Couldn't have imagined our wedding without Casey and Coastline!
Casey and the Coastline team were phenomenal. From the start, Casey was a true partner who helped us brainstorm, problem solve, and fine-tune. (My husband and I literally got a photo with Casey on our wedding day because we were so grateful for all her help and wanted to memorialize the moment, if that says anything lol). I would recommend her to anyone -- ESPECIALLY if you're getting married on an island and need a hand with the logistics. We got married on Chebeague Island in June, with a goal of hosting all of our 140 guests on the island. As a note to all brides-to-be: working with a wedding coordinator/planner will feel foreign. And if you are a type A person, it will be a little uncomfortable! I'm extremely organized and it took me some time to let go and create flexibility in my own insane focus on executing and crossing things off my wedding to-do list at all times. I share this because, when hiring a planner, you have to go in eyes wide open: a planner has other couples they are working with. They will not be available at your beck and call. They may take a few days to reply to you, and there will be times that you wish they were answering you immediately––but as with any professional, you've also got to realize that this won't be possible. That said: a good planner should be responsive, attentive, thoughtful, and solution-oriented. Casey was all these things and more.
We chose the coordination package, knowing that we had a 21-month engagement, an extremely detail-oriented bride with event planning experience, and time / energy to handle many of the research, planning, logistics, and vision work ourselves. I'd send pages-long emails with updates and questions to Casey, and she always replied with helpful suggestions and recommendations. And if she didn't, all it took was a quick follow up to get her thoughts and help.
When it came to the month-away mark, she stepped in to coordinate all the communication and took over the relationships and timelines with vendors that I'd booked -- many of whom came from her suggestions. A week before our wedding, she let us know that she had a great videographer who had an opening (and even suggested that we might be able to negotiate a good price given the late notice). Thanks to Casey, we now have an incredible video from our wedding day, which we had not planned on due to budget -- and we can't thank her enough for that. Then, the week of the wedding... she was available and helpful for all the last minute things. When the venue was being oddly unresponsive to questions about set up and guest transportation (on an island that's hard to get around without the help of the venue), Casey jumped in and tracked down a point of contact to assuage our fears. When the DJ started playing the wrong song as my husband walked down the aisle -- she sent a team member sprinting down to change it to the right song in mere seconds. She had our signature cocktails waiting for us right after we walked down the aisle as husband and wife. She set up all our signage, put out guest favors at every reception seat, bustled my gown, helped intervene in some tricky guest dynamics, and really was like another member our wedding party: always there for my husband and I, at every turn. And I won't even begin to outline all of the logistics she helped us coordinate with vendors, which were complex, due to our venue and the constraints of hosting a 140-person wedding on an island you can only reach by boat.
From our wedding rehearsal to the final song, Casey was everywhere and doing everything, a TRUE miracle worker who we couldn't have survived without. We can't thank Casey + the Coastline Weddings team enough, and would recommend them to anyone getting married in the Portland / Southern Maine area. They are a wealth of knowledge and SO worth the investment. Thank you, Casey!!!!