My now husband and I started wedding planning in September 2024, not knowing that we would choose July 25, 2025 as our wedding date. As someone with experience in event planning, I thought we could plan it ourselves. I was wrong. By March 2025 we had secured my dress, venue, save-the-dates and invitations, and about half of our vendors. The more planning we did, the more and more details we needed to coordinate. We got overwhelmed, hit a wall and completely shut down.
Our venue coordinator recommended Janice at Wedding Planner 808 and right off the bat I knew we could trust her based off of how transparently she lays out her services and costs on her website. We chose Platinum Package B - Partial Planning and Coordination. It spoke to exactly where we were in the planning process. I felt instant relief after our first consultation. Janice was warm but still regimented and prepared. She knew every rule about our venue by heart, and also knew exactly what questions to ask us to get the information she needed to shape a game plan. I felt I had more questions than answers halfway into our consultations, but by the second half I had no doubts. You can trust Janice and her process. Everything will seem like a mess until suddenly, just before the wedding, it all falls into place. And that is what you hire Janice for! She knows exactly what steps need to be taken and when, and most importantly is able to coordinate all of it.
If you're debating between Wedding Planner 808 and another planner, consider this:
(1) Industry experience and connections - Janice is an industry veteran. We could list almost any vendor and she knew who exactly who they were and likely had worked with them already. She also has close relationships with many of them and can arrange for special perks if she refers you to them. Importantly, though, she does not pressure you and in no way lets those relationships influence your decision.
(2) Professional but personable - Janice knows exactly what she needs to get out of every consultation and will keep you on track. But even in a short meeting she'll find ways to get to know you as a couple and share a little about herself. She absolutely has your best interests at heart and genuinely wants to help you have the best wedding day.
(3) Value - We could have spent an absurd amount of time and effort coordinating between vendors, looking over contract details, and trying to plan a wedding day timeline. Janice, however, can streamline all of this in a series of consultations. We received 12 hours of consultations, an additional 2-hour site visit, 2-hour rehearsal, and 2 hour final walkthrough, and event day coordination. You're also not only getting her services, but decades of knowledge. For example, when putting a draft schedule together, we didn't know what time to take photos with guests. Janice knew exactly what time sunset pictures would look best on the lanai at the venue. It would have taken us so much effort to research online and have back-and-forth messages with the venue to figure this out. This is only one of the endless examples of how an experienced planner can save you time and effort. Make no mistake, you're not paying for just x number hours' worth of consultations, you are paying for likely hundreds of hours of time saved trying to plan a wedding yourself.
(4) Smooth event day coordination - We can't fully describe how much Janice and her assistants handled on the wedding day. For starters, they showed up several hours early to make the rain call, coordinated all our guests at arrival, photos and dinner, coordinated between vendors including at setup, during the wedding and at breakdown, and even personally set up our welcome table and party favors. We were so happily focused on our guests that we completely forgot to collect the borrowed centerpiece vases at the end of the night. Janice not only collected them without fuss, but returned them to our florist, saving us the late fee, all outside of her contract scope.
To summarize, we got great value out of Wedding Planner 808 as a somewhat proactive couple, but who were overwhelmed and needing help connecting all the dots. Janice was regimented enough to keep us on track, but also flexible enough to cater to what we felt were our most pressing needs. I will say Janice is extremely busy, and you will need to be especially proactive at contacting her. She is quickest to respond over text and phone and not so much over email. You may need to advocate for yourself to meet sooner than later if you are feeling a time crunch, but she is very amenable to working around your busy schedule too. We would highly recommend Wedding Planner 808 to couples that have an idea of what they want out of their wedding, but need an experienced, organized, responsible and yet still personable and friendly planner to bring it all together. read more