Five Star Review:
In the words of Ellie Goulding: “What are you waiting for?”
My husband and I wanted a hands-on role in planning our wedding, so we weren’t initially inclined to hire a wedding planner. An introduction to Lisa during an open house for vendors at our venue quickly helped us realize: you don’t know what you don’t know. For us, the decision to hire Lisa as our wedding planner became about execution – not replacing our creative and/or romantic vision with hers. Where we wanted a hands-on role, CCBL showed us how to make that happen. And, from start to finish, they made it happen. We are so grateful to CCBL for helping to create a perfect wedding day.
Of the numerous things we could share to inform the decision-making process of couples considering hiring a wedding planner – and specifically, considering hiring Lisa – vendor selection, timeline management, and day-of coordination were our top priorities in making that decision ourselves. Why? The quality of your vendors will determine the quality of your wedding, plain and simple. Timeline management ensures the vendors you’d like to book will still be available, mitigating last-minute panic-planning. Day-of coordination enables you to be as present as possible on your wedding day.
1. VENDOR SELECTION: Vendor selection begins with hiring Lisa. As you should for any vendor you choose to include in your wedding preparations, do your research. Lisa earned a fine arts degree in musical theater from the Boston Conservatory, with a concentration in directing. Lisa is a working artist as much as she’s an event planner. As a consummate professional, she brings a commanding creativity and rigorous attention to detail to the entire wedding-planning process. Your wedding isn’t just a party – it’s a production that Lisa and her team ensure will play out to perfection. She does so by building trust, taking time to understand your personalities and priorities as individuals, first, and then as a couple preparing for marriage. That attention bears out in conversations you’ll have about certain logistical considerations: live band vs. DJ, plated meal vs. buffet, first look or not. These conversations always took into account how we – the couple – wanted to spend the precious little moments of our wedding day. From a lengthy list of vendors she’s curated over the course of her 20+ years in the industry, Lisa matched our creative vision (elevated garden party, seafood-forward menu, etc.) with vendors she trusted from those relationships she’s built. Lisa was present with us as our advocate — at meetings with our caterer, DJ, photographers, florists, cake person, etc. – almost all of whom she had worked with before.
2. TIMELINE MANAGEMENT: We moved and both started new jobs just eleven months before our October wedding. With so much disruption in our daily lives, Lisa ensured that the many deadlines we needed to meet were met, and didn’t hesitate to nudge us when we needed to speed up our decision making. Not all design and vendor decisions have to happen at the same time, but ensuring your options are open means having a checklist and a schedule and sticking to it. Meetings with Lisa provided us the opportunity to ask questions and assess the feasibility of certain design ideas or budget considerations (alas, nix the baby grand piano idea). Lisa was always available, even during exceptionally stressful weeks for her, to help us make those informed decisions on schedule. In fact, Lisa was always ahead of schedule, and we looked forward to receiving updates from her like, “Hi, you two – we’re X months out and you should start thinking about X, Y, Z.” Not only did that timeline help build anticipation to our wedding day, but helped manage stress that cropped up between us and over-eager parents! 🙂
3. DAY-OF COORDINATION: Words cannot convey how stress-free our wedding day was because of Lisa and the CCBL team. (You had to be there!) Though we interacted with vendors often during the months preceding our wedding, Lisa organized all final calls, correspondence, and logistical considerations in the days/weeks right before the wedding. She met with the families and bridal parties during the rehearsal dinner to set some ground-rules for the following day, which included a brief walk-through about the ‘order of events.’ Her team worked with the maids-of honor and best man to coordinate morning-of details (such texting in the AM to confirm the makeup/hair stylists had arrived and were on schedule). If anything went “wrong” on our wedding day, it was unbeknownst to us. We did not anticipate “day-of coordination” to be such a notable part of the day, but it made the day what it was: perfect. We met Kelly (from CCBL) upon arrival at our venue. From that moment on, Kelly was there to keep the bride and groom on schedule, from telling us when we’d be needed for photos to telling us when we could have a quiet moment together and more. Of course, we could have a moment alone whenever we wanted – it was our wedding day – but we understood the value of someone else keeping us on schedule. Having Lisa’s team there gave us the freedom to be present with ourselves, each other, our families, and our guests. Kelly even made sure we would get little plates of hors d’oeuvres delivered to us because we chose not to do a first-look, opting instead to take photos during the cocktail hour. What impressed us the most was Kelly’s (and the entire CCBL team’s) willingness to make what we wanted to happen, happen, from the moment we arrived to the moment Kelly closed our limo doors at the end of the night – even if it changed the plan slightly. (With mosquitos emerging and light falling quickly as we wrapped up taking sunset photos, we were heading back inside when we realized we didn’t have any sunset photos with the bride’s veil on. Where was the veil? All the way at the end of the road, up a flight of stairs, in the venue. Though we could tell it wasn’t ideal, Kelly said, “If that’s the photo you want, we’ll make it happen.” She full-on sprinted away and returned with the veil just so we could get that picture.) None of this even touches upon Lisa’s energy, expertise, and joy she brought to every meeting and interaction. She encouraged us to make choices that were right for us and did everything she could to make it happen. She has an effervescent personality, which we miss having around now that we’re married! We cannot thank Lisa and her entire team enough for everything they did to help us have the wedding of our dreams. – Ryan and Christina October 2023
