Jessica Sent on 10/31/2008

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Hands down, Lauren was the best vendor we worked with for our wedding. Her incredible attention to detail, time line and organization all wrapped up in a warm and friendly person made our wedding day stress free! We worked with her for day of coordination which really means "month of" to Lauren. She helped with last minute vendor recommendations, dealing with all of the vendor coordination and creating an amazingly detailed time line for the bridal party. Lauren really did make me feel like I didn't have to worry about ANYTHING that day besides showing up. She did all of the confirmations, all of the payments, and made sure everything and everyone was exactly where and when they needed to be. Worth every penny!!!!!!

Lori Sent on 09/18/2008

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Having a wedding at our home provided some unique challenges so we knew right away that we would need an event planner if we were to relax and enjoy any part of the process. We interviewed several people and knew within the first 10 minutes that Lauren was our choice. Her experience, gentle nature and enviable organizational skills confirmed to us that we were in excellent hands. From the day she becomes part of your team, you are gently guided into each phase of planning. Once you set the vision for how you would like your day to be, she will give you tried and true vender choices and help to keep you on schedule so that when you make a decision on a vender, they will still be available to you! Our event called for about 13 different venders. We came into the process with two names that we would like to use. Lauren provided the rest of the team, often giving us more than one choice to interview before we signed a contract. Once our team was booked, she kept track of each vender's forms and payment schedule. She was also the initial point of contact for them so instead for receiving emails and phone calls from 13 different
companies, Lauren would be our liasan to communicate our wishes and desires. She was also an excellent resource for ideas to make your day unique and special by suggesting little touches that our guests noticed right away. On wedding day, we were able to focus on our daughter, our family and our guests. We had as much fun as they did because all the little glitches were handled before we were even aware of them. Lauren kept the event on schedule and never have I seen a professional work as hard as she did to make our day an amazing memory.

Kristen Sent on 09/23/2008

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My wedding day was perfect and I think that is due in large to Lauren. I contacted her about 3 weeks before my wedding to do day of coordination. She met with me the next day and proceeded to create a comprehensive timeline that had everything, and I do mean everything in it. It gave me such a sense of peace to see that everything was done and ready. She contacted all my vendors and confirmed them for me, once again giving me peace of mind. She even finished off the last couple of items on my to do list so I could enjoy my rehearsal! When the big day came, I was completely calm because I knew Lauren would take care of anything that popped. She even went as far as to take the extra flowers I had and use them to add some additional decoration to the reception. I couldn't have asked for more in a day of coordinator.

Stephanie Sent on 08/27/2008

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For confess I initially thought we don't need a wedding planner, I'm French and in France we don't have this service but the day progressed I was more stressed and this is my stepmother who took the decision for Lauren and I could never thank her enough for all the help, comfort that it has made so far, discretion, always mindful of everything, helpfull or course, JE L'ADORE ! Thank you thank you thank you
I can not answer for the price because this is my stepmother who is dealing with this part
I RECOMMAND HER FOR SURE !!!!!!

Shannon Sent on 09/06/2008

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Lauren was a joy to work with from start to finish. We hired her for partial wedding planning services, including day of coordination. We met with Lauren about once a month from about 11 months before the wedding to right before the big day. She was enthusiastic about all of my ideas, and helped reign them in a bit when needed. She set up a working timeline for us as well as a budget, which was very helpful. As an extreme type A personality, I usually like to have complete control over things, but was not worried at all about leaving everything in Lauren's hands the day of the wedding. Her timelines for the "wedding week" could not have been better, and left my mind at ease. All of my bridesmaids commented continuously on how smooth everything ran for them, and how nice it was to be able to enjoy the wedding as a bridesmaid too, without worrying about things that had to be done. The only small bump in our day came when there was a major traffic accident on route 7, delaying some of the shuttles, which of course no one could control. When there was only 1 person missing (my fiance's aunt) Lauren asked my mom if she wanted to wait, and my mom said yes. Lauren had absolutely no problem postponing things to wait for the aunt's arrival. Guests simply enjoyed more drinks and mingling, and it was handled very professionally. Lauren worked with all of my vendors exceptionally well.
I cannot say enough wonderful things about our experience with Lauren and her services. I would highly, highly reccommend her to anyone getting married - she helped make our day amazing!

Julie Sent on 09/11/2008

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Breathe Event Planning did just an amazing job for my wedding! I honestly know that my wedding day was flawless due to Lauren and Alison!!!! The planning help prior to the wedding allowed me to stay on task, which was great, especially the 6 weeks prior to the big day because things start to become so hectic! They provided awesome time lines and were always available if I needed them. They were so understanding throughout the planning process, even when I felt overwhelmed. I felt organized because Breathe Event Planning keeps you updated on upcoming payments, a list of things to accomplish, the flow of the wedding (exactly the way we had discussed), and good suggestions throughout. The day of my wedding, I felt very relaxed and I trusted that Alison would do a fabulous job organizing and taking care of issues. I am not sure if there were even issues because she did such a wonderful job with everything!!!!! My husband and I had the most amazing day of our lives and we owe a lot of that to Lauren and Alison! My husband even made a comment on how wonderful it was to have Alison be a part of our day and how helpful she was to keep to the schedule of the ceremony and the reception! We both recognize what a beautiful job she did and tremendously thank her! I would recommend Breathe Event Planning without question to anyone. They are extremely professional and accommodating! I got married in VA and live in CA....there was never any issue with communication. They are outstanding!!!! Thanks for all of your hard work!

Christine Sent on 01/01/2008

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How do you offer a review of the woman who 'saved' your wedding? Lauren was so invaluable during the entire wedding planning time. Her calm and very knowledgeable demeanor was a wonderful oasis in the last weeks running up to the wedding, where I started a new job that took me out of town and my fiancee got pneumonia! At 7pm the night before the wedding, Lauren helped make sure that my programs were printed and ready for the wedding day and then took some of the remaining 'to do' list from me so that I could enjoy my rehearsal dinner. She went well and above the call of duty and I would highly recommend her to anyone looking for help in planning her wedding.

Rk Sent on 12/04/2007

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My husband and I would have never pulled off our wedding without Lauren! A true professional to the core! She was never pushy and I truly appreciated the fact that she dispensed creative advice only after I asked. Lauren is great with email - which is my only mode of communication! During the wedding process, we corresponded almost daily and she always kept a calm and sweet disposition when I asked my silly questions.

She handled our 10+ vendors with such grace on the day of, so much so, that our guests and family could not stop RAVING about her. I was perfectly relaxed on my wedding day because I knew everything was in GREAT hands. Her company name says it all... when you work with Lauren, you're able to "Breathe".

Sara Sent on 02/15/2007

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Lauren made my destination wedding a stress-free, fun weekend. I never had to worry about vendor issues, because Lauren always handled the details of our wedding weekend quickly and professionally. Our wedding was a perfect occasion, and our family and friends were able to enjoy themselves. Highly recommended.

Joy Sent on 02/18/2007

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i could not have made it through the planning stages without Lauren of Breathe Event Planning! Lauren kept me calm and stress-free. she was always quck to respond to all my emails and questions! i used her for day-of coordination, which actually started a month prior to the wedding day. she handled all the last minute commuications with the vendors and made sure all the little details were perfect. on the day-of, she and her assistant kept the event moving and i didn't have to worry about a thing! highly recommend!

Tina Sent on 02/16/2007

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Lauren was great! She was more than I ever expected a wedding planner to be. Because of Lauren I was able to "breathe" and enjoy my wedding day. I was able to enjoy the details of the wedding- like how beautiful the flowers were or spending a day with a valued out town guest (a couple of days before). She even won over my parents who were very skeptical that you would even need a wedding planner. I also had the best programs that Lauren made for me- everyone thought they were awesome. I highly recommend her- well worth the money.

Kara Sent on 02/16/2007

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I can't say enough great things about Lauren and her assistance for my wedding. I had a local wedding planner in the Charleston area, my wedding location. When my original wedding planner couldn't pull through with the service I expected, Lauren exceeded my expectations. She is execptionally creative, professional, responsive and flexible. She provides top notch quality in all her services. She helped me with the overall look and theme for the wedding. She was always available to bounce around ideas. She designed and printed all my programs, table place cards, and table name cards. She's going to be the best in the industry, if she's not already.

Jennifer Sent on 02/16/2007

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If I had to be grateful for one of my vendors, I was most grateful to Lauren. My husband and I will never forget the amount of work and effort she put into our wedding in order to make it perfect. The wedding day went flawless without one single thing going wrong. She is not like other typical wedding planners where you find some arrogant strong personality that will overtake the event. She is kind and sweet tempered, and will keep you calm and collected. She does not impose her opinions on you and makes sure that you get exactly what you want. I cannot express the amount of gratitude that my husband and I feel for her. You cannot go wrong with her services, and you will be most grateful to her at the end of the day. You'll see... trust me. Anything and everything that goes perfectly at your wedding will be due to her efforts. My sister and friends have all used her services, and we all share the same sentiments.

Annette Sent on 09/15/2008

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Lauren was great throughout the whole experience. It was like planning my wedding with my friend.

Jw Sent on 07/28/2008

2.8 out of 5 rating

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I seem to be the only detractor so far, but that is why I am adding my review of Breathe Event Planning and Lauren Freeman, since I had hired her in part because of her high ratings on Wedding Wire. To be balanced, here are positives and negatives with my experience with Lauren as my day-of-coordinator.

Positives:
- Lauren was accomodating as she was willing to coordinate my Sunday wedding, even though she already had a wedding booked for the day before.
- She is very organized and produced a comprehensive timeline for my wedding which was edited several times according to changing circumstances and needs.
- She was flexible in meeting me near my workplace, and also coming to my home to pick up programs, menus etc a couple of days before the wedding.
- She is very responsive to emails and text messages. It is a bit harder to get her by phone since she is often, understandably, in meetings or other events; but it was never a problem to reach her via email or text.
- She was punctual to all our meetings, and organized on the day-of.

Negatives:
- Lauren can be inflexible. A major problem was that she offended both my mother and my father-in-law at the wedding, because she was not willing to wait for my brother to arrive for the ceremony (he was late getting in from the airport). Lauren wanted to stick to the timeline and get the ceremony started exactly on time, even though my brother had already called to say he was on the way. My mother and father-in-law put their foot down and insisted that we wait for my brother, who did turn up only about 10 minutes late.
While I understand that she was trying to do her job, at the same time, I think a coordinator needs to be sensitive to family requests especially one as important to my mother as this - she wanted my brother to walk her into the ceremony - and to be flexible enough to know what is more important in a wedding. i.e. family, or being exactly on time.

- Lauren also offended my fiance during the wedding process; he felt slighted by her on several occasions, and felt that his opinions were not taken into consideration. Although may have been a personality clash, that she then went on to offend my mother and father-in-law at the wedding itself (the first time either of them had met her), raises some flags to me. It appears that she can be insensitive to personal dynamics, is not good at compromise and resolving issues tactfully - all important traits to have in the service industry.

- Lauren was not able to offer creative solutions to the challenges we faced in several aspects of the wedding - notably our seating layout/use of space in the ceremony and reception areas. I would say Lauren is a solid coordinator, but I would not recommend her as a wedding *designer*. I did not realize the difference initially, but wedding planners/coordinators/designers do all offer different services, and it is important to know what you need and what services the vendor can offer.

- We sometimes felt that Lauren did not represent our best interests as clients, and would make suggestions/recommendations that were not in our interests, but were in the interests of the wedding venue's convenience instead.
__________________

I initially did not hire a coordinator at the start of the wedding planning process because I had my doubts over how useful such a service would be. I then hired Breathe late in the planning process because I was feeling overwhelmed. However, after my experience with Breathe, I still have my doubts on the value-add of a coordinator. Lauren was very helpful at times, but at other times her presence actually created additional problems. Hence, my mixed review; I would suggest meeting with several coordinators before making your decision.

breathe. event planning's reply:

June,

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience and to offer feedback of my services. I am very sorry to hear that I may have offended your family members and certainly wish that this had been brought to my attention so that I could have extended an appropriate apology.

Regarding your review, I feel it necessary to clarify a few points, as additional background may provide my future clients more insight.

I was hired in the last weeks of the wedding planning process to help relieve some of the already existing frustration being felt by you regarding the venue. While I do work with many of my clients in a full planning role, you hired me as a day of coordinator. In this role, I do not become involved with event design, but purely logistics. Therefore, an assessment of my design skills would not seem to be pertinent in this instance as that is not the role for which I was hired.

Please understand that it is always my policy never to begin a portion of the event, especially the ceremony itself, without first ensuring that all the key players are present, or without the approval of the bride and groom. I am puzzled by your characterization of the situation regarding the potential late arrival of your brother. At our first meeting, you had informed me that your brother would be traveling a great distance and might be arriving after the start of the event. Accordingly, we agreed to be as flexible as needed about the timing of the ceremony so as to take into account this possibility. We were very pleased to see that, in fact, he did arrive on time and was able to be part of your beautiful ceremony, and that there was no need to delay the ceremony at all.

In regards to not offering creative solutions: As stated above, in the day of coordination roll I do not have as extensive an opportunity to offer creative input as I do with my full planning clients. To be sensitive to the months of effort my clients have already put into planning, I prefer not to offer design opinions for DOC clients unless asked. For you and your fiancé, I feel that I went above and beyond usual "day of" service by doing two site visits to the hotel and working with the staff to create two alternative set-up designs after we first discovered that your preferred classroom U-shape set-up would not physically fit in the space due to guest count. Fortunately, upon the second visit, your guest count had been lowered significantly, and I was able to set up the tables and chairs myself in your preferred design and I arranged that the Director of Catering attend the meeting to ensure that all of your event details and concerns would be addressed directly.

While a day of coordinator is someone that can help ensure that your wedding day and the weeks before run smoothly, can alleviate stress, and allow you to enjoy each moment to its fullest, it is not always the best option for all couples. Most importantly, it is a decision that I recommend be made together as a couple to ensure that all interests mesh well.

All the Best, Lauren

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