Raina Poria
5/5
Melissa was the BEST Wedding Planner we could have ever imagined for our BIG FAT INDIAN AND JEWISH wedding day! I contacted Melissa after seeing Honey Bear Events on a website of vendor recommendations, but I had no idea that I would be meeting my literal dream wedding planner.
Melissa came into my wedding planning process after we had another planner quit on us. While it was easy to initially feel embarrassed, Melissa made me realize this wasn’t about us at all and the previous planner had her own issues that we could do nothing about. It was a blessing in disguise that we lost our first planner as I transformed from stressed about planning to EXCITED to be wedding planning with Melissa as my planner!!! She immediately made me feel comfortable and that I could trust her with all the tiny little details floating around my brain.
When Melissa and I started working together, I was living in Boston planning my wedding that would take place in Santa Barbara the next summer. Melissa was so accommodating with my schedule and when we would talk on the phone I knew I could talk to her for hours in one go and feel so incredibly relieved after. I did the Full-Service planning package with her and she was so amazing at providing suggestions for vendors, setting up calls with them for me, and getting their pricing together, so that I could have a productive call with them. She would also prepare PowerPoint slides of my design vision that she would share with them on the call, so we could make sure they were on the same page about what I wanted my dream wedding to look like.
One vendor in particular that Melissa found for me and was absolutely amazing was Pratto Paper Company. Lauren Pratto was an absolute pleasure to work with when designing my wedding invitations, day-of-stationary, and signage for the wedding day! Melissa went way above and beyond to create my vision of a mirror seating chart by working with Lauren and another vendor to build 3 giant mirrors that could stand on their own and then had Lauren apply the names in vinyl to the mirrors. I was BLOWN AWAY with how much Melissa CARED about my wedding and it really felt like she was just as invested in making my dream come true.
Melissa worked with my mother-in-law to plan a BEAUTIFUL rehearsal dinner with the most GORGEOUS FLORALS from Honey Bear Events. She worked with us to ensure all our deadlines were met and leading up to the last 2 weeks before the wedding, I didn’t feel stressed at all like I imagined I would. Everything was taken care of and if it hadn’t been, I knew Melissa had a handle on it.
As we approached the wedding day, I loved that Melissa was my SUPERWOMAN. She immediately went to bat with the hotel when they tried to put me in a different bridal suite than what was initially discussed. She never showed me any stress she was under and made sure Kevin and I were having the BEST TIME! Everything flowed so well from the moment we stepped into the hotel on Friday. On Saturday morning (Wedding Day), Melissa had her assistant bring us bagels and ordered us coffee and juice to our bridal suite. She had already set-up a group text with my maids-of-honor to communicate with them the day of, and she was fully on top of all the vendors arriving for a 5-6am set-up time! Throughout the day she would come check-in on me, make sure I was eating, and again never made me feel like there was anything going wrong outside (a week later I would find out the hotel was a mess to work with). She and I are VERY DETAILED people and I can tell you that there was not a single detail forgotten that day. Melissa was there all the way until the last vendor left and we caught her when we were coming back from our afterparty. I wanted to give her the biggest hug and cry! She was the angel in my head that created the most STUNNING wedding I could have ever imagined.
