Planning Forever LLC Reviews
Reviews
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4.9 out of 5 rating
4.9 out of 5 rating
15 Reviews
99% recommend it
Awards
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Taylor Sent on 04/29/2024
Such a great experience!!
Chalonda was AMAZING. Leading up to the wedding she helped keep me organized and on task. Day of she helped make my vision come to life. The day ran smoothly and perfect thanks to her. She even took care of a vendor that messed up something for me so I didn’t even have to deal with that stress. Truly would recommend her for your big day, she’s someone I want to stay in touch with & be friends with after this! Haha so sad it’s all over! -
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Hailey T. Sent on 05/08/2023Saved the Day!
Chalonda did an amazing job! Weddings can be so crazy and unpredictable (definitely mine) but she kept everything so organized and kept everyone on track! Our monthly meetings were great as well! She really helped me navigate through wedding stuff and gave lots of great ideas and suggestions. Definitely thankful to have her be apart my special day! -
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Aleaha W. Sent on 11/15/2022Chalonda, was very kind and responsive. She exceeded my expectations and made everything flow so much easier then I could of imagined doing myself.
Chalonda, is the best of the best.
She was super kind, helpful and responsive. Everything she told me she was going to do she did it and more. There wasn't a detail that was missed on my wedding day; the entire process was so much smoother because her. Nothing, about my day would of gone as well as it did without her help :) -
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Ashton V. Sent on 10/18/2022The Best Money Spent
Chalonda was incredible to work with during our wedding process. So kind, so helpful, and truly an asset to the wedding planning process. I cannot recommend her enough. You will not find a better wedding planner! -
Kaede-Ray S. Sent on 05/17/2022
Planning Forever LLC Made Miracles Happen
So we got married at a venue that had nothing, but my husband and I wanted everything. Chalonda helped us make the day more amazing than I imagined!
There were not without challenges, but Chalonda tackled them (what seemed to me) effortlessly! I was able to fully enjoy the day. Chalonda ensured that I had zero stress throughout the day, and I felt like I could fully enjoy every aspect of the wedding!
She listened, guided, and executed a phenomenal day for me, my husband, and our friends and family! We would not be able to do it without her! -
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Kaylin L. Sent on 04/25/2022Hire her immediately!
I have to say that this was hands down the best decision I made when planning my wedding. I considered handling it all on my own as it was a smaller 40 person wedding at my home - however, Chalonda was worth 10x what I paid considering how much she helped out and took over things I realized I could not manage on my own. She is calm, relaxed, positive, and upbeat. We really enjoyed working with her and we know the day wouldn’t have gone as great without her. Please do not hesitate in booking with Planning Forever for your next event or wedding. You will not regret it! ❤️❤️❤️ -
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Payton C. Sent on 12/30/2022Necessary for my wedding day!
I'm so glad my now-husband and I decided to hire Chalonda for our wedding day! We hired her for coordination, and the day would not have gone smoothly without her there. Before the wedding, Chalonda was professional and precise in our phone conversations to ensure all details. During our wedding, I appreciated how she kept to the timeline and also checked in with me. I know you'll be happy Chalonda coordinated your wedding, too. -
Sammantha C. Sent on 02/18/2023
Read the whole review before going off of stars
Chalonda, was a very nice and pleasant young lady. She was so polite and careful. She did a good job, but there was room for improvement. I've waited 6 months after my wedding to write this review so that i had time to process it. There were things that went wrong that she had no control over, but there were things I felt she could have stepped up to do, or did better. I hate leaving these kinds of reviews for people you have a close working relationship with, but I discussed all of these issues with her right after the wedding so that she would know where to improve. However, it is sometimes difficult to be direct when having to criticize someone you like to their face. I had never been married before, and my husband had never had a bigger, expensive wedding like this one. Our budget was originally 5k, but we quickly realized that we couldn't have it at our house because of logistics, and because of the elegant feel we wanted, our budget quickly rose to 20k. We had 6 months to plan. That's not a lot of time. In hindsight, I realize so much more that I could have done differently to help my wedding planner be better at her job. I really needed her to be assertive and warn me of many things that a new bride just wouldn't know. She was assertive with her paperwork and planning, but there were a lot of little things that were missed. For example, no one thought to tell my bridesmaids that one of them needed to pick up my train and help with my veil. My dress was fully beaded, fitted through the hip, with a train. Our photos were on a concrete patio at our venue. My dress got tore up dragging it all over the place because I couldn't get anyone's attention. My photographer was rushing to get done in under an hour, and she was asking me to do things I just couldn't do in that dress. It was also too long in the front and had to be lifted to walk. My flowers were very large and heavy so it was difficult to move, walk, pick up my dress, and hold my flowers for photos. There was no support during photos. I don't even know if that's her job or not, but it would be nice if a wedding planner was very intuitive and could anticipate needs. If she would have known to tell me to keep a bridesmaid with me during photos, or even one of my kids or my mom. My family is very down to earth, she could have even just asked one of them to help to do something she knew they might be able to do, should do, or would be better at than her. This is where knowing your planner very well comes in. If you only hire a day of coordinator... you are NOT going to get to know them well or them know you well. It's hard to do the right thing for people you don't know. She was only a DOC for me, not a full wedding planner. That's one thing I would recommend... just pay for the full service. It's usually double DOC cost, but I think that if we had met, traveled together to places, planned together, and gotten to know each other she would have been able to know me well enough to be intuitive for me. I couldn't plan my reception set up the way I wanted to with detailed photographs. I told her I would do this, and I couldn't because my mother procrastinated doing the flowers until 2 weeks before the wedding. The week before the wedding, my wedding party came in from out of state and we had the whole week planned with traveling. I had other last minute things to take care of, as well. The printing company I used messed up big time and just didn't contact me until the week before the wedding. My dress bustle also broke. So I didn't even have my signs or flowers on time for me to do mock set ups to photograph for her. Not to mention that my wedding venue was an hour and half from my home and everything had to be packed carefully for transport Ahead of time. Things like this are going to happen. A wedding planner has to be assertive with what they need, what they can do without, how to handle situations like this, etc. After the wedding, I realized that I never sent her the link to my pinterest page so that she could see the style of decor I was wanting. She should have reminded me to send this. Honestly, she should have started a binder with everything I sent her so that she would have it all at the wedding for set up. Another thing, was that the venue didn't communicate things they should have and neither did she. I felt like the floor plan should have been finalized ASAP with the venue, but I just thought my wedding planner would bring it up when needed. It was a few weeks before the wedding when this got done. I made notes on the Floorplan and sent the layout to her, but it didn't get set up the way I laid it out on that page... at all. Some things can be improvised, but some things need to be the way they are planned if possible. If there was any reason why she couldn't follow that Floorplan, I don't know what it was. That's another thing. No one wants to communicate with the bride when things go wrong on the day of. So no one told me about a bunch of issues with the venue until after my wedding. The venue was to blame for most things that went wrong, in all honesty. My plans changed quite a bit from what i originally told chalonda when I hired her, but I feel like this is normal.. to a point, and most things were made clear that they weren't set in stone. You find out that you can't afford something, or that someone backs out of the wedding party, or that your photographer gets sick. Things happen, and your wedding planner has got to roll with it. I decided not to use a hair and makeup artist after going to 3 different people and being told that I needed to spray tan so their foundations would match my skin, Shave my entire face so that their cheap, dry, matte foundations wouldn't make every baby hair on my face show up, and they decided to do my hair in the way they interpreted the photo I gave them, only to have it fall completely flat 1 hour after getting it done. I wasted hundreds of dollars on those trials. My mom ended up doing my hair, I did my makeup, and we both did my bridesmaids' hair and makeup. This meant that things took a little more time on the day of. We planned for it. What we didn't plan for was for me to have writer's block from wedding planning stress so that I couldn't write my vows until the morning of the wedding. This made us run about 10-15 minutes late which ended up working out because some guests got stuck in traffic. However, my venue only allowed 4 hours for a ceremony and reception. So everyone was extremely rushed. This alone made all the difference in the mood of the occasion. 15 minutes late isn't that much, but when your venue starts clearing your table cloths off of tables, chair covers off of chairs, and your Alcoholic drinks from in front of your guests an hour before your time is up... you can feel very rushed. My mom had to go get chalonda to tell her what was happening. Then she told the manager, but the person that was the issue was not dealt with by the manager and other things happened to rush us out. I paid this venue so much money...i felt like a wedding planner should have made it very clear to the management or the staff of any issue of this magnitude. Sometimes you just need to be stern to be effective. Chalonda came to my room to address the impending rain issue before the ceremony. I was just so stressed and trying to focus on getting my hair done and my dress on that I couldn't talk to her. At this point, I wish she would have looked around at all of the people in that room and asked who needed to be in there to help me. Then instructed every one else to leave. I was flying around the room trying to find a place to get NAKED so that I could put my dress on and it felt like there was 20 people in that room. I finally had to stop and tell everyone to get out. It wasn't my best moment. I forgot to put on mascara... that's how crazy it was. I also had to be taped into my dress so that it would stay up. This takes time and patience... of which I had neither of in that hour. I just feel like that a wedding planner should be the one running around, trying to be in 2 places at once, should be assertive and a shark when needed, and should calm people down when possible. I needed someone to say...Just breath. I needed someone to realize that I didn't have mascara on. I needed someone to tell my photographer to slow down. I needed someone to tell my bridesmaids to help me with my dress because I didn't even think about that little detail. I needed someone to tell me to smile during my photos.. because my photographer didn't tell me that I looked stressed. I needed someone to tell the band to announce things that were supposed to be announced, i needed someone to stop the venue from taking my cake apart and cutting it right there instead of taking it to the kitchen, I needed someone to tell the staff that there were 3 flavors of cake for the guests to choose from and not to just pass it out as it was cut, I needed someone to double check the mic the officiant was using to make sure it worked because it cut out the whole time and never picked up me or my husband when we spoke. I needed someone to tell my venue not to clean up my plate, or clear the buffet before announcing it. I needed someone to go to the venue manager and say "look, we need to give us 20 more minutes than we are booked for because you did xyz to ruin this wedding". I know it doesn't seem like it from this, but I'm actually really easy to please, and I'm thankful for all of her help. Once you have so much emotionally and financially invested in 1 day... little things will make a big difference. At the end of the day, I got married, but I paid too much money for as many things to go wrong as did. Remember, that even though your wedding planner is a small cost in comparison to everything else... they can make all of the difference. I just think that vendors should be the one thing you don't have to worry about. They should make the planning process so smooth and worry free because they've done it over and over. There are so many moving parts to a wedding. So you really need someone who is good on their feet and quick to handle a crisis. This means that they can't always just be nice... they need to be a shark. We found out, at our wedding, that our venue would not serve shots or only liquor alone in a glass. I drink whiskey neat so this was a big deal. I went over alcohol so many times with the manager of the venue that she knew that I wanted people to be able to drink what they wanted... and she never told us this policy and it wasn't in our contract. This is something a wedding planner should have been a shark about. After discussing these issues with chalonda, she was extremely receptive. I hope that she keeps learning and builds a very successful business. The last I heard, she only had 1 more wedding at my venue and then she said she would refuse any weddings with that venue in future. Most of the issues that came up were venue issues. Chalonda, with help from my family, didn't have enough time to set up because the venue decided to do a rehearsal, in my rented space, with about 20 people, in my set up time. Chalonda, and my family that were setting up, had to work around these people. Therfore, my tables didn't have all of the candles on them that they should have. There just would have been hardly any issues at all if the venue had been better at their job. All in all, I think chalonda was priced well, and should wait to raise prices until she's a little more experienced. She is very nice, and a great person to work with. She comes off shy and introverted, though. Not bad qualities at all, but they can stunt people who need to be assertive. Things are going to go wrong. My issue was the venue, but some people have crazy families. A wedding planner has to be a people pleasing host, a venue contract stickler, and a shark that can hone in on problems and fix them. Also, as a bride who planned her own wedding, I was stressed. As a wedding planner, you are meeting people who aren't necessarily their normal selves. Forget bridezilla, I was a basket case of nerves. I cried when I saw my husband standing outside before the wedding. I cried when my hair finally came together after internally freaking out over being late. I cried THE ENTIRE walk down the aisle. i cried through my vows... and don't even remember my husband's :). I'm not a crier, but I was just so overwhelmed with emotion in those moments. Best day of my life and chalonda was there to help make it happen. Imagine how bad it would have been if she wasn't there at all. Worth every penny. Oh, and we were supposed to have 50-75 people but only 40 showed up. -
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