"You were THE BEST decision I made when planning this thing.
Thank you Thank you Thank you for EVERYTHING,
my wedding fairy coordinator goddess!"
-Shiralee, July 2017 Bride
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Client Testimonials
My Clients' Opinions Matter the Most...
“Our wedding would absolutely not have been the perfect day it was without Stephanie. We hired her for her month-of coordination, as well as to help us find our other vendors. Even though Stephanie is based in New York and we live in/got married in Philadelphia, we never felt there was any issue in her being out of town. Having never planned a wedding before, we had no idea who we needed, and what to look for. Stephanie was invaluable in helping find our equally amazing photographers, DJ, and florist. She coordinated all communications, made sure prices and contracts were reasonable, and was always available to answer any questions we had. She even made sure to meet me to chat in person when I was in New York for a weekend. During the last “month-of” Stephanie dealt with all final arrangements, made schedules for all the vendors and coordinated their arrivals at the venue. When we had surprise rain storms pop up on the forecast a few days before, Stephanie helped take care of everything we needed to make sure our wedding stayed dry. On the day of, I never felt nervous about the events of the day, or making sure that things went as planned, because I knew they would! I would have Stephanie plan my daily life if that were possible.”
“Stephanie was a tremendous help to us and we’d highly recommend her. She’s got a great mix of talents and skills that make her effective and great to work with...and let us start out by saying we didn’t make it easy: we’re 3,000 miles and three timezones away in San Francisco and had a ~320-person wedding at a wedding venue that was untested in the wedding business.
We had planned most of the big items ourselves, and knew we would need at the least, a “day-of” coordinator. However, the thought of planning and executing the many smaller, but just as important, tasks such as decorating the cake/dessert table (which we went back and forth many times), escort cards, head table, etc... on our own seemed so daunting with only 2-3 months left. We realized what we needed was a “day-of” coordinator plus some help with conceptualization and design ideas, but still allow for us to DIY a bit. Stephanie ended up being the perfect fit and the long distance was absolutely not a factor. Our first meeting via Google video showed her thoughtful and comprehensive approach as she sought to understand our vision, our likes and dislikes, our constraints, what we had done to date, etc. And then created a logical, thoughtful proposal about how she would get us to the finish line. Everything Stephanie does is transparent, and she’s open to changes in direction (like when we’d forget to mention something important, or fail to tell her about a certain constraint we had).
Stephanie is highly collaborative. We appreciated her creative and helpful ideas as well as her communications style very much: a great balance of listening to understand what we wanted and didn’t want, and offering ideas/suggestions when we were unclear or her experience told her there was a better way. When debating whether to have a cake table or a dessert table and the decor associated with it, she came back to us almost immediately with some great ideas. When we decided to go with a cake table, but supplement it with ice cream sandwiches (a big favorite of ours), Stephanie’s ideas were many and helpful including options of where to get the treats and how to display them and ensure they didn’t melt!
Stephanie uses tools well: Google Drive and Hangouts were our buds. She’s got templates that clarify things a great deal, and she thinks like a marketer: different deliverables for each audience (e.g. there was a Best Man-specific timeline). She’s also adept at other software packages from working in the events industry (e.g. Social Tables for seat assignments).
When the inevitable anxiety started to creep in about three weeks out, Stephanie helped us to take a breath and break things up into manageable pieces and prioritize. Her calm, organized, proactive, and positive approach was so critical in getting us over the finish line.
Finally, we think there’s a particular sweet spot for a wedding coordinator/planner, which, is a very small overlapping space on the Venn diagram. There are a lot of wedding coordinators/planners who are extremely organized—more organized than you or I—and it stands to reason that they’ve found themselves in this line of work. However—and this is an unscientific theory of ours so take it or leave—the kind of person who is hyper-organized (think “J” on Myers-Briggs test) also may be predisposed to freaking out when things don’t go as planned because there’s a loss of control. And it’s a given that something or a couple things are going to go awry at some point in the planning and execution of the wedding. So we were looking for someone whom we thought would have all of the organizational skills and professional competence and the cool under pressure to pivot when disaster strikes. And you know what? Stephanie had prepared for and managed us out of a couple of snafus—at least one on the day-of that we didn’t even know about until after the fact involving an unexpected guest. That’s huge value: great partner and coach on the planning front, but then the leadership to problem-solve, make decisions, and make lemonade out of a few lemons (and not let the bride realize what you’re having to do).
Thank you, Stephanie!”
“Dearest Stephanie,
I have no words to describe how grateful I am for all your efforts and hard work on this day.
You were THE BEST decision I made when planning this thing.
Thank you Thank you Thank you for EVERYTHING, my wedding fairy coordinator goddess!”
“In the early months of our engagement we had decided that we would not be hiring a Month-Of Coordinator. We were trying to find ways to cut costs, and figured it would be nearly impossible for someone to be more familiar with our wedding than we were. That decision changed when I went to my best friend’s wedding and saw the benefits of having someone who could “handle” the day so that you could enjoy it.
Our search began and we ended up hiring a coordinator (not Stephanie...we hadn’t yet heard of her and our road to her was a little bumpy) around October of 2016. Our wedding was in March 2017, so we felt really great and proactive. In January, our original coordinator could no longer work our wedding, and we of course were freaking out. She handled the whole situation wonderfully and sent over a list of people who she thought would be a good fit for us; one of the name’s on the list was Stephanie Gatton. As soon as I saw that she used to be a stage manager (I’m an actress), I was sold! She was the ONLY person we contacted. We met with her, and our respect and affection for her was instant. In the month leading up to our wedding, Stephanie designed our floor plan from scratch, dealt with ALL of our vendors, met us at very unusual times to accommodate my show schedule, AND ended up doing the calligraphy for our place cards (they were gorgeous). As soon as we hired Stephanie it was hard to imagine ever working with anyone else or that we had ever considered doing this on our own!
Our wedding day was truly the best day of our lives and Stephanie made sure that that happened. We were meant to have her the whole time, and even though getting to her was a little hairy, we are so grateful that we did. Cut out all of the middlemen and just hire her first! You’ll be happy you did!”
“Stephanie,
You have been so amazing! We really appreciate all your help and guidance these past few weeks. Thank you so much for everything. We couldn’t have pulled it off without you! Everyone had an amazing time and our bridal party also mentioned how great you were and how you made everything flow so smoothly and seamlessly. ”
“Stephanie acted as our day-of coordinator and helped enormously in keeping us on track and focused in the months leading up to our wedding this October, and making sure everything ran smoothly for the wedding weekend itself. We are two perfectionist theatre designers used to running our own productions, and she became our totally trusted “external brain” – keeping all the practical information together so that we could focus on the artistic stuff. Stephanie handled our obsessive detail-oriented needs with clarity and finesse, taking much of the burden of organization and scheduling off our hands, to our great relief. She even helped Orli find an amazing makeup artist when hers disappeared!
Her clear, warm communication was a real gift when coordinating between our multiple venues and vendors, friend-helpers and family. Her work coordinating everyone’s schedules was amazing, ensuring that all helpers, décor items, guests, bride and groom ended up where they needed to go. When we changed our rain plan at the last minute, Stephanie calmly took charge of working with both the ceremony and reception venues to make sure everyone was on the same page. It’s no overstatement to say that without her, things would have been a mess, and we feel very lucky to have had her on our team. Her calm and positive attitude were invaluable in allowing us to actually relax and enjoy our wedding day, knowing that Stephanie had everything under control. ”
“My wife and I hired Stephanie as a day-of coordinator. She also has a month-of service which I imagine is even more amazing, but we had a pretty specific vision of what we wanted, so this was what worked for us. The package she gave us was extremely generous and offered a certain number of hours of prep time in the week leading up to the wedding. I cannot stress how amazing it was to be able to hand over the event to Stephanie and just enjoy it. She took the time to contact and coordinate with ALL of our vendors beforehand, and knew to take care of things that I would never have thought of. She is both incredibly detail-oriented and a calming presence. Honestly, if you’re going to hire any kind of wedding coordinator, do yourself a favor and hire a former stage manager. Stephanie’s services were worth more than what we paid for, and we were extremely lucky to have her on our side.”
“We cannot recommend Stephanie highly enough. She helped us realize our vision for our wedding perfectly. Even (and especially) when we weren’t quite sure what our vision was. She has years of event planning and wedding planning experience, and yet is still excited for every wedding. Only now, in the hazy aftermath of our own wedding, can we realize just how wonderfully insane that is.
We especially valued her assistance in choosing a venue for our wedding. Stephanie pointed out issues with venues that we would never have realized until too late. Stephanie helped us identify the perfect caterer for our wedding. We were looking for something different from typical wedding food and Stephanie connected us with a wonderful caterer who provided us with fabulous food.
Stephanie was extremely easy to work with over the entire process of planning and having our wedding. She was very flexible about meeting times and locations and was always available when we needed her. Stephanie was always responsive to all of our questions (even the pointless ones that were really just anxiety talking, and she went further and realized the root of the problem).
The timeline that she created for the wedding really helped keep us and our families on track. On the day of our wedding, Stephanie took care of every detail and issue that arose. There was a potentially disastrous issue that was seamlessly fixed (with many trips to the hardware store) and we never knew.
The process of planning the wedding with Stephanie’s help meant that she knew exactly what decision we’d make on the day of without needing to ask us. Stephanie thought of things that wouldn’t have occurred to us, like renting a high chair for a toddler. Stephanie also identified someone in the wedding party who could assist her to take care of things when she couldn’t be in two places at once. This was really helpful and took the pressure off of us on the day of the wedding.”
“Stephanie,
Toby and I want to thank you not only for all of the tasks we planned together for you to accomplish for our wedding, but also for all of the last-minute headaches and heart attacks you handled - seemingly effortlessly. You did a great job!
We could not have had the fabulous ceremony, flash mob, reception dinner, or after party that all of our guests so enjoyed, without your help!”
“As a “Father of the Bride,” having your only child get married is about as emotional and crazy as can be. Especially as the weeks, days, and hours get closer to the event (things get super crazy!). That’s where Stephanie Gatton Events came in handy! The kids picked her to run things, and run things she did.
From the get go, Stephanie was not only professional, proficient, and efficient, she was a great pleasure to work with! In the days leading up to the “big day,” she kept the wedding party and me super informed, handled things with the venue, caterers, flower deliveries, etc. Her attention to detail was pretty amazing!
Considering the complexity of wedding planning and orchestration, without her services it would have been so very overwhelming. Just a small, though important example: Stephanie had put together a very detailed schedule of events, which included EVERYTHING one could think of (photo sessions, transportation, first dances, toasts, etc.)! It was so easy to follow. As the ceremony and reception progressed, we were all unaware of any issues that arose (they always do), because she was so on top of it all.
If you want a worry-free experience, I wholeheartedly recommend her services!”
“Dear Stephanie,
How lucky we feel to have found you!
From start to finish, you were fantastic: responding to questions and concerns, managing vendor relations, making sure we were all on task and all on the same page - a huge triumph!
On the day of our wedding, several people commented that they had never seen a couple so calm and relaxed. That was totally a credit to you. We were confident that you had it all under control. All we needed to do was enjoy our day - and enjoy it we did! Thank you so much for EVERYTHING!”
“As a former stage manager myself, I knew that Stephanie was the person I needed with me on my wedding day. I had taken the lead on planning the wedding and I knew that I could turn over my event binders to Stephanie and totally focus on being the bride and not the planner.
While we did do some preliminary work together in New York, Stephanie had no trouble handling two completely new (to her) spaces in Cleveland. Not only that, but these were large venues with many vendors. Our ceremony site involved two different floors of a large building. Our reception site was a historic mansion, and we had access to the whole house. We had absolutely no problems at the rehearsal dinner or at the wedding itself. Six years later, people still talk about how lovely the day was. You don’t get those compliments without incredible behind-the-scenes work.
I could talk about Stephanie’s amazing organizational skills more, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t note her attention to detail. When she and I did a walk-through of the ceremony chapel and rooms the day before the wedding, she asked very specific questions to the site coordinator. In addition, I had planned to use a CD of a dear friend singing “Ave Maria” for my Marian Presentation. Stephanie took no chances and tested the CD and sound equipment in the room that they would be used. Once again, I could step back and enjoy the moments as the bride and not as a planner.
As my husband and I look at the photos from our wedding, we see the evidence of amazingly gifted people who decided to share their talents with us. We know that hiring Stephanie for your wedding will bring you the same results.”
Peer Testimonials
What the Professionals Have to Say...
“I have been in business for 14 years and, if we can be considered successful on any level, it begins with attention to detail and being well organized. That’s why I knew I would love working with Stephanie from the very first email she sent me. Her attention to detail is outstanding and surpasses many other planners that I have worked with over the years.
Another key in the wedding world is caring a whole lot about your clients and she also exudes that at every turn. It’s clear that Stephanie loves her clients and she also loves what she does for a living. I can’t say enough good things about this lady boss.
Do yourself a favor and hire her today!”
“Stephanie handled all the behind-the-scenes details at the wedding we worked together, all with supreme confidence and good cheer. The vendors had to implement a backup plan to our backup plan for weather that involved changing locations, with guests, flowers, and other party essentials coming to an entirely different location at the very last minute. She was able to coordinate and communicate all of the changes, and NO ONE - not one guest! nor one vendor! - went to the wrong place. It was amazing. Her theater background serves her extremely well. No one coordinates a wedding like a stage manager!”
“For any misfit couples (or triads, or families) interested in a non-traditional funky wedding, and want to hire a non-traditional funky lady as a wedding coordinator, I can heartily recommend Stephanie. While I have never gotten married, I have been with Stephanie at various moments that needed coordination (including her own wedding!) and frankly feel that this is her calling. And in this current political climate, Stephanie particularly stands behind people whose love pushes boundaries, and that is something to celebrate.”
“Stephanie is amazing and creates such a memorable wedding reception experience! She’s very organized in all aspects of the event, making sure everything meets if not exceeds, her client’s expectations. We’ve dealt with some less than desirable event planners in the past, but Stephanie is always such a pleasure to work with and we would not hesitate to endorse and recommend her for your event planning needs.”