Cora Bella Weddings & Events -

Julia Robinson

Kristan Shamus, the owner of Cora Bella Weddings & Events, was an absolute godsend. When my husband and I started planning our wedding in the Fall of 2019, we had no idea that she'd have to see us through an extra year of planning due to our pandemic postponement. She held our hands through the planning process and made sure that we were getting exactly what we wanted! And sometimes we didn't even know what that was - we'd never planned a large scale event before, and she had to do so much patient explaining of what was traditional, what our more modern options were, and let us decide what would fit us best as a couple 🙂 We wholeheartedly recommend working with Kristan, the sweetest, funniest, kindest, and loveliest event planner in the Bay Area! She made our special day absolutely perfect, and we can't thank her enough for all her hard work!

Patt Lucas

Our experience working with Kristan was a dream! Thanks to her planning and execution, our wedding day was fabulous. She worked with us all along the way- meetings with the venue and caterer, helping to source photo, cinema, flowers, DJ, musicians, etc. then working with them on contract details. We especially appreciated her design eye- the décor for the wedding came together beautifully. She met with us regularly and kept us on schedule for the activities we needed to do in preparation. This continued through the wedding weekend. Everything was handled- if there were problems, it wasn’t evident to us- she handled it. Our getting ready rooms were stocked by her with anything you might need in an emergency. All of this was done with an unsurpassed level of friendliness and professionalism. So great!

Jamie Chapman

We had a great experience working with Kristan and Cora Bella! Kristan helped us to plan our California wedding when we both lived across the country. I cannot imagine planning our wedding without Kristan's coordination and support. Most of our planning was done remotely and Kristan was able to capitalize on the times when we were able to make it out to California. We had an especially difficult time finding a wedding venue, but Kristan really helped us to figure out what was important to us and she was able to navigate difficult situations with potential venues.

Kristan also helped us to find an amazing vendor team and she helped me to articulate my vision. Kristan's vendor relationships and industry contacts really are a testimate to her skill as a planner, because we were able to create a fantastic vendor team full of such kind, and creative people. On the day of the wedding, I was able to really just sit back and let all our wonderful vendors work their magic. As a bride, I wasn't stressed out at all!

So much work goes in to planning a wedding, but Kristan navigates all of this with professionalism, clear communication, and efficiancy. I wouldn't change anything about how our wedding turned out and I'll be recommending Cora Bella to all of my California friends who are getting married in the future.

Christopher Roberts

Kristan is the epitome of everything an incredible wedding planner should be. She is highly organized, professional, efficient, dedicated, responsive, and delightful to work with. We hired Cora Bella Wedding & Events to assist us with decor design and coordination for our big day. During our wedding planning process we felt completely relieved with Kristan at the wheel. She made herself available at times that worked for us and she met with us more than enough times to give us full confidence that our wedding day was completely under control all at a very reasonable rate. Kristan and the Cora Bella team executed our wedding day perfectly and went above and beyond to add additional design aspects that added even more beauty to our ceremony and reception spaces. I would highly recommend Kristan for any of your wedding planning and management needs. She is truly a gem and we are so thankful to have had her expertise.

Kanette Booski

We are so incredibly thankful to have Kristan and Cora Bella on our COVID-19 wedding journey! My wife and I first started working with Kristan in 2019, and she was highly organized, thoughtful, reassuring, and instrumental in the planning process. She kept us on track in our planning meetings, and assigned us tasks that made all of the overwhelming details seem more manageable. She even helped us craft emails to vendors when we had no clue what to say :).

As we were approaching our wedding date at the end of March 2020, we felt completely prepared for our big day. As you can imagine, my wife and I had a complete MELTDOWN with the beginning of the pandemic causing us to postpone our wedding not once, but twice! Kristan was invaluable in guiding us through these postponements, and she continues to keep us up to date with all of the industry changes, restrictions, and safety measures. We would have had no clue about how to go about our postponements without her, and she worked with us to develop a solid plan to rebook our vendors and keep everything updated, so that we have very little to do for our rescheduled date. Kristan was originally our “month of” wedding coordinator, but she worked with us to be more hands on in the postponement process by contacting vendors and updating contracts when we didn’t have the emotional energy to do so ourselves. We will forever be grateful to her help in this process, and we are absolutely certain that we would have given up and cancelled without her support. We did decide to have a small zoom wedding to make it legal last year (woohoo!), but we are soooo very excited to continue working with Kristan in the coming months, and we know we will be in excellent hands on our big day in September!

We would also be remiss if we did not share about how comfortable we feel with Kristan as a lesbian couple. In our interview with Kristan, she treated us with so much respect, understanding, and knowledge. She didn’t bat an eye with some of our non-traditional plans and even took the time to update the pronouns and other language on her planning software to reflect our relationship (we use bride/maid of honor/bridesmaids and broom/best lady/broomladies).

Thank you so much Kristan, and we are so happy that you have helped us stay on track throughout this wild process! You have truly taken so much off of our plates over the past two years, and I can’t wait for the celebration that we’ve been working so hard for!!!

Lauren Wondka

This is a long overdue review. Kristan helped us with our wedding in August and we could not have had the wedding experience we had without her. Before working with Kristan, I was stressed because I knew there was so much that I didn't know when it came to wedding planning. Adding COVID and 2 postponements to the mix, I was so relieved when we made the decision to work with Kristan. Not only did she make us feel organized and on track throughout the entire journey, she also became a friend during the process. She was always so professional, personable, genuine, inclusive, open-minded and thoughtful, while being clear, concise, and structured as well. I struggle with indecisiveness and procrastination, so Kristan was a lifesaver in making our planning process as low stress as possible.
The weeks leading up to the wedding were so easy for us as Kristan did every bit of communication with our vendors. I had asked her to cc me on all emails, and I was reminded every single day how much work Kristan was putting into our wedding. I kept thinking to myself...I could not be doing this without her!
The wedding day went more perfectly than we ever imagined or envisioned. Seeing everything come together in real life was breathtaking and I was speechlessly thankful for all of Kristan and her team's hard work behind the scenes to make everything run so smoothly. We couldn't stop talking about how surprisingly smooth and perfect every part was.
Side note - she even took time out of her annual family camping vacation, where she had no service, to walk somewhere to find service to call me the day the mask mandate went back into effect so that we could make modifications to the layout two weeks out from our wedding. She went above and beyond to make our dreams and priorities come to life and I truly felt like her only client! I cannot recommend Kristan enough...you will not regret working with her!

Emily Ganey

I worked with Kristan for a wedding last year. She did an amazing job keeping all of the vendors up to date and sent us all our own individual timeline. She and I worked together to come up with a timeline months before the wedding date that worked for us both so that we could work efficiently and serve our couple in the best way. We had a LOT to accomplish but never fell behind schedule - which is truly an accomplishment! Kristan worked with a great team and they seemed to be there (while blending in seamlessly) whenever I needed them. We love working with Cora Bella Events for our Pleasanton weddings!

Richard Chiburis

We booked Kristan’s Full Planning package for our 130-person wedding in San Jose. She was on top of every detail, pricing and booking and coordinating all of the vendors for us. Our wedding went off beautifully, and many guests commented that it was the best wedding they had ever attended!

We knew we wanted to incorporate Star Trek into our wedding, but we also wanted to maintain a traditional wedding feel. She talked to us about our likes and dislikes and what we were hoping to see at the wedding. Kristan took our ideas and flew with them at warp speed. She designed everything from the lighting scheme and linen colors to the physical layout and gobos. She introduced us to the perfect florist for our style, and she found us an amazing caterer who was able to make the entire reception gluten-free for our dietary needs. She even managed our RSVP list!

We appreciated Kristan’s friendly personality, professionalism, and calm demeanor. She made our wedding as stress-free as it could possibly be, and the day turned out to be magical. The wedding and reception were elegant and still really felt like us. Kristan and her team exceeded our expectations, and we recommend her to anyone planning an event!