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About this vendor
Making us your first pick for your wedding planning needs is a selection you won't regret! Based in LA, our coordinators have experience with every kind of wedding everywhere from San Francisco to San Diego. Our theory is simple: make everyone feel number 1 and have fun! You won't regret this pick.
Details
Business Attributes
- Hispanic or Latinx-owned Business
- Woman-owned Business
Destination Weddings
- Destination Wedding Packages
- Destination Wedding Planning
Planning
- Budgeting
- Day-Of Coordination
- Destination Wedding Planning
- Full Service Wedding Planning
- RSVP Tracking
- Se Habla Español
Wedding Activities
- Getting Engaged
- Engagement Party
- Rehearsals & Parties
- After Party
- Bridal Luncheon
- Bridal Shower
Reviews
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5
out of 5.022 reviews
Review photos
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If we could, we would give Ashley a million dollars, although she’s worth literally all the money in the world. We have numerous examples of ways she ensured our wedding went perfe...
ctly and we enjoyed the whole day, but I’m sure she did a bunch of stuff behind the scenes, both before and during the day that we don’t know about. Ashley is the most knowledgeable person we have ever met and every vendor we worked with knew her and obviously highly respected her and enjoyed working with her. Her attention to detail, organization, knowledge of the industry and forethought is unmatched. She was so helpful the entire process and is obviously a top-tier professional. For example, our venue had ugly chairs and so we planned to get outside chairs. Ashley provided us with a vendor recommendation and discount code, but urged us to wait as she heard our venue was in the process of getting new chairs that would match our aesthetic. We trusted her and the month before our wedding, the venue had acquired the chairs and we were able to use those. Ashley knew that the chairs were available for our wedding before our venue coordinator knew they were confirmed!
During the wedding day, Ashley was a bright and calming presence, checking in on us, reminding us that this was our day and nothing could happen without us. We needed an extra moment before our first dance and she happily obliged, reminding us that this was our party and we should enjoy it! Ashley is your #1 cheerleader and just wants to ensure that you have the best wedding day for yourself. She also did a million little, kind things for us such as having a drink for us after the ceremony, helping the mother of the groom pack her car with extra desserts, and rewriting our guest book sign as both my spouse and I have horrible handwriting. Our family situations are complicated, and although things went smoothly during the wedding, Ashley was ready to keep the peace in whatever way was needed. Ashley fights for her couples and knows exactly what they need. During the wedding, our DJ played the wrong walkdown song. Ashley recognized that and was able to get him to seamlessly switch to the correct song, all in realtime without any of our guests realizing. My grandmother has mobility issues and Ashley ensured that she had easy access in/out of the venue, showed my grandmother her exact seat and ensured she had everything she needed. I was told she even got a venue staff member to hold a flashlight for my grandmother when she exited, lighting up the ramp. If you want your wedding to be enjoyable and perfect, hire Ashley. She is truly the best!
From the first call with Jen and Ashley at First Pick Planning, we knew we found our Wedding planning team. From their professionalism to being extremely personable, it was an easy...
experience throughout the entire process. From the get-go we worked together to craft a seamless minute-by-minute day of plan that could not have been executed better. The ease of myself only needing to worry about getting my hair and makeup done on the morning of my wedding, while Ashley managed all of our vendors and ensured they delivered on their items and set up our venue accordingly, was a dream. I could not recommend Jen and Ashley more. Even throughout our wedding, we had several guests come up to my husband and I to compliment Ashley as well. And truth be told, following our wedding I already miss working with them! They are truly the best and for anyone else we know to get married, we will always recommend them!
We hired Ashley as our wedding day coordinator for our wedding in Lake Tahoe (Everline FKA Resort at Squaw Creek) this past June and we were absolutely blown away by the quality of...
service that we received. We started working with Ashley about a month out from our wedding day, and from that point, she not only took over all the communication with our vendors but also helped us create to a flawless timeline that both met our desires (to enjoy our cocktail hour, actually eat dinner, etc.) and logistically worked out with the elements we wanted in our day. Throughout this month of planning process, Ashley was incredibly responsive and helpful with last minute decision-making. When it came to the day-of, I cannot praise Ashley and the team enough. Our event went off without a hitch and I did not have a worry in my mind the whole day. We had some complicated music asks for our ceremony and a TON of personal decor to setup, and Ashley and her team executed it all without hesitation. She even went above and beyond to bring us appetizers & drinks throughout the event, helped my mom bustle my dress, went up to our room to get us things that we forgot during the reception, packed all of our decor back into my parents hotel room at the end of the night, and countless other remarkable acts that were completely above and beyond what we expected. We also just had the best time working with her day of, as she was so positive, so fun to be around, and had the most can-do attitude ever. We can't praise Ashley and her team enough for the phenomenal day she helped create for us. Thank you FPP!
Ashley at first pick literally saved our wedding! Not only was she (and the team) great throughout our whole planning process and planning out our timeline - we got the “wedding da...
y management” package - but when unprecedented weather conditions caused a last-minute venue cancellation, her knowledge of the whole wedding industry in Lake Tahoe allowed her to find us a new venue and DJ on the very same day and pull off an incredible wedding with all of our other original vendors, in about 6 hours! Ashley is a rockstar, and I can’t recommend her and First Pick enough.
Jen is an outstanding wedding planner, and I 100% recommend hiring her and the First Pick Planning team!! She is professional, responsive, detail-oriented, creative, and incredibly...
fun and easy to work with. We decided on a destination wedding in Lake Tahoe which was challenging since we lived on the East Coast, but she was there every step of the way to help us through the process. She went the extra mile to make sure that every single event (from rehearsal dinner to Sunday brunch) went smoothly so that we never had to spend a moment of our wedding weekend worrying about the details.
We would recommend Jen and First Pick Planning wholeheartedly. We stumbled upon her after an online search as we wanted someone who had previously worked our unique venue. The next...
day our contact from the venue itself recommended her. Then we met her for an interview and she opened a timeline google doc and we knew it was meant to be.
Throughout the whole planning process (almost a year), I kept joking that if it wasn't for Jen, we would be eloping. It wasn't really a joke, it is actually true. It was both our first wedding and the whole process is very overwhelming, neither of us had planned something of this scale. As we are both fully employed with jobs which don't allow for weeding planning during the day, we chose the Full Planning Service. It was absolutely worth it. Jen guided us along the way and connected us with professional vendors. She brought our vision to reality.
The day of our wedding also went off without any major hitches and all of our guests had a great time. Most importantly, we loved the finished product. Jen went above and beyond for us. At one point, we even gave her the key to our apartment, so clearly, she is highly trustworthy. Jen truly was enthusiastic and at many times felt we were her only client, especially the week of. Jen was very reasonably priced when compared to the market for LA weddings. We would definitely recommend her for any wedding, anywhere!
Jen is professional, organized and she is very nice.
One of the best decisions we made.
Jen owner of First Pick Planing is worth every penny.
problems.????? not for Jen 😃
Great taste, resources, ideas, personality and organization skills
I usually don’t post rev...
iews.
Love love love her!!
Jen Bergmark is a wonderful woman! We hired her as a day of coordinator and she did so much more than just direct vendors the day of our wedding. I absolutely could not have done...
it without her and her lovely assistant. I knew immediately after speaking on the phone that we would get along well and I was pleased when our in person meeting a few months prior to our wedding went really well. She is well organized and great with communication. Understanding and helpful she aided in the decisions I needed to make regarding timing and flow, and she provided an easy to follow timeline for our wedding. She completely handled 100% of everything the day of our ceremony so all I had to do was put on my dress, walk down the aisle, and enjoy as much as possible. Truly our wedding was the most perfect day I could imagine and I owe it all to Jen.
The decision to work with First Pick Planning was without a doubt one of the absolute best choices we made in regards to our wedding!! Wedding Day Management with Ashley made the ...
planning process MUCH more enjoyable, efficient and organized. She made my life SO much easier and helped me think of many tiny details that I otherwise may not have (what cake cutting knife were we using? what song did we want played during times of the reception I hadn't thought of? do we have signs for the bars? etc etc). We originally decided to use a Day of Coordinator/Wedding Day Coordinator at the advice of our venue; but, now having gone through the entire process, I can't imagine not working with a coordinator. It made all the difference in the world! I live on the East Coast & our wedding was in Lake Tahoe, so organization and communication was key throughout planning. Ashley is the epitome of organized and "on top of it" and helped with so many things: our day of timeline, communication with ALL of our vendors, organization of the entire wedding day, referrals for vendors, transport of signs/decorations between the ceremony and reception...I could go on & on. She also has a wonderful & warm personality, was a joy to work with and get to know as a person, & was cool and calm throughout the entire wedding day (which helped everyone else stay relaxed!)!! Lastly, Ashley went totally above and beyond by helping to set-up our reception center pieces, move decorations, make last-minute decisions & helps with our floral arrangements. I would recommend her & First Pick to ANYONE getting married in California and beyond. I now consider Ashley, Jen and the entire First Pick team friends of ours & will forever be grateful for them for their beautiful facilitation of our wedding day!! Thanks again, First Pick Planning!!!
First Pick Planning was the easiest and BEST DECISION we made while planning our wedding. Working with Ashley was an absolute dream and she managed to match both mine and my husba...
nds personalities perfectly (Which can be difficult :) ). The planning portion was so efficient and clear. When you start planning your wedding it can seem like you'll never be able to accomplish everything. Ashley kept us ahead of schedule and by doing so allowed us to pick the vendors we actually wanted. The day of the wedding was really where I was blown away. I'm a complete control freak and Ashley looked me dead in the eye and said "I've got this, just focus on getting married!" I was at ease instantly and just allowed myself to be present for the best day of my life. If there were any hiccups or issues, I never heard about it. First Pick truly made the wedding of our dreams and I can't gush enough about them. USE THEM FOR YOUR WEDDING!
Jen Bergmark made our wedding a dream. I️t was difficult for us to give up creative control, but Jen eased our minds and made our vision come true. She worked diligently to ensure ...
that all of our expectations were met and exceeded them in the process. For the day of, especially, Jen allowed both of us to focus on the excitement of the day while she took care of any bumps along the way. If you are in need of a planning team in the West LA area, we highly recommend First Pick Planning!
Emma from First Pick worked with me and my groom for almost a year to coordinate the details of our recent wedding. It was such a relief having her to count on -- Emma dealt with a...
ll of the vendors, kept the wedding under budget, and made helpful recommendations and decisions on our behalf. She even negotiated the USC marching band to perform at the wedding after the band first declined. On the day-of, she was AMAZING. She made sure we enjoyed the day and she handled every detail. She picked up the cake and petals for the runner. She found duct tape to repair a groomsmen's broken shoes. She loaded my parent's car with the gifts and decorations, so they could drive right off at the end of the night. She even took the groomsmen's rented tuxes back to Jos A Banks for them the next day! We truly could not have executed the wedding of our dreams without Emma -- we are so grateful to her.
My husband and I got married this last past Saturday 6.25.16 in Tehachapi, CA (2 hours north of L.A) at my husbands family cattle ranch. We had a large wedding and many moving par...
ts. I had hired Jen in late December and she is an absolute BOSS. Her and her team handled every moving part like a complete champ and was a real joy to work with through-out the entire process. Any of my friends that get married she is my first bit of advice to give any new bride. It is literally the best decision you can make. Hiring First Pick Planning was amazing.
My husband and I hired Emma Seitz, from First Pick Planning, and she orchestrated the wedding of our DREAMS. I have no reservations recommending her work enthusiastically; you wou...
ld be so lucky to have her plan your wedding! It’s amazing to me that she can be so on top of so many details—I honestly don’t think she forgot a single wedding-related idea I ever mentioned—and yet always seem so relaxed, easy going, and funny. We both just loved her. If you’re asking yourself whether a professional coordinator or planner is worth the money—YES, for Emma and the First Pick Planning team, every penny and then some!!!
For starts, she gave us (multiple) referrals for just about every vendor we hired, and she saved us money at every possible turn. Emma found us the BEST photographers, the perfect florist for exactly what we wanted, an amazing caterer (our guests raved about the food!) and a brilliant baker who made us the cake we wanted for SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS less than anyone else had quoted us. Honestly, she made the planning process so easy, she helped us keep the whole thing well within our modest budget, and when the day-of came, our wedding. was. perfect. Partly because I got to marry the love of my life and all that, but also because Emma is a magician.
We didn’t make it easy on her, either. Our (gorgeous) venue was entirely outdoors—no refrigeration, limited parking, very few electrical outlets, even. Emma made it work. On top of that, I wasn’t the most organized bride; Emma would send me the friendliest little guilt-free nudges and reminders, to help me stay on top of things. She kept us moving along our planning-timeline while being very understanding of our busy lives, and as often as you hear people say wedding planning is a nightmare, Emma made it easy and fun. We went pretty non-traditional, too, and Emma was enthusiastically supportive of the decisions we made that were right for us, however unconventional. She’s clearly very knowledgeable about wedding history, customs, and traditions, which was helpful, but never put the slightest pressure on us to conform to anyone’s dream wedding but our own. She was great with all our parents, our family and bridal party all loved her, and we had the happiest day of our lives and didn’t have to worry about a thing because Emma was on it. A+, 5 stars, 10 out of 10. Happiest bride in the world. Hire Emma.
JEN IS THE BEST. Sorry for the yelling, but seriously, Jen is the best. Everyone always tells you that things will go wrong on your wedding day, and to expect that it won't be perf...
ect. Well, my wedding at Center for the Arts Eagle Rock was perfect, and that is completely thanks to Jen at First Pick Planning. She held our hands through every stressful moment of the planning process and through every blissful moment of the big day. Her vendor recommendations were so spot on, it's like she was reading our minds. She seems to know everybody in the wedding biz, and can tell you who is amazing and who isn't. Though we were on a budget, we felt like every dollar we spent was well spent.
My (now) husband and I were pretty clueless about how this whole wedding thing worked. We had questions like: Why do you need a DJ? How much does it cost to get 100 people tipsy? What else do you need to get married besides two people in love? Etc. She was endlessly patient and absolutely the best investment we made toward our mutual happiness and sanity.
My husband, Paul and I were about 75% through with our wedding planning and prep believing that we would be okay without hiring a planner or coordinator. Looking back on our weddin...
g day (as we do often, haha), we always discuss and talk about how it definitely wouldn't have been what it was without our dearest, Sarah Bond (Wooley)!
Even though we went with only the day-of coordinator package, it was as if we'd been friends with Sarah since forever! She was instant magic from the moment we met her. Lovely, friendly, honest, sweet, hard-working, talked food and sports with Paul AND extremely detail-oriented (which I am also) and this is when we clicked and knew that we had to book First Pick and to work with Sarah!
Working with Sarah did not feel like another wedding task; it was effortless and easy and like working with a friend! There are not enough good things to say about Sarah and all that she, Jen and Erin did to help bring our magical day to life! Fast and prompt emails, texts, calls, etc. Communication was never an issue. Our family and wedding guests and friends (until now) continue to commend our wedding day and how naturally thorough and organized it was. Some even said that it was the best wedding they had ever attended!
Our family and dearest friends loved meeting her and seeing her hard work behind the scenes. Compliments on Sarah still keep raving our way and we love it and bragging about her!
Our wedding was perfect to us. We had tons and tons of fun, felt so full of love and joy that day and did so without having to stress or worry about a single thing. This was important to Paul and I. Thanks to Sarah. <3
We firmly believe that Sarah was the best investment we made during our wedding planning journey and if we had to do it over again, we'd choose her over and over and over again! First Pick Planning is a first class team, so wonderful to coordinate/ work with and helped make the best day, our best day EVER! We strongly recommend them for any events and hope to work with them again soon in our future ;-)
THANK YOU SARAH!!!
-PAUL & MYRA GAVINI
JULY 4TH 2015 WEDDING
Hiring Jen Bergmark with First Pick Planning was the best wedding decision that my husband and I made! If you're going back and forth on whether or not you need a wedding planner,...
the answer is you DEFINITELY need one, and you need Jen. Jen was amazing from our first meeting with her, until the end of the wedding. She made everything go so smoothly, she and her team had fantastic energy and if anything did go wrong, we had no idea! Ashley was her assistant coordinator for our wedding, and we loved her just as much! I can't say enough good things about this company, seriously hire them!
My daughter and her fiance's mom met Jen Bergmark at a bridal fair and were favorably impressed. I later met Jen when we toured our venue and found her knowledgeable and determine...
d to help us create the best wedding ever, paying close attention to the wishes of her clients. Everything turned out better than I had imagined, including food, drinks, music, and entertainment. Last I heard the head count was 195 and we could never have pulled this off without the help of the First Pick Planning team.
Jen and her team are the best! She was always available during planning, she dealt with all my vendors, and my wedding day went so smoothly I couldn't believe it! Best money I ever...
spent!!
Emma recenlty coordinated a wedding for me. She was very good at dealing with hard personalities and resolving issues quickly. She's a very hard worker, figures out stuff quickly...
, knowledgable, and very straightforward and to the point. She did a fantastic job. The day went smoothly because of her. Everybody had a wonderful and lovely time. It would not have been such a great day without her. Thank you! :-) Aarin and Jay
To any bride-to-be, I HIGHLY recommend joining forces with the lovely ladies of First Pick Planning! Seriously, do yourself a favor and bring these ladies on to make your wedding d...
ay run smoothly and make it the most magical day of your life.
I personally met with Jen and Sarah and right from the very first meeting (they came out of their way to meet with myself and mother in Huntington Beach which was so nice of them) and felt how passionate they are about making a wedding day run smoothly with no hiccups.
Sarah went above and beyond with contacting me with all the little details (not in an overwhelming way) and was in constant contact with all our vendors (DJ, baker, caterer, floral and bar, priest, photographer, videographer). She made sure everyone was on the same page and all the small things you never think of as a bride-to-be she would take care of.
The day and night of the wedding ran extremely well and within the timeline she planned out. She went above and beyond; from helping myself, bridesmaids and my mother put together all the napkins before the rehearsal the day before the wedding to making the big day run fabulously by instructing another awesome day of coordinator (Amy) to run out to buy more champagne during our reception.
I will never be able to thank these ladies enough for making me feel like my lifelong friends were helping me put together one of the biggest days of my life. I love you girls!
I cannot say enough great things about Jen Bergmark! She was my day of coordinator and is the owner of First Pick Planning. She was incredible! She did not nickel and dime me or ch...
arge me for phone conversations or text messages. She organized all my vendors and called them all to make sure everyone was on schedule. Everything turned out perfect! I am a super perfectionist and she was on top of it all before I could even say anything! I gave her a detailed list of where I wanted things and what I needed from her the day of and she did it all! She was at my rehearsal and made it go so smoothly. She has the best vibe and her attitude was always wonderful. My family and bridal party loved her and so did I! She brought an assistant and she was a big help! I will definitely be referring her to anyone I know that is having an event! :)
Contact
1590 Rosecrans Avenue, Manhattan Beach, CA
Wedding vendors in Manhattan Beach
First Pick Planning