Laurel Elise Events LLC

to make a lot of tough decisions & changes regarding our event due to COVID. We came to a mutual conclusion that postponing our original plan was the best move. Given the uncertainty of the pandemic ending, my partner & I decided we still wanted to do something intimate on our original wedding date, while we awaited a better time to host our larger wedding gathering. This essentially made for two events Elise would have to help plan. When I say that each of those days was PERFECT, I mean it. Elise & her team were incredibly helpful & patient throughout the whole process. I gave her some minimal ideas I had in mind for the day, and she went above & beyond to find the perfect vendors & help it all come together. Best of all, we ended our 2+year wedding saga feeling as if Elise was a true friend, and not just an incredible planner. I cannot recommend her enough <3 Still awaiting professional footage, but some pure joy photos from my phone below!

came highly recommended.. I totally understand why! She picked up all the pieces without missing a beat!! As our day-of coordinator, Elise went above and beyond beyond; she was more than just a “day-of” coordinator. She there every step of the way to help answer any questions, give guidance on decor, and help navigate the messy waters of having a wedding in the middle of a pandemic. As a nervous (type-A) bride, Elise calmed my nerves and helped me actually get excited about our wedding whether it was 120 people or 20 people. Day of the wedding, Elise truly made all my visions come to life. I remember being so relaxed as I knew she had everything under control - something I’d never thought I would feel in my wedding day, relaxed?!. We decided to change our ceremony site morning of our wedding, and again, Elise took the change with excitement and a smile! I looked out the window and was speechless as I saw the magic she created - she brought every vision I had to life, and more. She was well connected with all our vendors; having everyone work so well together made the day so fun, and was icing on the cake. As a bride who had to give up having a bridal party, Elise was there to make the day extra special. She cheered me on, made me laugh, and did everything the bride squad would have done (and more). I truly could not imagine our wedding without the excellent work and support from Elise! Future brides considering Elise - don’t walk, RUN to her to make all your wedding dreams come true.

s this job and she absolutely knows what she's doing. She put the two of us at ease throughout the entire process and especially (and most importantly) on the day of. My husband and I didn't have to worry about a thing, Elise was on top of everything that day! She has a wonderful calming energy and I knew I could rely on her whenever I had a question or concern. She also maintains her professionalism, even down to her amazing style :) I am so grateful that we had her, it's evident that she truly loves and understands weddings.

she felt like a friend throughout the process. Can't recommend her enough!

dding/hospitality industry and actually got married in the venue that I manage. This came with it's own set of challenges! I was worried I would have a difficult time letting go when the big day came, and try to take care of everything myself. Hiring Elise allowed me the freedom to let go, and really enjoy the day. On a few occasions when I started to "manage" the day, she gently took back over and I went back to my Champagne. :D Every couple owes it to themselves to invest in a planner, and I'd recommend Elise again and again!

nough to plan TWO wedding weekends with her (thank you COVID!). As I reflect on the first one, we are so blessed to have Elise to have helped us navigate this crazy time. From that initial meeting, I knew Elise's calm and bubbly personality was everything we needed for our wedding. Being from NYC and getting married in CVILLE we needed someone who was knowledgeable of the industry and organized, but would plan at our pace. Over the next year Elise was absolutely amazing providing us the best vendors and advice/tips. She was also responsive when I went on a planning or dress buying binges (3 dresses and counting lol). In January 2020, Elise helped us plan a wonderful tasting weekend with our parents. She even balanced our mom's elegant preferences with our desire to incorporate some of our favorite things (luckily there were lots of overlaps!). By March 2020, the reality of our dream wedding became more uncertain with each day. Over the next month as we debated the best way to proceed, Elise calmly worked through all our options. When the inevitable came to postpone, within hours she had alternate dates with vendor availability and within a few more hours we had a new date secured. Because Elise had been so wonderful and I couldn't imagine another year without marrying my now husband, we hired Elise to help us with our elopement in my hometown and celebration in Newport for our parents and closest relatives. Navigating quarantines, travel restrictions and covid precautions, Elise helped us plan and execute a mini-matrimony in 6 weeks!!!! I'll let the pictures do the talking, but it was the most incredible day. From all the details and finishing touches to creativity when dealing with unexpected COVID restrictions (day of wedding the gov restricted cakes being served) or difficult bustles, Elise was integral in the day's seamless execution! It has and continues to be an absolute delight to work with Elise. Her expertise and assistance with vendor selection creates a comfort and trust that our special days we will ones we cherish for a lifetime. She is a diamond within the industry. We cannot wait for our our Vineyard Vow Renewal 6/2021!!

decided on May 23, 2020, which means we were in planning with Elise for over 18 months. We selected numerous vendors she recommended (which were amazing), picked out everything for the wedding, and then COVID happened in early 2020...I was so so sad. BUT Elise was a MIRACLE!! We had to push our wedding to August 2020 and she re-arranged all vendors with ease. She re-sent out invitations and kept everyone in check for the new date. We decided to still have a mini-wedding on our original wedding date and Elise literally had to plan the entire event in 3 DAYS. No one would allow us at their venue due to COVID but she used her connections and made it happen!! We had a beautiful wedding in the midst of a pandemic; we had our original chairs, linens, place settings, a photographer, a video, live music...it was AMAZING!! Elise saved the day and made it happen without me having to stress at all. I cannot thank Elise enough for her commitment to her brides and for not giving up on us when it seemed like this wedding wasn't going to happen. She was kind, supportive, understanding, and never ever let her emotions show (even though I'm sure I stressed her out ALOT during those 18+ months of planning). All in all, Elise is reliable and knows her job really well. I would highly recommend her and her company to anyone - whether you are planning a small, intimate wedding or a huge event with 200+ people, she will nail it and make it amazing. Thank you Elise for your great ideas and all your help!!

able to praise her enough! Elise was beyond what we could ever imagine in a Wedding Planner. She is truly superwoman and handles the craziness of wedding planning with so much class and elegance. She naturally makes you feel like you can trust her with anything and she without a doubt has a heart of gold. Before I found her, I started planning a lot on my own and became overwhelmed planning everything from Charlotte, NC, however, when Elise took things over, my stress washed away. Looking back, I wish I just booked her for full planning rather than partial. She truly listens to your vision and takes it to a whole different level and will blow your mind. She knew I loved candles and gold and brought our reception into a candle lit dream and tied my love for gold in perfectly! The room looked so timeless and it was thanks to Elise's creativity and attention to detail. She is so personal, we even call her family now. From my own experience, she is very well connected in the Charlottesville area and well respected. She also made a point to save us money where we could which I loved about her. All the vendors we booked that knew her raved about her as well and the ones that worked with her for the first time due to our wedding, had positive feedback about her as well. She is extremely organized and has so many resources to keep you on track with your timeline of due dates (which I needed, since I am not the most organized but she was so patient with me). Her online portal has a huge checklist of everything you can think of which I could easily access whenever. She also sent us multiple floor plans she created to help us envision everything. Within her portal she had additional resources like creating timelines for your family and wedding party so everyone had all the details they needed. Her communication is incredible! I always heard back from her within 24 hours but most of the time I heard back from her within a few hours, if not minutes. She took care of putting together our invitation suite to mail out which had quite a bit of details and it looked beautiful! I sent her items in the mail that she had set up for our HUGE wedding party (11 bridesmaids & 16 groomsmen/ushers) which we appreciated so much! It was so nice to walk into our wedding party suites at the venue the day of the wedding and see all of the goodies displayed so beautifully for our wedding party. Everyone loved Elise that had the chance to meet her - Our wedding party was raving about her as well and said she was so helpful when they needed something! Our parents communicated with her a lot as well and she was so accommodating to their needs. Naturally with 250 people at our wedding, I imagined there would be a few hiccups but Elise always reassured me she had things under control and she did. She gave both my husband and I a sense of peace, that I most people dream about leading up to their wedding day. Everyone had a fabulous time! If you have the chance to work with Elise, do not look any further! I cannot stress enough how talented Elise is. She makes things happen and will truly make your dreams come true! Thank you so much Elise for all that you did for us!

and additions (like finding great musicians for the ceremony a week ahead of time which we failed to think about) and handled small things that we just forgot about the day of the wedding. She worked well with the staff at the venue and overall helped us have a nice and easy day. My one minor criticism would be that, when outside the month of window, email responses were sometimes a bit slow and would take a couple of days which, frankly, is to be expected if she's dealing with another wedding at the time and/or on travel. Regardless I just bring it up to bear in mind when working with her. She was very responsive and helpful as the wedding date approached.

edding. We opted for the full service package with the understanding we’d be fully supported in the planning experience. Unfortunately, we found Elise was not up to the task of helping us plan our wedding to our expectations. We felt she was very good at telling us everything was fine and taken care of, but if you dug deeply into the details or asked additional questions it was clear things were not figured out or taken care of. Problems and inconveniences ranged from small to large with Elise. Booking hotel blocks took a month longer than we thought it would, her initial budget for us in her financial planning platform was a couple thousand dollars higher than we told her it could be, and she was unavailable to us two days before our wedding as she worked on other projects. We hired her as we were looking for someone to take control of our budget and event and guide us in the right direction. Instead, we found ourselves needing to come to our own conclusions, complete a lot of the projects on our own and continue to remind Elise of deadlines and decisions that needed to be made. About midway through the process we brought to her attention we were unhappy with the service we were receiving and expected things to improve, but unfortunately, we never saw that improvement. The week of our wedding we were disappointed with Elise’s help. As mentioned above, she was unavailable to us the two full days we were in town early before our wedding. The day of the wedding we ran behind schedule with our photos (because of the unpacking issue), and the Uhaul we had brought with us to the venue the day before (full of décor, signs, candles, alcohol, etc.) was left unpacked in the heat until three hours before the ceremony (until the groomsmen finally unpacked it), despite being told Elise and her team would handle it – and the reception area never got completely set up before she ran out of time. Elise didn’t arrive to the venue until noon, when the ceremony began at 5:30. To be fair, this could be standard for wedding planners, but it gave us both added stress, and hours ticked by and the venue wasn’t completely set up. We had bought our own linens for the wedding and Elise offered to iron/steam the wrinkles out of them a few months prior– but at the rehearsal she decided she did not want them early after all, then the afternoon of the wedding we were told the wrinkles couldn’t come out, and we’d need to rush rent new linens for $400. Once the event was over, we found a lot of the items we brought for the celebration went unused (candles, signs, etc.). Additionally, our Uhaul and car were packed haphazardly, with some items becoming damaged. The combination of items/signs not being used and other items getting damaged truly bothered us, as it seemed like our wants were not fully executed for our special day. Elise did a good job of connecting us with local vendors and her planning tool was helpful for payment reminders. Overall, we felt we were not a priority for Elise throughout the entire planning process. We understand Elise had other clients, other professional development opportunities and a personal life, but we hoped for more attention to detail and care in our wedding planning, especially for the cost associated with the Full Service Package.