This review is so incredibly overdue - where do I even BEGIN?! I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes thinking not only about how perfect our day was but how truly incredible the women of Pure Lavish are. Moral of this story: do NOT sleep on Pure Lavish. Sign with them immediately - your research ends here.

Buckle up for our story…

Looking for guidance while wedding planning is SO stressful - it’s hard to know where to start, especially planning a destination wedding (we live in Northern CA). We had our venue and our photographer but nothing else, so, being the researcher I am, I hopped on Google and began searching for “best planners in Orange County.” I found a few options, Pure Lavish included, and started submitting inquiries. I wasn’t sure about what kind of support we needed. I think when you start planning, you’re like “I can do everything myself and only need minimal support.” I was SO wrong - more to come on that.

Pure Lavish stood out immediately. Carrie, the owner of PL, was the one to respond to my inquiry with a customized, non-robotic, hilarious email that acknowledged my silly inquiry about not knowing what I needed. That interaction was a huge selling point for me. She quickly set me up with one of PL’s planners, Samantha.

To say that I clicked with Sam would be the understatement of the century. Her bubbly energy and openness made me feel like I was talking to an old friend. She was so knowledgeable and so helpful in answering my questions about what kind of support we needed. In my original budget, I didn’t plan on including a wedding planner, but I quickly realized just how important it was to have an expert as our guide along the way, as well as a creative lens to help with design. We signed with PL almost immediately after and didn’t think twice.

Over the next few months, it became clear just how well-connected PL is in Orange County. I had a pretty clear vision with a pre-defined budget that Sam knew exactly how to support. She identified all of the right vendors for what we were looking for and what our desired spend was for each part of the wedding. I ended up not doing anything myself and outsourcing everything because we loved all of the vendors so much. The network that PL brings to the relationship is probably one of the biggest considerations you should make as a bride.

My mom and I made a few trips down to Southern CA to do live planning, select rentals, tastings, etc - it was SO awesome to see Sam in her element and to experience vendor relationships live. PL has such a stellar reputation in Orange County - that was abundantly clear every time we met someone new that we were working with. No trip to OC will ever be complete without seeing Sam!

The time, energy, and excitement that Sam contributed to our wedding were truly incomparable. Her design board and ideas based on my feedback were absolutely perfect. We incorporated 100% of her ideas into our day and made our guests feel so special with all of the personalized recommendations that she made. The attention to detail, the command of the wedding party to keep things in line, and the ridiculous organization skills that she possesses are what defined the overall success of the weekend.

On wedding day, the PL team showed up in FULL FORCE. We were so honored to have Carrie there to support us, and our bridal concierge Caroline was the definition of “being in the right place at the right time.” A MIND READER! The worst part of the day was my shoe heel breaking (not bad, right?) and Caroline somehow crafted a clay pearl to match the ones on the broken heel. Absolutely brilliant.

The PL team has become family. I won’t ever be able to thank them enough for making our day the most wonderful day of our lives! I’ll also never get sick of the regular flow of compliments that we’re still getting 9 months later….

THANK YOU PURE LAVISH!

After being a bridesmaid in a wedding which Caroline Smith Leggio had planned, when it came time for my own wedding, she immediately came to mind. Being a bridesmaid you get a taste of the planner, and I saw that Caroline was extremely professional, poised and overall good at her job. It was enough to hire her, but being the bride, I was able to see so much more. Throughout the process of planning, I saw that Caroline is intelligent, caring and devoted. On the week/weekend of my wedding, she was calm and knew exactly how to manage the many vendors that we hired. During the reception, it meant so much to me that in addition to managing each vendor and our detailed timeline, she executed on the little things, too. A perfect example is that prior to the wedding weekend, I briefly asked for champagne in a certain goblet during cocktail hour. I would have completely forgotten about it, had Caroline not been on the curb waiting for me as my car pulled up, smiling, goblets in hand. I have already highly recommended her, and I will continue to do so.

I have a million things I can say about Carrie Traver and the Pure Lavish team. Hiring Carrie as our planner was the first decision we made in the planning process and probably the most important. I spoke with a number of different planners in OC, but I instantly connected with Carrie -- and I knew whomever I hired would become an integral part of my life over the next year and a half. We brought on the Pure Lavish team for full-service planning, and we are SO glad we did. We began planning our May 2021 wedding in January 2020, and spent a year+ navigating planning a wedding during a pandemic. To be blunt: This wedding would not have happened without Carrie. I was an anxious mess, but Carrie kept me calm, sane, excited and on track (no matter how many times I tried to postpone due to Covid craziness!). We were lucky enough not to have to postpone or cut our guest list, but Carrie and the team helped us pivot on a few minor details to ensure our wedding would happen safely. Lauren was our designer, and she was also incredible. Design was so important to me, but I have no eye for design. Lauren not only executed my vision better than I could've, but she made the process incredibly fun and helped us make decisions based on our budget that we found incredibly helpful. I had a number of design, floral and details meetings with Lauren, and I left every meeting feeling more excited than before. My husband had no idea what the wedding would actually LOOK like, and he was truly blown away. I'll never forget seeing his face when he saw the reception space and after party. Both Carrie and Lauren have strong relationships with vendors (and venues!) that came in incredibly handy during the pandemic (and surely would've under normal circumstances!). I trusted them to advise on all of our vendors, and we were very happy with all of them -- from entertainment to signage and stationary, and even our confetti cannon! If you have an idea, they have someone to help you execute on that idea. On the day of the wedding, I had Gia as my Bridal Concierge, and she was amazing; calming, collected and not afraid to get her hands dirty and step in when she needed to. We also had Caroline and Sam O. help us day-of, and they were equally as fantastic. Sam even helped my grandma, who suffers from dementia, find her room when she got lost on the night of the wedding -- something she did not have to do, but was so meaningful to my family. I truly cannot recommend Pure Lavish enough. I miss them already and am already drumming up ideas for the next event they can plan for me!