Planners on Retainer

Words cannot begin to describe how wonderful it was to have Sarah-Jane and her team helping us plan our wedding. We booked her for full service planning and she helped us book everything except for our venue (which we had already booked before connecting with her). She was incredibly responsive, and we could tell she was fully committed to making sure our vision was executed fully. And I will say – her and her team went above and BEYOND. Our wedding exceeded our expectations and it was definitely because of Sarah-Jane’s wonderful guidance throughout the planning process. We had ~120 guests at the Baltimore Museum of Art and despite the various rules that the museum had as restrictions, Sarah-Jan was able to make sure that we were able to get everything we wanted within those rules. When it came to selecting vendors, she was patient and would really pay attention to our taste. We never landed on vendors until we were fully happy with them and she never pressured us to pick someone we didn’t feel comfortable about. We spent most of the planning process communicating through their virtual platform and would have video calls as needed. She was flexible to get on a call whenever, but we were find to just respond through the portal. When it came to our wedding weekend she was amazing. She brought two additional team members with her for our event to help make sure our day ran smoothly. She was always available when we needed her, incredibly responsive, and all of our vendors knew where they needed to be. She’s organized, friendly, and contributed to the great vibes! Planners on Retainer is incredibly well connected and for our wedding even when we would suggest vendors (i.e. photo and video) that we really liked, she had already worked with them. Our wedding ended up being luxe beyond our imagination and it truly could not have been made possible without Sarah-Jane and her team’s support.

Her professional guidance is spot on and while respectful, she does a good job of letting you know if a choice you’re making is inconsistent with your larger vision.

Early in the planning process, I narrowed down three wedding planners from The Knot and scheduled calls to ask all of my questions. Needless to say, my gut told me to go with Planners on Retainer—and I’m so glad I listened. From my very first conversation with Sarah-Jane, she was not only professional but incredibly personable.

I originally planned to have a local wedding in Virginia, but through our conversations, I began to consider a destination wedding—and that ended up being the best decision I could have made.

While I still had my share of tasks, SJ made everything feel manageable and helped me avoid unnecessary stress. We had to pivot a few times with the resort and guest count, but honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing.

We feel incredibly blessed to have found Sarah-Jane at Planners with Retainers for our wedding at the Four Seasons Hotel. From our very first conversation, we knew we'd found someone special. We clicked immediately, and it felt like we were finishing each other's sentences in no time!
Sarah-Jane took the time to fully understand our vision for our special day and executed it flawlessly. She provided us with excellent options and always offered an objective perspective, helping us think through every decision from all angles. She was instrumental in pulling every detail of the wedding together. We put our trust in her completely, and she absolutely over-delivered!
Her expertise truly showed when a key vendor unexpectedly couldn't deliver just four days before the wedding! I was near panic, but Sarah-Jane was on it immediately, leveraging her strong business relationships to find us a replacement who rearranged their schedule to accommodate us. Even on the wedding day, when a vendor delivered and installed an incorrect item, Sarah-Jane was already rectifying the issue before we even had a chance to mention it later. The entire day went so smoothly, thanks to her incredible proactive approach.
We highly recommend Planners with Retainers and Sarah-Jane. In fact, we were so impressed that we've already rehired her for another service! If you're a picky bride like me, looking for a wedding planner who is dedicated, insightful, prioritizes your best interests and handles ANYTHING that comes their way with grace, professionalism and efficiency, book Sarah-Jane with Planners on Retainers! We have zero regrets!

Sarah-Jane was our month of coordinator and she was absolutely wonderful! She has so much experience working in this field that she knew all about our key vendors right off the bat, and had worked with many of them before. As the wedding day got closer, it became so easy to worry about the little details and whether or not everything would come together. But we didn’t have to worry with Sarah-Jane on our side. The peace of mind from knowing that she had our back, she knew these folks, she would get whatever situation had come up sorted – that’s absolutely priceless.

When the big day came we learned what elevates Planners on Retainer from ‘excellent’ to ‘multi-award winning’ – the whole dream team. Sarah-Jane’s assistants are just as amazing as she is. I want to shout-out Kim in particular – she was absolutely AMAZING!! Our venue (Top of the Town) has limited access points for vendors and incredibly strict rules for everything – its a residential building first and foremost, so they can be very particular. To make things even more complicated, it was a morning wedding with a tight reception timeline.

But it went perfectly! Every speech, every toast, every dance that we wanted to get in, we got in – with plenty of time for cocktails and dancing and memory-making. Everything from the floral arrangements to the wireless mic was exactly where it was supposed to be. If any of the vendors had questions (and I’m sure they did!) they knew exactly who to talk to. As we zipped around that day, taking pictures or greeting guests or practicing speeches, Sarah-Jane and her team were always there, just barely out of sight, running around with clipboards and boxes, keeping everything moving perfectly. That's the sign of an amazing coordinator, I think. Everything went flawlessly, and every time we saw them during the day they was busy getting *something* taken care of. They always had something in hand, always in mid-conversation with someone. But because of her and her team's incredible skills and professionalism, we never knew what those "somethings" were. I am sure that there were a million tiny snags that never made it to me or my guests, all because of the amazing work of Planners on Retainer.

They're just such a great team to work with. Thank you for making our special day so perfect!

So special! POR’s level of organization and expertise made our wedding day.

Sarah-Jane is hands down the best wedding planner ever! She treats her clients like family and takes the stress out of planning. Something she always said to me, "Let me worry about that and you just focus on enjoying your special day." Those words meant everything to me, I knew she had my back 100%. My most memorable moment was when my hairstylist couldn't be available on my wedding day. Sarah-Jane didn't hesitate to reach out to her old high school friend and ask her to step in as my hairstylist. Not only did her friend agree, but she has now become my regular stylist. My husband and I were both very pleased with the services we received and our special day was phenomenal! There was zero drama! Nothing but smiles, laughter and amazing times. Family and friends still talk about how beautiful our wedding was. Every bride needs an amazing wedding planner by their side to help and guide them along their journey. I highly recommend Sarah-Jane at Planners on Retainer!

We knew immediately it was an ideal match as soon as we spoke with Sarah-Jane. The conversation was fun, easy and we felt she understood what we wanted and where we were in the wedding planning process.
She truly became invaluable to us throughout the year we spent planning our wedding. She was flexible with our work schedules. She always had the answer and was very understanding with any curve balls we threw at her. Her designs and ideas were exactly what we wanted. When it came to the day, it was perfect. It was light, beautiful and easy. We honestly were carefree and knew she had everything under control. We would undoubtedly recommend her 10 times over.

Sarah-Jane, Cierra, and the entire team at Planners on Retainer are just phenomenal. They go above and beyond to make sure every single detail is attended to. From the beginning of your planning process until you’re walking into your honeymoon suite and beyond, they make sure that you don’t need to worry about anything and you enjoy being a bride and groom to the fullest. If you do not book the POR team for your wedding, you’re truly missing out!! We are forever grateful for everything they did to make our fairytale come true.

Where to begin - I truly resisted having a wedding planner, believing I could do it all myself. I am very Type A and am one of those people who would rather do things themselves, so that I only have myself to blame if things go wrong. We were having a relatively short engagement and needed to plan an ~180-person wedding in 6 months and on a limited budget (for this market). After about 6 weeks of planning on my own, the stress started to consume me. Between work and the wedding, I was totally spent. My now husband decided that the best wedding present he could give me was to hire a wedding planner. As I said, I truly thought I could do it myself. We went to a bridal show and met a bunch of planners, but I didn’t connect with anyone. I started searching online and I found Planners on Retainer (PoR). I reached out to Sarah-Jane (S-J) and she set a meeting. From the first call, she got me. I knew that she would be patient with me and help me to craft the vision that she would execute. And execute she did! S-J was amazing. She has a very busy calendar between her local and destination weddings, yet always had time for my calls and late night emails. She joined me for meetings with vendors and helped to negotiate when necessary. On very short notice, she drove out to Chantilly to meet us at the florist and truly honed and elevated our designs. She has an amazing eye for detail and great taste. If you want an elegant wedding, you can trust S-J and PoR to get you there.

On a more granular level, planning my wedding with PoR was very easy. She knows everyone in the business and proposed a wonderful selection of vendors for us to choose from - with discounts! The PoR planning portal was a Godsend - from the design portal to the guest tracker and seating chart maker. All were far more user-friendly and detailed than anything I saw on Minted, the Knot, etc. We created our website on Minted with a custom web address, but ended up using the PoR site for all of our guest tracking as it was much easier to download/print for dissemination to the vendors.

Finally, on our actual wedding day, I met the rest of the PoR team and they were just as amazing as S-J. Super helpful and not intrusive.

Needless to say, we were very happy that we chose PoR for our wedding. S-J has become such a good friend to us - we both miss talking to her post-wedding.

Note: I was hoping to post professional pictures of the venue design with this review, so that you can really see her work, but they haven’t arrived yet. We’ve added a few candids and will update the post once received.

Sarah Jane is amazing!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Sarah for being the brains and organization behind our wedding. I am not a organized person by nature, but I knew when we started planning a wedding that this was beyond my strengths. I was scrolling through the internet and instagram looking for a planner. I originally wanted a destination wedding but circumstances changed for us. When I met Sarah Jane we hit it off immediately. Her positive, supportive and bubbly personality made every step of planning that much more fun and relaxing. Her team handled everything for us till the day of the wedding, and it was the best decision we made! She also had amazing recommendations for things to include that we hadn’t even considered. I couldn’t have asked for a better planner. I definitely recommend Sarah and her team on your special day!