Bellwether Events

as invaluable. She helped us from our save the date appointment to start our vision into reality. Though all the paper into the flowers and location, Janice went above and beyond what we imagined. Our day was the best and we are grateful to Janice for helping us!

eat vendors (Well Dunn catering, and Abby Lindsey at Kir Tuben photography, in particular) and designed a beautiful reception based mainly on photos my daughter provided, not on Janice’s own creativity. Also, thankfully, Janice was not available for the wedding day and sent her associate/partner Courtney, who was competent, kind and professional. I would not recommend Bellwether unless you can work with Courtney exclusively throughout the process. Janice did not stick to the generous budget she agreed to, so the bride and groom kept having to reign her in, she did not answer their questions in a timely or satisfactory manner throughout the process, leading to months of unnecessary stress. We hired a planner to prevent stress for this couple who work in challenging public service positions, not to add another unreliable person for them to manage. In my one dealing with Janice, regarding hotel rooms for the immediate family of the bride, she was terse and minimally helpful. We considered firing her midway through the planning, but her contract required that we cite specific items she didn’t attend to and that was hard to pin down since she flaked on so many things. When the couple then sent her a list of all the things they expected going forward, she took a little money off her fee and cooperated for a couple of weeks, then went back to her difficult ways. She neglected to put the task of “get wedding rings” on the to-do list. She snapped at the bride during the venue walk-through. At the last minute, she said the bride and groom had to go through an involved process with the city of DC to secure parking for vendors and when they told her that she should have 1) handled it herself, and 2) put the permit costs in the budget, she decided the parking permits weren’t necessary after all (sorry vendors!). And so much more! We considered firing her a second time, but we worried that action would affect service from the vendors she has relationships with and we didn’t want to risk that.

inly a quality you need when managing a wedding! We hired Janice for day-of wedding planning and she calmly took all the worry out of orchestrating the complex operations of that day! What a relief! Her in-depth knowledge of how things actually work and all the little details that matter (that most people are unaware of) are her forte. She’s a true professional. The detailed timeline she generates is a MUST and keeps everything running smoothly! Her long-developed relationships with well-known vendors is evident and helps assure a flawless event. Janice is an absolute necessity to assure you, your family, and guests have a stress-free day! I would recommend her services to anyone planning a wedding —no matter the size or venue. Janice is truly incomparable!

planners, but we decided to follow our initial instinct and put our trust in Janice. She did not disappoint! Janice kept the entire planning process incredibly organized and did an amazing job of finding vendors that aligned with our (sometimes very specific) vision. Anytime we started to feel overwhelmed, Janice was ready with a detailed timeline, polite-but-firm reminder emails, and a very encouraging attitude. Janice was also very receptive and enthusiastic about helping us incorporate important cultural elements into our day that she had not had experience previously (ex. A Japanese kagami biraki ceremony). Most importantly, Janice was extremely reliable. For example, my bridesmaids and I were supposed to get our hair and make-up done at a hotel the morning of the wedding, but after we woke up to a power outage and alerted Janice, she immediately jumped into action arranging a new location and updating the beauty and photo teams about the change. She then raced over to the hotel to help me and my MOHs pack up my wedding dress, shoes, accessories, and bridesmaids gifts and convinced the concierge to let us use the emergency freight elevator so that we wouldn’t have to run down 15 flights of stairs. Her husband drove us all to the alternate location and, miraculously, all of the hair, make-up, group photos, and dressing were completed with a whopping 15 minutes to spare! Despite the early morning switch-up, the rest of the day went off without a hitch and we knew the wedding couldn’t have gone as smoothly as it did if it weren’t for Janice’s work (both in the planning and the day-of coordination). We are so glad to have hired Janice and 100% recommend Bellwether Events.