Best. Planner. Ever.
I would give Sandy 10 starts out of 5. That's how amazing she was. Let me dive into everything she did for us!
First of all, we live in Oakland, California and our wedding was in Chicago (home for us). We knew we wanted to have our wedding where we met and where our families are for convenience for them, but it was a real inconvenience for us. Our wedding, for us, basically became a destination wedding, and we couldn't have done any of it without Sandy. It was a logistical nightmare, but having someone in Chicago to handle aspects of the planning for us was amazing.
From our first consultation with Sandy, we knew she was definitely the right fit. Sandy listened to us, our vision, and our budget. We did not want a cookie cutter wedding by any means. From the ceremony, venue, coloring and timeline, we wanted things different. We wanted things "us". Our wedding was 100% ours and us.
She was detail oriented. When we would go through invites, ceremony handouts, menus, signage, our wedding website, etc. Sandy would notice every little detail. I only noticed a few typos here and there that MAYBE occurred, but she was in the details about changing things to be aesthetically pleasing, to fit better, be more centered, etc. She was way more in the details of my wedding than I was! She's incredibly detail oriented and wants everything to have an organic and nice flow to it.
Something I love about Sandy is her honesty. She would not just blindly agree with me to make me happy. She definitely put in her opinion and always had a reason why that she was suggesting something different (and it wasn't suggestions to make it hers, just things that made sense from a wedding professional!). She would alert me if something would look off, or if what I had in mind didn't work or would work, but needed tweaking to make it happen.
She also had amazing suggestions for our vendors. With those vendors, because of the relationship she has built with them over time, we would actually get discounts from them (she basically paid for herself with this feature!). On the same token as vendors- she organized EVERYTHING WITH THEM. From walkthroughs of the venue the week of, to communicating with them, sending them the timeline, letting them know what we wanted and our vision, EVERYTHING. After our vendors were hired (we hired many before we realized we needed her) she would have us intro her via email, and then communicate with them separately if she did not need anything else from us, which was so nice. Some nitty gritty details you just do not need to be a part of, and she recognized when it was appropriate to cut us out.
The day itself went off without a hitch. If there was an issue day of, we did not know about it at all. She handled everything and was on point the entire time. Timeline, vendors, our families, everyone knew who Sandy was and where to ask questions, which is great because the bride and groom are a bit overwhelmed that day!
I highly highly recommend Sandy. She is worth the stress she cuts out during the planning process and day of wedding. A lot goes into a wedding and she is an absolute professional about everything. She is an amazing communicator (via whatever method you prefer, we would chat on instagram, text, email, phone, FaceTime... the works!). She made everything so easy and our wedding was a dream. Thank you does not come close to enough for what she did for us. Do not look anywhere else for your Chicago Wedding Planner than here with Splendid Weddings. XOXO, we love you, Sandy!