. Michelle and Kristy helped us build a team of all-star vendors and venues for our wedding. They have the best connections in the Chicagoland area, but it never felt like they were pushing anyone on us. Instead, it really felt like they were understanding our needs and guiding us to the vendors that best fit those needs. They would always give us a list to choose from and never influence our decisions unless we explicitly asked for guidance. They helped handle all the communication with these vendors so that we did not get stuck with small details and logistics that were unimportant for us. There were so many conversations that happened in the background between vendors, venues, and LOLA that we thankfully did not have to join. As decisions started to mount, Michelle and Kristy were extremely organized and helped keep us on track with a planning timeline and a plethora of spreadsheets. We cannot stress how high our bar for organizational excellence is, and somehow, they managed to exceed it. We had over seven permutations for guest invites, tons of boxes that had to be delivered to different venues, multiple outfit changes, and so many different rituals that kept getting added on throughout the process. One of the best testaments to their level of organization was their four separate minute by minute timelines. Our families never run on time, but that weekend, everything ran like clockwork. On the day-of, they were everywhere all at once, in the hotel, at the venue, working with our family, working with vendors. They knew exactly what to escalate to us and which things to handle themselves. That week, we got to know more LOLA members. Shout out to Nicole who had the arduous task of dealing with both sets of parents, and she handled all their requests and worked extremely hard. Sanja was responsible for transportation, and despite all the intricate logistics, everyone was at the right place on time without any issues. Lori worked with us, helped attend to some of our last-minute emergencies, and shepherded us to where we needed to be, really freeing us to be in the moment and relax. Damina and Morgan helped answer questions for our guests. It was a whole team effort that put LOLA's best values on full display. Our wedding week, despite its intricacies, felt flawless to us. We literally could not have asked for anything better on any of the days. That is thanks to Michelle and Kristy's impressive work ethic, battle-tested experience, relentless pursuit of perfection, and simply their desire to make our dreams come true.

I worked with Tiffany as my day of coordinator for my wedding on 4/6/13 and she was absolutely…read morePHENOMENAL. We started working with Tiffany about 6 weeks out, and looking back, I truly didn't realize just how much I needed her. Tiffany was the most amazing and heartfelt person to work with. Everything she did up to the day was incredible, and the day of... words do not describe. Our wedding was A LOT to deal with, coordinating a concert venue, caterer, two bands, a soloist, a DJ and all the other regular things: speeches, cake cutting and the like. Needless to say, I was needy. Tiffany was amazingly responsive, attentive and completely flexible. I cannot more highly recommend the services of Soiree. I fancy myself a coordinator and hesitated on hiring someone (budget and what not) but I am a BELIEVER. Every bride needs a Tiff. Our Concert Wedding = AWESOME & AMAZING Tiffany = AWESOME & AMAZING

My husband and I worked with Tiffany the past two years for my husband's annual work gala. After a…read moresub-par performance by another Chicago planner in 2012, he interviewed a number of planners and decided on Tiffany and her team due to her experience, energy, wealth of knowledge and creative ideas. After working with her for two events, we can honestly say that we have no hesitations in recommending her and her team. I could go on and on about all the things that make Soiree amazing, but I'll try to keep this short-ish and sweet. Tiffany has helped us plan two 300+ person events. And these people aren't the easiest to please--the majority are physicians, as these are hospital events. She has been instrumental in helping us pick venues, line up top-notch vendors, and coordinate everything to come together perfectly, all while working within our budget. She's always been very responsive to any emails and calls we've made to her. Any concerns we had were always addressed immediately. We enjoyed working with a few of her staff members at each of our events as well--most recently, Janelle did an amazing job the day of this year's gala. Just last weekend was the 2014 gala. Tiffany and her team were nothing less than stellar! Everything was absolutely beautiful, and my husband and I can't stop talking about what a wonderful event it was. While we loved our wedding 5 years ago, we can't help but comment on how if the gala was our wedding, we would have been absolutely pleased. The physicians have had nothing but rave reviews as well, many noting that it was one of the best galas they've been to in the 20+ years that the hospital has had them. Needless to say, Soiree will be our team again for 2015 and beyond. And the icing on the cake...Tiffany is truly a sweet, fun and caring person! 5 stars all the way from Raul and Kari!

Best money spent! I highly recommend Naturally Yours Events…read more Kristen was our event coordinator and she executed our day with perfection. 10 out of 10!!

The team at NYE events was fantastic to work with from start to finish. I had a great first…read moreconsultation on what I was looking for and was paired with Tempris, who I cannot say enough good things about. She is kind and thorough and truly made me feel supported and confident that all of our plans would be executed. She is both professional and warm and it was a true joy to spend the day with her! I wholeheartedly recommend NYE and am so grateful to Tempris and the rest of the team.

This is actually my second time having the pleasure of working with Nichole and her amazing team…read more Last minute (well a few months before) I decided I needed something beautiful to set the tone of our wedding weekend and have floral and decor for our wedding eve/rehearsal dinner at the Chicago Firehouse. I wanted a vibey/moody setting to really accentuate the dark wood and old Chicago feel of the building and knew that Nichole was the perfect fit from the start. I simply told her where it was and her proposal came back PERFECT. Beyond that, when it came to life it was 10000% times better than on paper in the proposal. All evening we received so many compliments about how everything looked and how beautiful everything was. Nichole is also an incredibly kind vendor - one who is always responsive, goes out of her way to make sure your vision comes to life and the truly best compliment you can give her and her team is to simply get out of their way. She has a way of seeing beauty in spaces and venue to make your vision come to life and she's such a gift to the wedding and event community in Chicago. Working with Nichole and her team, you will feel a sense of calm and contentment knowing that your dreams are in the very best of hands.

One look at XO Designs Instagram page and we knew Nichole and her team were the ones we wanted for…read moreour wedding. Nichole is a beautiful person, everything we discussed upon our initial conversation was brought to light on our wedding day, she truly delivered magic. Her creativity in building the floral assortments were simply stunning, our guests were in awe of the beauty. All of the flowers took my breath away, I will forever be daydreaming about them. We couldn't have asked for a better team to be with us on our wedding day, they were all very professional and kind. We can't recommend Nichole and XO Designs enough, they truly made our day magical