Melissa Sent on 09/28/2012

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Diane and her staff are amazing! From the beginning of the planning process she was so helpful and responsive. Diane was very clear about the services she provides and all of the costs were clearly broken down for us. The weekend of the wedding, everything came together perfectly. Diane and her staff handled all of the details, large and small, and I was able to relax and enjoy the day. And it was the best day!

Do not hesitate to hire Diane Allen/ Big Sur Weddings for your event, it will be the most wonderful, beautiful day of your life!

Thanks again Diane!

Zabrina Sent on 07/30/2017

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My husband and I planned our Big Sur wedding from South Florida and hiring Diane was the best decision we made. We debated about hiring a wedding planner at all to keep costs down. But within a few short days, we knew we made the right decision. I could not imagine planning the day without her. She was easy to communicate with and on top of every detail. She connected us with other amazing vendors who helped make our day exactly what we wanted, and more. It's obvious that Diane loves what she does, loves Big Sur, and loves her clients. Our day was absolutely perfect and we have Diane to thank for that.

Melissa Sent on 05/14/2013

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We had a wonderful experience working with Diane Allen! We are from Pennsylvania and wanted to have our 'camping' wedding in the Big Sur. Our wedding was on the small side, however when you are trying to coordinate 22 out of town guests, it can be very overwhelming. Diane was able to provide recommendations on all vendors and help us every step of the way. She embraced our vision, and it made our day so special. Diane put me in contact with all our vendors. When one of our vendors tried to pull a time switch on us, she was on top of it! I did not even have to handle anything. I was able to focus on my family and spending an amazing weekend in the Big Sur getting married to my best friend! Thank you to Diane and her team. If we ever get to do it again - she is our first call!

Katlain Sent on 10/18/2012

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Diane Allen is a dream to work with! She just coordinated my husband and my wedding in Big Sur a few weeks back and she made everything so easy. She is a lovely person, sweet and genuinely seems to love what she does, but she was also fiercely protective of us and fought for us on the things we really wanted. She never said no to any requests, even when we knew we were asking a lot or requesting something unconventional. On the day of my wedding, Diane was the epitome of attentive and responsive, always asking me if I needed anything and if I was doing okay. She even baked us homemade pumpkin pies because our caterer could not get it for us and they are my husband's favorite! Every bride should be so lucky to work with Diane Allen - the perfect mix of professional and personable!

User981797 Sent on 10/20/2012

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Diane and her team did an excellent job- if my husband and I were to do it all again, we would know exactly who to call! Diane made us feel very comfortable prior to the event and the day of the event went perfect! Couldn't have asked for a better team!

Kate Sent on 04/03/2012

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Wow! Where to begin with my appreciation and admiration of Diane Allen & her whole Elegant Events team... Diane was our wonderful wedding planner for my wedding last September at Paion in Big Sur - I can't even begin to express with words how efficient, eloquent and proficient Diane is with her Event Planning - she made the whole process seamless and streamlined, and we couldn't be more appreciative! (And, as you know, wedding planning is no simple task!)

In addition, just as a character reference - Diane might just be the most personable, down-to-earth and good-spirited woman that you will ever have the pleasure of meeting - my entire family adores her and are actually planning a return trip next year to beautiful Big Sur to reunion with Diane and her fabulous team.

I couldn't recommend her more highly to facilitate your Event Planning! She was seriously the hero of our magical wedding weekend - thank you so much, Diane!! :)

-Kate G.

Kelly Sent on 04/19/2012

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Diane Allen was an excellent wedding planner! We got married in Big Sur and found her online. She's one of the only wedding planners that specializes in the area. We feel in love with her from just speaking to her over the phone! She set us up with a meeting at the Big Sur River Inn right away, she met us there and we got a VIP tour and ended up booking the venue that day.

Diane helped us plan the wedding of our dreams. We were so happy we decided to hire her as our wedding coordinator. I couldn't of imagined planning my wedding in Big Sur without her. She has so many connections with local vendors which was extremely helpful. On our wedding day we were worry free because Diane and her staff was there! She helped us plan our ENTIRE weekend (rehearsal dinner, wedding day, and brunch) It was worth every penny spent. We now consider Diane and friend.

Our wedding would not have been the same without her on our side.

Dave Sent on 04/13/2012

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I kind of want to give Diane and Big Sur weddings a different score for "professionalism" because she wasn't professional all the time. And that was the best thing about her. Diane was professional when she needed to be, but most of the time she was like friend and family to us. Diane is cool. And that to us was far more important than being professional. She handled business when she needed to, that's expected, anybody can do that (unfortunately most don't), but it was Diane's absence of professionalism that made our wedding experience so amazing. She didn't trouble us with the business of the wedding. She took care of everything. And we feel like we have a lifelong friend in Diane.

Another note: our wedding took place on June 21, 2008 in Big Sur. Those who live around Big Sur know that date well: it's the day the fires started. Our wedding went off without a hitch, it was the most beautiful day ever, blah blah blah (details available upon request), but by nightfall the fire had grown out of control and a large section of Hwy1 was closed and we all had to be evacuated from the wedding site. Diane and her team took care of everything and did a remarkable job of making sure everyone got out safely. She even got down on her knees and begged the firemen to let our convoy of shuttle buses go north through the fire zone and the closed section of Hwy1. It was a completely selfless act on their part because these people live in Big Sur and their homes were in danger, but they took care of us first. I can't express my thanks and gratitude enough.

Needless to say, it was a wedding that no one who attended will ever forget. And Diane can now add "emergency evacuations/disaster relief" to her list of wedding services she provides. To say that Diane went above and beyond our expectations is a gross understatement. We loved our wedding and we love Diane.

She really did get down on her knees in the middle of the highway and begged the firemen to let us through, by the way. -Dave and Tania Carnie

Erin Sent on 04/13/2012

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Very helpful. Clear billing practices (itemizes bills demonstrating how time was spent). We used this planner for day-of services, and she also helped us assemble gift bags for out of town guests. A real value especially when coordinating a lot of vendors--also, we live in Oregon and getting married in Carmel meant a lot of stuff was done from a distance. I appreciated Diane's on-site presence and didn't have a worry in the world the day of our dream wedding!!

Kassondra Sent on 12/23/2020

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Look elsewhere

Diane and her business associate, Peter, left us feeling ripped off and taken advantage of. We had planned a small intimate wedding in Big Sur (at Paion Estate), but it was ultimately canceled by forest fires. We weren’t given the option to reschedule and ultimately our event was canceled by Big Sur Events. Diane called to deliver the bad news, and assured us (verbally and in writing) that we would get a refund for the wedding venue. To be clear, we were only expecting a small refund for the cost of the venue that we didn’t get to use but Diane promised a full refund ($$$$). I have emailed her countless times since September, about our refund and at one point she promised a check was coming in the mail. Nothing came and we are still waiting. Initially Diane was somewhat responsive to emails, but ultimately stopped responding, leaving us completely in the dark. It’s unfortunate, because we initially really enjoyed working with her, but this whole experience has made the two of them look dishonest. The check we wrote to Peter had been cashed before our wedding date and before they had canceled on us. We had no idea that we would get taken advantage of like this. We can’t recommend hers or Peter’s services to anyone. Maybe consider looking elsewhere for your Big Sur wedding plans, or risk getting ripped off like we did.

Olivia C. Sent on 09/21/2022

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Took our money, ghosted us and breached contract without a word

I typically don't write reviews but I felt I had to given the severity of the poor experience we had with Diane. Our wedding recently passed (Sept 10 2022) and Diane completely ghosted us before the wedding without any kind of explanation. To this day, we haven't heard from her. She took our money and disappeared.

To provide context, we hired Diane in November 2021 for our September 2022 wedding. We hired her for month-of coordination, but she doesn't have specific packages, so we also agreed to some minor wedding planning items in the months leading up to the wedding as well. I am pretty organized and had planned to do 99% of the planning alone, but since we were planning a destination wedding in Big Sur, I wanted to have Diane gut-check some items, especially because she knew our venue (Glen Oaks) so well. In the beginning, Diane would communicate sparingly - maybe once every 2-3 weeks, which I initially thought was fine because our wedding wasn't for a year and she had other more time-sensitive things to attend to.

We paid a $500 deposit and then in March 2022, we received a bill for $756 (less our deposit, $216) that was not itemized at all. It literally said "Itinerary, vision boards, timelines". Apparently this amounted to 14 hours worth of work, but we never received the vision boards and to this day I have no idea what that means. We paid the invoice, and never heard from Diane again.

In July, Diane posted to her Instagram that her mother had passed and she would be taking a break, but didn't indicate how long. Wanting to be sensitive, we did not reach out to her about wedding planning items. 2.5 weeks went by and we received an email from an assistant (which we never knew she had), and the assistant let us know she would be helping with wedding planning items in Diane's place but that Diane fully intended to be there for our wedding. Great! We responded immediately with our condolences and questions, the biggest being securing rentals since Diane told us explicitly that we needed to go through her to get them, and we were starting to cut it close being only 1.5 months out. The assistant didn't respond, and after 11 days we followed up. After 6 days of no response, we sent another email; again, no response. By that point, we were 30 days out from our wedding and started to look for a new coordinator since we not getting any response.

We learned from our other vendors that Diane also had food poisoning at one point, but had been working weddings regularly again as early as August 6th, which means she ignored our calls and emails willfully and deliberately. To this day, she has not acknowledged that she completely ghosted us without a single word.

Please stay away from Diane and her extremely unprofessional business; the amount of stress she put us through literally made me sick before the wedding. While I understand that Diane went through some hardships, that is no excuse to take your client's money and never respond to them ever again. Seriously, what kind of person does that?

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