J29 Events

Words can’t describe how grateful and fortunate we were to come across Sabrina and have her as our wedding planner/coordinators. My now wife and I had a vision to create a weekend getaway in Hood River for our guests, including ones that had never been to the Pacific Northwest and have multiple events that included a day of Indian wedding festivities (Mhendi and Sangeet), followed up a day of western wedding while still paying homage to Indian culture. Sabrina took on the challenge, coordinated, designed and planned events across the weekend and delivered above and beyond our expectations. Sabrina’s strength is carefully listening on her client’s vision, learning our communication style, problem solving in high stressful environments and bring proactive. Sabrina is easy to get along, very approachable and each time we meet with her made us more excited for the big day. Sabrina was great at getting early inputs from us on the vibe and feel for the weekend and events we envisioned, and brought her own design inputs which uplifted the theme of our wedding to create an incredible experience for us and our guest. This resulted in her recommended us to do the Indian events at the Society Hotel around hood river and helped us secure room blocks for accommodating our guest. My wife and I, being very literal, needed more visual cues to better understand how different designs would come together. Sabrina understood that and was quick at putting together design boards/decks to simplify brainstorming but then to see the final vision. Sabrina made herself available when we need and quick was taking out feedback and turning things around. After our initial meeting, Sabrina had a compressive plan in place, including a budget planner we followed that allows us to stay within our budge. As a groom, I was very much involved in the design process and what I appreciate about Sabrina was balancing inputs from my wife and I who at times had different design aesthetic. Instead of favoring one design input vs another, Sabrina was patient with us, dove into understanding what specific were important to us and figured out design blends that in the end were exceptional and satisfied both my wife and I. Her ability to turn a boring and empty gym at the Society Hotel into an incredible space with Indian wedding astatic was incredible to experience and more importantly was significantly better than we would have imagined. Something I really appreciated about Sabrina was having periodic check-ins that were quick and to the point to continue to make progress on items that required our input. She gently nudged us when needed to close on decisions and kept us on budget and found great alternatives when something we wanted would exceed our budget. Instead of given us too many options, she would curate vendor and design choices to 2-3 items that helped us avoid being overwhelmed with choices. Sabrina’s problem-solving skills, coupled with her knowledge about the wedding industry, her designing skills, and network of vendors is an asset. For example, when we weren’t satisfied with the existing lighting at our venue, she was able to put together a plan with one of her vendors even though initially it appeared that adding more lights would be difficult. Similarly, as we struggled to find an Indian caterer, Sabrina worked with the catering team for the non-Indian event to work with us to put together an Indian menu that was impressive. The pool of recommended vendors that J29 has in its portfolio is an important asset. Because of Sabrina’s personal connections to various vendors, it felt that the entire vendor team was in-sync and knew each other’s rhythm. Another strength of Sabrina is how well she is organized to where my wife and I were never aware of all the work happening behind the scenes during the events and everything were smooth and according to the plans Sabrina laid out well in advance of the events. Sabrina and her team managed and coordinated with all the vendors and it and ensured the event went on as planned with all the backup plans in place just in case they were needed without hassle. It was quite impressive to see them all curate each event. I would highly recommend Sabrina and the J29 team and will looking for more excuse to require their service in the future. Throughout this process my wife and I became great friends with Sabrina and were really grateful to have made the choice to work with her and the J29.

Sabrina and the J29 team were THE special sauce in delivering our multi-day, “Old Hollywood/Bollywood meets PNW cozy” Indian-Western fusion wedding that dazzled every guest. We are STILL getting cards and notes from guests that it was the highlight of their year. Originally I was looking for a planner that was organized, reliable, and could help bring my vision to life, who would ensure things went off without a hitch. Did I get those things? Absolutely. Sabrina had every detail covered, helped me delegate each task, and created the most comprehensive planning doc for every vendor. Thanks to her, we were 10000% present on our wedding day. All things that the How-To-Pick-a-Planner articles say you should look for - we got them in spades. But man, it’s the things you don’t realize you need that had me floored about working with Sabrina / J29. One was network. Sabrina, Shauna & J29 are clearly well-known in the community for doing what they do with zest, gusto, and style. Every vendor we interviewed had amazing things to say about J29 or was expressly eager to work with them. When we couldn’t get responses to outreach emails, Sabrina had the connection that helped get things booked. She knows the industry expertly and saved us HOURS of research, giving us the perfect vendor recommendations. (I finally stopped asking for 5-6 recos because we always ended up narrowing to her original top two!). The team that we assembled was sheer perfection. We got a room block at a hotel that generally doesn’t do them. The list goes on. All this to say, Sabrina and J29 are well-known, well-respected, and can get you the team you need and want while saving you time, stress, and headache AND making the process fun. What blew us away though - Sabrina herself. She is Superwoman. Kind. Funny. Endlessly energetic. Did I mention funny? She will get sh** done on your behalf. All my little neurotic worries — Sabrina had already foreseen the details & had solutions up her sleeve. Whenever we worried we were being too fussy, she would lovingly remind us that WE were “the pie,” and we deserved this day. Her energy is infectious. She was the perfect salve to my procrastination - I couldn’t not pick up the phone because every conversation was so fun. Sabrina was also committed to making sure that both my personality and my partner’s were well represented in the details, from napkin color to DJ choice. She talked us through our opinions, getting to the heart of what mattered to both of us and offering creative, beautiful compromises that felt greater than the sum of their parts. We felt like our wedding was truly ours and nobody else’s. A final thing: cost, only because I found similar comments helpful in my own search. Hiring Sabrina and the J29 team was THE best investment in our wedding. We’d do it again in a heartbeat. We had no idea the incredible creativity, knowledge, and execution that we were signing up for, and it was worth every penny we paid and then some. If you have the budget and are waffling at all on hiring a planner, I am telling you that the ROI on J29 is huge — you will not regret this choice. I could go on about Sabrina & J29 for hours (and my bridesmaids are probably sick of hearing me gush), so I’ll simply end: I could never imagine our spectacular, multicultural celebration without Sabrina, her heart, and know-how. She really is the ride-or-die planner/friend that people ache for. She is our dear friend, she has our hearts forever.

Lois from J29 was my girl! We got started early and had everything basically planned by end of September 2022 for a March 2023 wedding. Then, weather made my original venue inaccessible and we had to pivot. Lois was a goddess and basically re-planned my entire Big Sur destination wedding in 3 days, coordinating with my vendors, fighting to get me a refund from my original venue, and also keeping me positive as we changed venues twice! She really went the extra mile and mailed me fabric samples when they were having trouble delivering to my address, drove down to check out venue #3 right before wedding day, and even helped with cake pickup. The bottom line is that I think she is incredible at her job -- the wedding ran so smoothly day-of and looked just the way I wanted it that you wouldn't have ever expected that we'd changed venues twice literally days before the ceremony. Lois handled everything with grace and gave me the gift of my dream wedding. During planning, she was my advocate. She cheered me on, supported my ideas, helped negotiate vendor proposals to fit our budget, and helped refine our wedding vision. She's also an email superstar and an excellent texter. Yes, hire a planner, they help bigtime! And you'll be in great hands with J29! Tysm Lois for a perfect day! You were absolutely the good luck charm <3

To those doing their research on wedding coordinators and to those on the fence…J29 has our HIGHEST recommendation. We got married on September 17th and I honestly don’t know what we would have done without Shauna and the J29 team. We hired them for full-service planning – which they describe as the ‘hand holding’ package on their website – and that’s exactly what it feels like. Planning a wedding can be incredibly stressful, but J29 took the stress out of the equation and actually made the entire process fun! We looked forward to every meeting and always left feeling accomplished and even more excited to see the vision Shauna was putting to life. We didn’t have to worry about making sure we had our bases covered because we quickly realized just how on their game J29 events is. And that’s saying something, because we are both type-A and very meticulous. Throughout the planning process, Shauna was able to capture the vision of our ‘perfect wedding day’ through constant ad-hoc communication as well as in-depth scheduled meetings. She was responsive and addressed all of our calls, emails, and texts and after a few weeks, it felt like working with a close friend. She never once gave off a ‘close enough’ mentality; her high drive and attention to detail is palpable. It doesn’t just take someone with the characteristics of a good planner to make a good planner. J29 is well connected in the industry – and they clearly only network with the best of the best. Every single referral that they gave us was tailored to our taste and highly talented at their own craft. We watched as J29 events curated a dream-team of vendors who made our wedding day look like something out of a dream. As we got closer and closer to the wedding, the value of hiring J29 became more and more evident. And when the big day finally came, J29 events set themselves apart as the highest value-add to our wedding. Shauna & Sabrina were absolute machines. Their ability to coordinate 30 or so individuals from various vendor teams, overseeing & handling 200+ wedding guests and ensuring that we were sticking to our day-of timeline was so impressive. As stressful as that job may sound, neither one of them wore it on their sleeves; every time they came into the bridal suites, they had smiles on their faces and made sure that there was a stress-free vibe in the room. What has been even more impressive is that they handled issues without us even knowing about them! We had only heard of the few tiny hiccups after our wedding. We left our wedding and in a paid-for car service. We came back the next day, and the planning team had taken our keys and packed up our car of all personal belongings that we left behind. In hindsight, it is easy to look at the various things that we chose to do and not to do and decide if those things were worth it or not. Undoubtedly, hiring J29 Events was the single BEST decision we made in the wedding planning process. We give them our highest recommendation and have nothing but positive things to say about the team and the amount of work they put in for us. Anyone who hires them will surely be in good hands. Thank you SO much to Shauna, Sabrina, and the entire J29 Events team! You made our wedding the best day of our lives and we are so grateful. We’ve gained friends for life and will forever recommend J29 to any and all couples!