About this vendor
Sweet SaraBelle is a full service wedding planner based in Raleigh, NC, serving couples all over the beautiful state of North Carolina. Our team focused, all inclusive process provides a seamless wedding planning experience for our couples and their families to enjoy.
We offer all inclusive weddings, full service planning & floral design, as well as wedding day management.
www.SweetSaraBelle.com
Details
Business Attributes
- Woman-owned Business
Planning
- Budgeting
- Day-Of Coordination
- Full Service Wedding Planning
Wedding Activities
- Rehearsals & Parties
- Wedding
Reviews
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4.7
out of 5.021 reviews
We are beyond grateful to have had Sarah as our wedding coordinator! From the very beginning, she was there to answer all of my questions, offer guidance, and make sure every detai...
l was thought through. On the wedding day, she truly made everything run seamlessly — coordinating with vendors, setting up our décor beautifully, and keeping the timeline on track so we could just relax and enjoy.
One of the best decisions she made was around our rain plan. Dinner was supposed to be outside, but Sarah wisely called for it to be moved indoors. It ended up being the perfect decision — not only would the heat and humidity have been uncomfortable, but the indoor setting with all the candlelight turned out to be absolutely magical. Everything flowed exactly how it was meant to, and we couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful or stress-free day.
Sarah is warm, thoughtful, and incredibly skilled at what she does. I truly can’t imagine our day without her, and I would recommend her a thousand times over to any couple looking for someone to bring their vision to life and make their wedding day everything they’ve dreamed of.
Working with Sarah was easily the best choice we made for our wedding! She is professional, kind, and seems to know everyone in the business. I honestly could not imagine our weddi...
ng without her as our planner! You will have several meetings with her before the wedding that are well timed to ensure you are on the same page and making good progress. She is so easy to communicate with! Especially in the weeks and days and days of the wedding I relied on her so much. I wish I knew more people getting married so that I could recommend her! Additionally, I felt that her services were very affordable and I would’ve paid twice as much for all that she did for us. If you’re looking for someone that knows the business, that will make planning seem easy and fun, and who you can rely on for any circumstance that may pop up, give her a call!!! You will not regret it. Thank you Sarah and Sweet Sarabelle!
Sarah was absolutely amazing. We hired her for the Day of Coordination package which does include pre-planning meetings where Sarah gave us great recommendations. Some of the recom...
mendations were already booked so we did find out own photographers and hair/make-up person, but she was a big help in pointing us to a venue, DJ, food, flowers, attire, and cake. She asked us all the right questions to help us plan our wedding. She happened to be free the day of our wedding, so we did luck into getting both her and an assistant, not just an assistant. Sarah ran all over in the heat making sure everything was set up perfectly. The day went smoothly because of her - thank you Sarah and Megan!!
We hired Sarah and her team for their day-of coordination services, and they did an absolutely phenomenal job. She kept us on target during the entire planning process, and went ov...
er our wedding planning guide multiple times with us to make sure that everything ran smoothly. Laura was our actual coordinator the day-of, and she did a spectacular job. Everything for the ceremony and reception was set up the exact way we pictured it, and we did not have to worry about a thing. She kept us on schedule the entire day while keeping our stress levels at a minimum. We cannot recommend Sarah and her team highly enough - it was an absolute pleasure working with them.
I can’t say enough about how wonderful Sara and her team are! Planning was so easy, they kept the day of the event moving smoothly, and they took care of everything for us. They we...
re so amazing to work with and I’d highly recommend them.
The Sweet SaraBelle team is honestly the BEST . From the very beginning they made every meeting, chat, email and zoom call so easy and fun. With covid, it was hard to plan virtuall...
y but this team way exceeded our expectation. Our wedding was a dream come true and we owe it all to this rockstar of a team. I can’t recommend them more. Passionate about their work, respectful, communicative, detail oriented, caring, fun to work with, compassionate, and just AWESOME is just some of the words we use to describe this team.
I cannot even begin to tell you how incredibly helpful and amazing Sarah was as our wedding planner (for our October 2020 wedding.) She is so kind and so knowledgeable about the in...
dustry. This woman knows the ins and outs about everything you would ever need to know surrounding a wedding, big or small!
She made wedding planning 100% stress-free. I'm the organized, creative, perfectionist kind of person who is calm under pressure, but can get stressed out easily-- I rarely find anything stress-free, but Sarah has an amazing way of making wedding planning fun and easy with absolutely no stress.
I also didn't know every little detail of what I wanted for my wedding. We had more of a "vibe" and a "feeling" that we were after, but I didn't know what I wanted to make that vision come to life. I didn't know how it would come together because I felt like what I was describing was so muddled. But, it was like Sarah dove into my brain and absolutely nailed the aesthetic I was going for! It was beyond perfect!
For those of you who are choosing day-of coordinating rather than full-service coordinating to save some money, I URGE you to change your mind and go with the full-service! As someone who is buried in student debt, I know it can seem like a big cost to put toward something that you can't physically see, but it is so worth it. You don't realize how many tiny details there are around wedding day, but Sarah will make sure no stone is left unturned to make your day perfect. Full service coordination left us with: no stress, more time, and no manual work from family or friends on wedding day.
She is with worth every. single. penny! I highly, highly recommend Sarah and her team!
When I was initially planning our wedding date, I spent countless hours trying to decide the perfect date for our family and friends in 2020. I planned out all of our consideration...
s: weather, local events, etc. I ended up choosing April 25, 2020 as our perfect date - and chose to work with Sweet Sarabelle (Sarah Shumay and team), during this process. From a wedding planning perspective, Sarah's team is exceptional. Sarah and her team are absolutely amazing, and work with couples on every single detail - they help you understand all of your options, make fantastic recommendations, and help you make decisions based on your priorities. Everything is personalized for the couple, and they truly are invested in the outcome of your special day. They help couples truly prioritize, and understand how to most effectively plan the biggest day of our lives. Due to COVID-19, our wedding is not taking place on April 25th as originally planned -- however, I can speak to the tremendous amount of support my fiancé and I have received from Sarah and the rest of the team during this uncertain time. As developments with COVID-19 continued to unfold, Sarah shared her experience within the industry, helped keep us calm, and present us with rescheduling and coordination options for later in the year. She proactively worked with all of our established vendors to help us secure a new wedding date. This experience is truly unprecedented -- and Sarah and her team have gone far above and beyond our expectations of our original agreement. She has truly been there to support us, and continues to do so, by offering us additional resources as needed. When I began planning our wedding, I chose to work with Sweet Sarabelle because of their great reviews --- and, as someone who has truly experienced some chaos during this COVID-19 wedding reschedule, I am happy to share my experience with anyone who is considering their services. We could not have asked for a more fantastic wedding planner during this transition. For a bride, it is so important to be able to count on your vendors. Sarah and her team are, truly, the best vendor, and the greatest support system, we could have asked for during this time.
Sarah and her team did such a wonderful job the day of the wedding. As mother of the bride I couldn't ask for more. Everyone was so attentive and they had everything very planned...
out. They coordinated with our other vendors and made it seem so easy. If anything went wrong, we had no idea cause to us it seemed to be a perfect night! From set up to clean up and all the details in between they were totally in charge, very organized and super sweet. Sarah was also so very helpful during the planning process and was always available for our questions. They made sure it was a perfect reception!
SO SO SO SO SO thankful for Sarah. She is simply the best there is. I could not have planned my wedding without her. She took everything I dreamed of and turned it into a reality. ...
She is so sweet, so thorough and she truly cares about the couples she works with.
She helped me find so many other vendors that were absolutely perfect for our day. She was very honest with me about what things I should put time, effort, and money into and what things I shouldn't. Her connections with other vendors make things so much easier- each and every recommendation was exactly what I wanted.
Her eye for design and floral arrangements are incredible. The team that she works with are so awesome too. She is as sweet as can be but she knows when to step up and handle things, as well. Best of both worlds. I knew without a doubt that on my wedding day I did not have to worry about things going wrong. If it could be fixed, Sarah fixed it.
For example, one of my eyelashes started to fall off right after the ceremony (must've been from all the crying..haha)- she immediately had someone run out and get me some eyelash glue and they saved the day! It was handled within minutes.
I would HIGHLY recommend Sarah to anybody who wants to have a smooth wedding planning process and wedding day. I couldn't have done it without Sarah. Thank you for everything!
When I first got engaged I was very excited, but also overwhelmed at the idea of planning a wedding. I had heard friends say the best part was when it was over because it had been ...
so stressful. My fiancé and I were also living in DC, but planning on getting married in North Carolina. Luckily I decided to use Sweet Sarabelle as my planner and day of coordinator. My planner was Sarah Mayer and she was the best! Sarah M. guided me every step of the way, helped come up with ideas, and managed everything perfectly. I could never have imagined a better day! Everything was so organized and on schedule that we even got to enjoy our cocktail hour. I never felt a moment of stress or and knew that worried that Sweet Sarabelle/Sarah M. had everything under control.
Wow! I couldn’t sing the praises of Sarah Shumay and Sweet Sarabelle enough if I tried. I have now worked with Sarah and her company for planning and florals on two weddings—my bes...
t friend’s wedding, for which I was the maid of honor, and my own. After having an absolute blast working with her the first time and seeing her amazing work, I knew that I wanted her and her team to plan my wedding as soon as I got engaged. In addition, her services were priced very fairly and include her extensive inventory of gorgeous decorations. For our wedding, Sarah worked closely with my mom, my (now) husband and me. Even when juggling countless ideas and multiple perspectives, she has the unique ability to meet everyone’s needs throughout the entire wedding planning process. She extraordinarily invested, enthusiastic, responsive, patient, thorough, detail-oriented and organized. When I had a clear vision of some aspect of the wedding, I knew I could trust her to completely bring it to life. When I was totally clueless about what I wanted, she took what she knew about the overall feel and look that I wanted, and provided excellent options or me to choose from. When I was overwhelmed or didn’t have a strong opinion on a particular aspect, I knew I could trust her implicitly to make the decision and execute it in a way that would fit seamlessly with the wedding as whole. On the day of our wedding, I had complete confidence in Sarah and her team. I didn’t spend a single second thinking about the decor, timeline or logistics which really allowed me, my husband and all of our guests to enjoy the day to the fullest. Both our ceremony and reception spaces were gorgeous and the whole day went off flawlessly. Our guests couldn’t stop talking about how beautiful the wedding was, and how much fun they had throughout the entire evening!
Hiring Sarah as our wedding planner was, by far and away, the best money we spent on our wedding! We were originally hesitant about hiring a planner, but with both of our families ...
out of state and with so much to do, we knew we needed to bring in professional help. Sarah's prices were extremely reasonable and her services included so much more than other planners we interviewed! We ended up spending almost nothing on extra decorations since Sarah had such an awesome inventory of decorations to choose from, and we spent way less on flowers than we would have if we had hired a florist since she arranged them all for us.
I can't even count how many times she saved the day - from when our catering contract came in at twice (!!) what we were originally quoted and within hours she had gotten our non-refundable deposit back and helped us find an incredible, affordable caterer and sent us the contract; to when I texted her the week before the wedding saying I had seen a backdrop curtain made from carnations that I was in love with and she said she and her assistants could absolutely whip that up; to when I texted her at 10:30 the night before our wedding saying I had completely forgotten to make the signs I had planned for the wedding, and she texted me back and said no problem, her calligrapher on staff would take care of it; to when the entire hem on my dress unravelled during my first look and she had her assistant grab some white duck tape and quickly tape the hem back up before the ceremony (it stayed all night!) - no problem was too big for her to solve!
Sarah helped us pull off the wedding of our dreams, and we absolutely could not have done it without her and her amazing team. Thank you Sarah!!!
Sarah helped me plan my June 2016 wedding from the ground up. I was very hesitant to hire a wedding planner because it seemed to be the sort of thing I should be able to do myself....
Thank goodness I reversed my position. Having Sarah there was absolutely the best decision I made about my wedding save the choice of groom! My venue had nothing included so having her to guide me and work out all the logistics was wonderful. She has a wonderful style of her own, but is also great at helping you find your own wedding style. I thought she was warm, professional, and fun to work with. My makeup artist cancelled on my the week of the wedding due to illness and I won't say I wasn't worried but Sarah never blinked an eye. She sent me a list of makeup artists and I found one almost immediately who was wonderful! On the day of my wedding I didn't worry about a single logistical issue, I felt comfortable knowing she was there and had everything under control. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat and I wouldn't change a thing. I am still, 6 months later, so pleased about our collaboration! Thank you Sarah, for giving me a beautiful, perfect day. If you have any doubts about hiring a wedding planner, like I did, I encourage you to talk with Sarah; she and her team are worth every single penny!!
I wish I could give zero stars..she was an absolute nightmare to work with! We booked her at the beginning of the year and she ended up DOUBLE-BOOKING for our wedding weekend. Inst...
ead of telling me about it months in advance so I could fix the problem, I found out on my own a MONTH before my wedding. She told me that she wasn't coming to my rehearsal dinner the night before (you know...the big dinner where you rehearse with the entire wedding party) and refused to send me either of her 2 assistants, claiming that they were working with her for another wedding that night. What kind of a wedding planner doesn't have assistants she can readily send in a situation that she created? She made the ridiculous suggestion that the entire wedding party and officiant work around her schedule and that we have our rehearsal dinner on a weeknight 4 days from my wedding! One problem? I had already explained to her that most of my wedding party were flying in from different states.
She refused to refund the deposit I had paid for her services and got very defensive and insulting in her communications with me. And eventually, she just ignored my emails altogether rather than handling things the adult way.
When I spoke with other wedding planners regarding how she treated me, many of them were disgusted by lack of professionalism and said, "It's people like her that give wedding planners a bad name."
She is certainly cheaper than most planners--but you get what you paid for. Or in my situation, she just steals your money without providing any services. I actually ended up finding and booking pretty much everything on my own--I found the caterer on my own, the venue, photographer...etc. She wasn't very helpful as she didn't have many contacts.
Do yourself a favor and stick with a professional or else you'll end up pulling your hair like I did a month before the wedding. Luckily for me, I found an absolutely FANTASTIC wedding planner as a replacement and she did the job so much better than Sara ever could have done had I stuck with her from the beginning.
What can I say about Sarah and her team at Sweet Sarabell? These wonderful ladies are an absolute dream to work with and I am so glad I hired them. Sarah was the first person I hir...
ed for my wedding team and I am so glad I started with her. Her knowledge of Raleigh area vendors is top-notch and she is so great at recommending amazing vendors. The vendor team that she helped me put together was what truly made my day amazing. On top of that, Sarah makes sure that every single detail is taken care of to make sure your wedding day is amazing. She communicates well throughout the planning process and communicates with her team to make sure that all of them know exactly what to do on your wedding day. It was such a relief to have her team there on my wedding day, as neither my mom nor I were stressed. We literally didn’t do a single thing for the reception set up and walked down into the most amazing space that looked exactly like what I had envisioned. I am so thankful that Sarah and her team were there and I know my wedding day wouldn’t have been as wonderful and stress-free without them!
We hired Sarah as the wedding planner for our wedding. Up until the day of the wedding, she was very sweet and seemed enthusiastic about our wedding. A month before our wedding, we...
had a meeting planned to discuss final details of our wedding. She ended up cancelling due to an illness and asked to reschedule 2 weeks later. I felt this was unacceptable since we had so much left to discuss, so she agreed on a phone meeting. During this meeting we made several plans, ALL of which she either messed up or forgot on our wedding day. My bridal bouquet was fake when I asked for it to be real, we had a chalkboard program when we requested printed, my card box was a cheap painted wicker basket with no distinguishing sign when I asked for a birdcage, our popcorn favors were tied in bags and thrown on a table with no sign of what they were when we planned an amazing set up for them, I brought dance floor props which she was supposed to set up and I ended up having to sort them myself and hunt her down 5 times to bring them out for guests, and my biggest upset was our grand exit. I originally wanted sparklers and she convinced me to change to confetti poppers. However on my wedding day she COMPLETELY forgot so i had absolutely nothing. A memory I can never get back. When I emailed her about these issues (even complimenting her and only asking for explanation) , instead of offering an explanation or apology she became defensive and even put blame on me for not filling in her planner and my brother in law for forgetting something she should have been responsible for. With every email, she became more and more rude even though it was MY wedding she messed up. She eventually sent us a partial refund for the extra money we sent her to cover the things she did not provide, but made sure to guilt us and say it was from her pocket. I am still waiting for a receipt to show how my money was spent and an explanation for all that went wrong on my wedding day. I feel we were ripped off...
Do your wedding (& your future spouse a favor) & hire Sarah! I cannot put into words how amazing Sarah & Sweet Sarabell are. We booked with Sarah really soon after we got engaged, ...
which I highly recommend. She saved us a ton of headaches & money! She is friendly, easy to work with, EXTREMELY responsive, knowledgeable, & professional. She knew how to manage my mother & me--huge personalities!
Sarah epitomizes the definition of going above & beyond. She took care of things on & before my wedding day that I never would have considered. I literally did nothing except explain what I wanted & then enjoy the party. She made sure we had food, drinks, & were where we should be each moment of the day.
Use her to do your flowers! We had insanely gorgeous bouquets and floral decor for only $900! She is amazing at working within your budget & giving you incredible beauty.
Sarah has amazing rentals & decor, as well as access to more if you don't have everything you want. Her design capabilities range drastically, & she was a perfect fit for our rustic/vintage style BBQ wedding. She knew exactly what quantities to rent, what size tent we needed, & how to lay out everything for the number of guests.
Sarah took care of EVERYTHING at the rehearsal dinner & wedding day. She was 150 places at once. She adapted our outdoor wedding to 4 different alternative backup plans because of rain. She directed vendors, family members, & guests through one of the best parties I have ever had the privileged of attending, let alone being the center of. Sarah made my wedding day an absolute effortless dream that was full of laughter, dancing, great food, & lots of bourbon. Our family & friends just got to show up & attend a fabulous party! We didn't have to do any work--Sarah and her team took care of every single detail & executed my vision with absolute perfection. I could not have asked for a more perfect day or wedding. I don't know how people get married without Sweet Sarabell!
Sarah was great to work with. She always answered my questions and was willing to help in whatever way I needed. At the wedding reception, she made sure my husband and I were ser...
ved and had a few minutes to sit and eat (his requirement). She always made sure we had whatever we needed and kept us on track. Love Sarah and would recommend her to any bride!
If you haven't already hired a coordinator (or planner), you absolutely MUST meet Sarah Shumay of Sweet Sarabell. She was 1,000% my saving grace. Every time I saw her, she had a ...
smile on her face, and dealt with every crazy wedding hiccup with poise and grace. Whether it was a bridesmaid that passed out, crazy relatives and family drama, or a stain on my bridal backside, she was game for anything and handled it wonderfully. She anticipated my needs before I even had a chance to realize what I needed. Hiring Sarah will be the best decision you make while planning your wedding!
I met Sara and a brial show and she was amazing. I just paid for "Day of" planning, but there was so much more that she helped me with. She got in touch and gave references with ve...
ndors, met with my mom and I to work out details. Kept in contact the entire process. She was my rock the day of. Such a lovely person!
Contact
Raleigh, Cary, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina
Sweet Sarabell's photos