Wedding Planners in Illinois

Muskaan put together a wonderful event for me! She’s so organized and creative, and always has a solution for any situation. I truly appreciate the dedication she provides for her clients. Her work allows the event hosts to actually enjoy the event and let go of stress. Highly recommended!

Shihua

5.0 out of 5 rating

5.0

Kristin and John made simple the long, arduous process of planning and executing a wedding. They were incredibly responsive and flexible in the months leading up to the wedding and on the day of, we were able to count on them to keep the whole ceremony going smoothly. While all brides and grooms are kept busy during the wedding, Kristin went out of her way to make sure we were taken care of and had some time to ourselves in the midst of all the chaos. The day went perfectly in part because Kristin and John helped us stay on top of everything!

Catalina

5.0 out of 5 rating

5.0

There aren't enough words to express just how thankful we are for Gina. Well beyond managing the details of the day, keeping the timeline, and facilitating vendor communication and organization leading up to our wedding-as a bride, I felt a sense of security knowing that Gina had our backs throughout the day. We planned and payed for our whole wedding ourselves and with Gina's help as our day of coordinator, our day was better than we ever could have imagined. Everything that Gina and her associate did to set up was absolutely stunning and she thought of everything. She was so calm and collected and that was priceless, as it helped keep me grounded. She was detailed oriented and made sure everything was set up to our liking. My husband and I both haven't stopped telling each other that hiring Gina was the best decision we made in planning since the day we first spoke to her. We felt an immense weight lifted off our shoulders since the day we hired her and the impact she had on our big day was massive. Would highly highly recommend!

There is seriously no better wedding planner than Michelle and her team. From the second I got engaged, I told my mom we need to work with her! I didn't even think about going to anyone else because Michelle is simply the best! Our wedding day wouldn't have been possible without all the help and ideas from Michelle. Throughout the entire planning process she kept us on track and provided us with the best advice to make our wedding day perfect. Her attention to detail, organization, and experience is what makes her so successful. She came into every meeting with such enthusiasm and excitement while still being extremely organized and professional. Her knowledge and expertise is unparalleled. She gives the best advise and I felt truly had our backs when it came to booking the vendors. In addition to helping us plan an over 500 person wedding, she and her team also made the day run so smoothly. They were there from morning till night making sure everything was getting done/happening when it was supposed to. My mom, my dad, and I could not have done this wedding without Michelle and her team. Thank you for everything you did to make our day run perfectly!!!!! Again, MDE you are the best!!!

If you are looking for the right wedding planner, your search should end with this review. We cannot say enough good things about Camille and her team, but we will do our best here. We were in a unique situation of putting together our wedding in roughly three months due to family health reasons, and Camille played an enormous role in making our wedding a success. Camille was on top of every detail and was involved every step of the way. She was always there to give us advice when we had questions or weren't sure what to do. She provided a thorough timeline and kept all the trains moving on time. She also connected with our vendors to coordinate deliveries and timing. Everything you could want in a planner, Camille and her team provided. She made a stressful few months feel much more manageable and it all went off without a hitch. Thank you Camille!

Crystal

5.0 out of 5 rating

5.0

As a fellow event industry professional, when it came to planning my own wedding, there was only one group I would hire and Anticipation Events is it! With mind blowing combined years of event planning, design and execution, there is no better choice! From the initial inquiry email, Elizabeth and Emma were nothing but kind, patient, reassuring and efficient. Consummate professionalism through and through! They helped us flush out ideas and guided us through each step. I was able to switch mindsets from event director to bride with confidence and ease. The team was available for random texts, multiple emails and calls whenever needed. Their organizational tools leading up to the day were so helpful to keep us on track and they handled all necessary communications with our vendors and venue with grace and aplomb. We had a great deal of decor that we collected ourselves and AE came to our house to gather it all ahead of the big day and handled all set up where needed. This aspect was an incredible relief and a huge added value that made our day even more special! One the day, Emma and team were so responsive and able to pivot on a dime when necessary. They even handled wayward family members with tact and professionalism, leading with hospitality at every turn. AE was ready with a kit of items we never thought we would need, which all came in handy! Even when my beloved Groom left his reception tux jacket at the hotel, AE was able to retrieve it , and returned right on time for outfit changes! Not a beat was missed. Anticipation Events were there for and did everything that I would have done but better and before we knew we even needed it, more than living up to their name. If I could elect Anticipation Events for President, I would. Full stop.

Justin

5.0 out of 5 rating

5.0

This team was such a pleasure to work with! As a photographer I’m able to almost go on autopilot when working with Shannon Gail because I know they are on top of every small detail! From the flatlay, to the dress, the fine details of the timeline, etc. This might be an overstatement, but it also seems that they has a huge following from word of mouth and not from a bunch of mindless advertising. That tells me one thing that is most important for any planner to have with couples…Trust! Every couple knows undoubtedly that their day is in great hands with the Shannon Gail team! If I had money on the line I would put my money on them any day of the weekend!

Me and my husband selected Vowed to You as our day of coordinator. The only thing we would change is if we could rewind time and have Kyna be our wedding planner. From day one Kyna paid attention to detail and gave amazing recommendations. Our other wedding vendors had some hiccups setting up and I knew nothing of it because Kyna handled everything based on conversations we previously had about our vision. She ensured everything we needed throughout the day and night was taken care of.

Even weeks after our multi-day Indian wedding finished, we are still receiving heaps of praise. Multiple guests told us that not only was it the best wedding that they have ever been to, but it is also going to be the best wedding that they will EVER experience. Some of them told us that they had to set expectations for their kids that no other wedding will really compare. People constantly mentioned the attention to detail, and one guest even highlighted that the most impressive thing about the wedding was not the extravagance but rather all the logistics, how everything operated so precisely. All that praise is due to Michelle, Kristy, and the entire LOLA team. If you’re like us, you are trying to do all your research upfront so that you can find someone to trust to make your dream wedding a reality. We can confidently say that LOLA is that team. We are going to write an extremely detailed review highlighting every single reason why you should go with LOLA. Instead of burying the lede, we will start with the two most impressive qualities. First, our wedding was from Tuesday through Sunday morning, with four large events in four separate venues and numerous smaller rituals and mini-events, involving over twenty separate vendors. Calling it complex would be a massive understatement. Yet, nothing fell through the cracks. Not a single thing. We are in the process of building a house, and we half-joke that we should hire Michelle and Kristy to run that project even though it is so out of their ballpark simply because we don’t know what to do without their organization. The second quality is that they can control the weather. Let us explain. On our wedding ceremony day, we were faced with torrential downpour and unpredictable weather. From the beginning, our biggest desire was to have our ceremony outdoors. Michelle and Kristy worked tirelessly, fighting for our dream to somehow make that outdoors wedding a reality, coming up with some brilliant ideas with the help of Lori. See, they didn’t take the easy route of just sticking with the rain plan. They cared. They cared a lot. We can’t stress this enough because you can’t figure that out by looking through portfolios or interviewing planners. It is found in all those moments where Michelle and Kristy picked up on one of our discomforts and gave us some quiet space, where they understood what we wanted (sometimes even better than we ourselves realized), where one of them would dive to the ground to look through their bag for a pair of scissors or to help place dance shoes on the bride right before she had to go onto the stage, where they literally helped rig an important décor installation when a venue installer did not show up. The thing that differentiates a great planner from a good planner is how they handle emergencies, and for that, they need to care. When the wedding was over, the saddest realization that dawned on us was that we were not going to be able to spend as much time with them. They have become close friends through this process, and if there is one thing you take away from this review, please let it be that. When we started looking at planners, we did a lot of research. We interviewed multiple people and did numerous reference checks. LOLA sent us multiple references, all of them Indian, some brides and some parents as well. They were the only planners who did that. We talked to every single reference. Even through some of our more interrogative questions, not a single person had even an iota of criticism. That consistent universal trust in the LOLA team almost seemed too good to be true, but it sold us on them. Now, we will join those ranks of references because we need to sing their praises everywhere. We decided to hire both Michelle and Kristy together. They had never actually planned a wedding together before, and so we went into the process knowing it was going to be a slight experiment. We had no reason to worry. They worked perfectly together, sharing ideas. They divided and conquered with Michelle focusing more on décor and Kristy on logistics, but both were present at almost every single meeting we had. In the end, it seemed like both knew every detail in and out and had helped in every single area. Even though Michelle and Kristy are individually extremely responsive, answering emails at any point, having both on the team meant that someone was essentially available on any given day. It didn’t feel like we just doubled the quality but raised it exponentially. Michelle and Kristy helped us build a team of all-star vendors and venues for our wedding. They have the best connections in the Chicagoland area, but it never felt like they were pushing anyone on us. Instead, it really felt like they were understanding our needs and guiding us to the vendors that best fit those needs. They would always give us a list to choose from and never influence our decisions unless we explicitly asked for guidance. They helped handle all the communication with these vendors so that we did not get stuck with small details and logistics that were unimportant for us. There were so many conversations that happened in the background between vendors, venues, and LOLA that we thankfully did not have to join. As decisions started to mount, Michelle and Kristy were extremely organized and helped keep us on track with a planning timeline and a plethora of spreadsheets. When we were interviewing planners, a lot of them showed flashy software for organizing the planning. LOLA uses plain old Excel, and trust us, you won’t beat it. We cannot stress how high our bar for organizational excellence is, and somehow, they managed to exceed it. We had over seven permutations for guest invites, tons of boxes that had to be delivered to different venues, multiple outfit changes, and so many different rituals that kept getting added on throughout the process. They managed everything in stride, and we have no idea how. One of the best testaments to their level of organization was their four separate minute by minute timelines. We sent these to our families, and one of my cousins commented that the timeline was so detailed that even though she should not have been surprised since it came from me, she was still left stunned. Except, that was all Michelle and Kristy. Our families never run on time, but that weekend, everything ran like clockwork. On the day-of, they literally left their families for an entire week to attend to not only our needs but those of our parents. They were everywhere all at once, in the hotel, at the venue, working with our family, working with vendors. They knew exactly what to escalate to us and which things to handle themselves. That week, we got to know more LOLA members. Shout out to Nicole who had the arduous task of dealing with both sets of parents, and she handled all their requests and worked extremely hard. Sanja was responsible for transportation, and despite all the intricate logistics, everyone was at the right place on time without any issues. Lori worked with us, helped attend to some of our last-minute emergencies, and shepherded us to where we needed to be, really freeing us to be in the moment and relax. Damina and Morgan helped answer questions for our guests. It was a whole team effort that put LOLA’s best values on full display. Our wedding week, despite its intricacies, felt flawless to us. We literally could not have asked for anything better on any of the days. That is thanks to Michelle and Kristy’s impressive work ethic, battle-tested experience, relentless pursuit of perfection, and simply their desire to make our dreams come true.

Jordan

5.0 out of 5 rating

5.0

There are not enough characters or words in the world to explain how absolutely BEYOND INCREDIBLE Sweetchic Events, specifically our wedding planner, Courtney is!!! I originally thought that I could plan a wedding on my own and just hire a day of coordinator. When I realized I just didn’t have the capacity to do that, I knew I needed to hire a wedding planner. I didn’t want just any wedding planner though- I wanted someone who had a similar personality to mine, who could match my energy and really elevate my ideas and execute the vision I had for our big day. My now husband and I met with several planners. I am a huge ‘vibes’ person, and all of the planners I met with just didn’t seem like the right fit. I felt like I was just another wedding to them and didn’t feel like the attention to us would be individualized or prioritized. That is, until we found and met with Courtney from Sweetchic Events!! From the very start, it felt like I was catching up with an old friend. Courtney is so kind, super knowledgeable in what she does, and is honestly one of the coolest people I have ever met. At our initial meeting, we joked and laughed as my husband and I shared our ideas, and she immediately had some incredible ones of her own! Courtney was a calming presence to my chaotic mind, and immediately made my husband and I both feel at ease. We knew we had to have her on our team- she was the PERFECT fit and we both were so excited to start working with her! Courtney is a true professional in her work. She has connections with some incredible vendors, who like herself, have insanely creative minds. Together, we were able to turn our wedding into more than I ever thought possible! Courtney is also EXTREMELY organized, detail oriented and always prompt. She is also one of the most reliable people that I have ever met!Throughout the wedding planning process, there was never a time that I felt like Courtney wasn’t there for me. In fact it was truly the opposite- she continuously went above and beyond for me, making sure I felt comfortable and ready for the big day in any capacity she could. She constantly checked in, listened to my crazy ideas while keeping me grounded, connected us with some of the absolute BEST vendors, reminded us of due dates and deadlines, and made sure that both my husband and I were feeling good throughout the whole process. On my wedding day I was jumping out of my skin because I was so ready to see Courtney and watch the magic we created together unfold! She of course brought such calm, positive vibes and joined in my excitement for the day that was to come!! I had been so impressed with her and her work thus far that I didn’t think it could possibly get any better. When I tell you she CRUSHED the entire day, she honestly CRUSHED IT!!! From the second she walked in the door to the second she (sadly, haha) left, she was a well oiled machine. Literally. A machine! She never stopped- she was so prepared, like a level of preparedness I’d never witnessed in anyone and I was really just completely blown away by her and her assistant, Mia throughout the entire day! Everything was ACTUALLY PERFECT (from my eyes and that’s why she is so good at what she does) because I never knew about any little mishaps or minor issues, because there weren’t any by the time Courtney arrived to the scene! Mia was also SO great!! She was always there when I needed something, and was also such a calming presence for me which was so appreciated! One of the most memorable parts of the day was my entrance to walk down the aisle. I had chosen a Taylor Swift orchestral mash-up and wanted to enter at a VERY specific time. Courtney had already explained to me that timing these things can be very very difficult, and that it might not happen at the exact moment I wanted it to. I went forward with the plan because in my mind, I had no doubts- I knew she would do whatever she possibly could to make it happen and that it would look amazing regardless. Times like these are the reason why we leave things up to Courtney, because it was literally SPOT ON!! It was so incredible! I am still getting text messages from friends about how awesome the timing of the entrance was! It is a feeling I will never forget and I owe it all to Courtney. I honestly didn’t want the day to end, and Sweetchic Events made it all possible!! It truly says something that I was always SO excited to see Courtney. Planning meeting days, tastings and walk throughs were always something I looked forward to because I got to spend more time with her! I feel like it is rare to find someone like Courtney not just in the wedding industry but just in life in general. She truly feels like a best friend to me now, and I am so beyond grateful for her, Sweetchic, and everyone who she brought on to help us make this day so memorable. Thank you Courtney, to you and your team! If you need a wedding planner RUN don’t walk to Sweetchic’s inbox! You will be in such great hands! Trust me when I tell you- hiring Courtney was the best decision we have ever made and I highly recommend her and her team to anyone in need of a wedding planner!