About this vendor
Hello! Congratulations on your engagement and interest in a Lake Tahoe destination wedding. If you are considering Lake Tahoe, then you share a mutual love and passion for this beautiful mountain destination. Lake Tahoe offers many beautiful options for your wedding: Lakefront, Mountaintop, Luxury resort, Forest whimsy and much more. Tahoe By Design provides wedding planning services in Lake Tahoe, only. We live here, work here and have the deep knowledge of the destination to create your perfect day.
Our number one focus is getting to know you and what is important in planning your wedding. We start by listening to your vision and then collaborate on finding the perfect venue, hiring the best suppliers and ensuring the day is stress free and you are able to be fully present and enjoy!
You are invited to visit our adorable offices in Lake Tahoe and we can begin designing your day. We work with all kinds of clients from all over the world and create weddings that are innovative, one of a kind and ensure you invest your money wisely in what is important for your wedding. Weddings do not have to be costly! We bring value and cost savings with our expertise and ensure we never lose sight of your vision and what is important.
Our planning team is dedicated and truly cares about our clients and work. It is an honor to work with couples on such an important day and at the end of the wedding, we have developed life-long friendships with our valued clients. Reach out today, we are here to listen and provide guidance on where to start. We never charge for a consultation meeting and look forward to meeting you. Thank you for viewing our Wedding Wire page.
Warm regards,
Karen Steele
President
PS: Check out our Instagram for latest wedding photos!
Details
Business Attributes
- Woman-owned Business
Destination Weddings
- Destination Wedding Packages
- Destination Wedding Planning
Planning
- A la Carte Wedding Planning
- Budgeting
- Day-Of Coordination
- Destination Wedding Planning
- Full Service Wedding Planning
- Honeymoon Planning
Wedding Activities
- Getting Engaged
- Honeymoon
- Rehearsals & Parties
- After Party
- Bachelor Party
- Bachelorette Party
Awards and Affiliations
2023 'Best of Weddings'
Best of Weddings
The Knot independently assesses vendors for this award—it’s never self-reported. We base it on firsthand experiences from real couples and guests, and they must have a 4.5-star average across 7+ reviews in the qualifying year.
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Reviews
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5
out of 5.018 reviews
Review photos
Showing slide number 1 out of 9
Karen was the second vendor we hired, right after booking our venue, and choosing her was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding. She is truly exceptional at what she do...
es. Throughout the entire planning process, she was responsive, knowledgeable, organized, and incredibly well-connected in the Tahoe area. Her expertise helped bring our dream wedding to life.
We had a long engagement, and our plans evolved several times along the way. Karen was flexible, patient, and supportive through every change, always making us feel confident that everything was under control. She consistently went above and beyond what we expected from a wedding planner.
One moment that perfectly reflects her dedication happened during our rehearsal at High Camp at Palisades. We quickly realized it was much colder than we had anticipated, and we requested for Karen to secure throw blankets for our guests to enjoy during the ceremony and cocktail hour. She was able to secure the most aesthetic and affordable throw blankets in less than 24 hours and exceeded our expectations.
Karen also provided invaluable design recommendations that elevated our venue and made our wedding feel elegant and cohesive. On the wedding day itself, she was nothing short of incredible. If anything went wrong, we genuinely have no idea because she handled everything seamlessly behind the scenes. She coordinated with all of our vendors, ensured everyone was where they needed to be, made sure every detail was in place, and brought our vision to life exactly as we had imagined.
We cannot recommend Karen highly enough. She is professional, responsive, organized, and an absolute joy to have by your side on one of the most important days of your life. If you're looking for a wedding planner who truly cares about her couples and delivers an exceptional experience, Karen is the one.
Karen's the best! Full of creative solutions; went the extra mile in so many ways; generous with her time, resources and relationships. I really appreciated her personality through...
out the entire planning process (bubbling with positivity, funny, and gracious). She did little things day of the wedding that were sweet surprises and kept everything on time and humming.
Tahoe by Design was amazing to work with! We got married in Tahoe at Valhalla in June of 2023. Karen and her team were phenomenal! We met with Karen multiple times before the first...
day in person and virtually. We also did a venue walk through together. She really to the time to understand what we wanted and made it happen. She has great relationships with many of the local vendors, so she was able to help guide us through the wedding planning process with confidence. We were so happy with all the vendors we used.
Karen and her team were well organized and used a few different systems to help us plan our invite list, seating chart, decor list/set up, vendor communication and day of timeline.
Our day turned out perfect. We had so much fun and our guests really got to enjoy the Tahoe experience. It rained on and off for wedding day and Karen was at the ready with a few different back up options for an indoor ceremony. We ended up having the ceremony outside when it stopped raining but it was stress free knowing we were in good hands. She also took the time to make sure all of the details were set up how we wanted. The decor setup was exactly how we had imagined. She even made sure there was a nice spread of drinks and snacks in the bridal suites while we were getting ready. I couldn't recommend Tahoe by Design more!
We also did our engagement photo shoot on one of their beautiful boats, the Grateful Red. It was such a fun experience for my husband and I. We ended up with amazing one of a kind photos on the boat and on the boat access only beach that we went to in Emerald Bay. We used these for our save the dates and wedding website. It was a great experience!
Karen was thorough and immensely helpful! We initially thought we didn’t need any help but even well the wedding she was there to give us the assurance and guidance to get everythi...
ng set. During the day-of we had nothing to worry about and Karen was there to make the day all the better and stress-free! 10/10 highly recommended! Karen is seasoned and is with you every step of the way!
Karen Steele was a dream to work with! She helped navigate the process of planning a wedding remotely from Texas and was instrumental in creating our vision in Lake Tahoe. She was ...
extremely professional, prompt, and her team was there for us every step of the way on our wedding day. We planned a fusion wedding blending aspects of Indian Cultural weddings into our special day. It was so evident that after our first meeting and hearing our vision, Karen did research and incorporated language, traditions, and even colour schemes into our follow up meetings. She took the time to understand our vision and bring it to life!
One of the most memorable aspects of planning was when Karen took it up on herself to build a structure for our Mandap (ceremonial alter). She even took on a sewing project! The Mandap was GORGEOUS! Their team goes above and beyond to make the day special.
Karen and the whole team from Tahoe by Design took away all the stress of planning a wedding and ensured every single detail of our wedding was perfect. Karen was also SO MUCH fun ...
to work with - she was easy-going and relaxed around us but somehow has everything perfectly organized behind the scenes. For wedding prep, Karen was so generous with her time to ensure we had thoroughly thought through everything. She helped us find a venue for our rehearsal and SO generously provided a ton of decorations for the event from her large inventory of wedding decor and her and the team even set up the decorations for us. It was beautiful and saved us so much time and money! She even provided us with a whole page of information for our wedding website! You can tell that she loves what she does, which makes the planning so much more fun.
On wedding day, Karen and her team were somehow everywhere at once taking care of every little thing that inevitably comes up on the day of. After some of our speeches went long, we were falling behind schedule and Karen immediately let us know and provided a quick solution so we didn't have to spend time thinking through our options. We also had 6 kids in our ceremony and without us even asking, she came with a bag of toys to incentivize them to be well-behaved and in their places for the event. At every turn (whether it was rehearsal decorations, wedding website help, toys for the kids), Karen goes above-and-beyond to help her clients have the weekend of their dreams. She's truly extraordinary.
If you are considering using Tahoe by Design for your wedding planning, you should immediately give her a call. You will be so glad you chose them!
Karen not only helped keep me grounded throughout the wedding process, but made our dream wedding come true. She is thoughtful, detail oriented, and overall amazing. I would recomm...
end her business over and over again.
We had the good fortune to be connected to Karen from 'Tahoe By Design' for our sons Lake Tahoe wedding. The venue we chose was private estate, so there was an incredible amount o...
f work and coordination that was needed. Karen listened, asked great questions, listened some more and then understood exactly what the bride & groom were wanting, had the contacts and connections to make it happen, and all while being positive, calming, and fun! We could never have enjoyed the entire weekend and wedding (and amazing compliments that continue to come!) without Tahoe By Design and Karen.
Karen was an absolute dream to work with. We live in Texas and she made planning a destination wedding in Tahoe easier than I ever dreamed. I interviewed several wedding planners...
and knew from the minute I spoke to her that she was the one! She took care of everything and went above and beyond to help our guests with anything they needed.
She has a great reputation in the industry and all of the vendors love her. Every vendor she recommended exceeded our expectations.
I would highly recommend her for anyone who is looking to get married in the Tahoe area. She has become a life long friend.
Tahoe By Design planned and facilitated our wedding October 2022. Karen and staff are utterly fantastic! Not only do they have strong relationships with just about every wedding ...
amenity provider out there (which made getting photography, floral, and officiating we could trust easy) but they were able to help us pivot our reception to an alternate venue within one month of the event when our first venue fell through by surprise. We had a fantastic wedding!
We did our Tahoe wedding on a fall Monday which worked in our favor: we had Emerald Bay to ourselves so the ceremony and on-site photos didn't have to be rushed; we had the reception venue to ourselves so we could sneak out the back door and take more photos overlooking the lake without lots of extras in the background.
If you are looking to be married in the Tahoe area, you need to call Tahoe By Design. They brought our vision to life and we came home still able to pay the bills!
This is the best event planning company I have ever worked with. Karen Steele is kind, organized, and very knowledgable about the area. She gave suggestions for EVERYTHING! As moth...
er of the bride, I didn't have to do anything. I got to enjoy the wedding and relax. It was a destination wedding, so it was literally a vacation because of Tahoe by Design.
Karen is one of the nicest most thoughtful people I know! Her team created my dream wedding. I would highly recommend Tahoe by design to anyone looking to make their dreams come tr...
ue!
Karen, Kelsey & the rest of the Tahoe by Design team was absolutely amazing to work with. Karen guided us along through a great deal of the wedding planning and small details. Kel...
sey really drove it all home for us. They were so readily available for anything we needed and always made time to make sure we were feeling confident and ready. On the day itself, Kelsey made our day so easy. She handled EVERYTHING. It made our day so seem less and easy. I could not recommend them enough.
Karen was very helpful in the coordination of our vendors and helping organize the setup/clean up. She was easy to communicate with and made sure we had all details covered. She wa...
s on-site for the entire wedding to assist as needed. She even helped locate and return items that were missing after the wedding, and help coordinate late pick up of vendor items. We appreciate her help!
Karen and her team were absolutely wonderful to work with! We were able to put our full trust into them and they made sure to handle everything. We loved working with them and coul...
dn't imagine our wedding day without them. Do not hesitate to hire Tahoe by Design!
Oh my goodness, Karen and Crew !! This Mother-of-the-Bride is now home with my feet up. I am basking in the beautiful images of our daughter, Kate, and her new Husband, Mike's fa...
ntastic and fairy tale wedding. I have to say , absolutely, we could not have pulled off this destination wedding without you. A year in planning has now come to a spectacular end. Your suggestions; contacts; ideas; and decorating were so very much appreciated. You really impressed us with your consistent contacts to keep us in the loop, focused, and calm ! Your attention to detail was outstanding. You thought of everything, every little aspect. We feel so very fortunate, so very, very lucky to have had you lead us through this process. There is a lot more to planning a wedding than we ever imagined. A big thank you from the Jones / Minnuise Wedding.
Karen was wonderful!! We just hired her for the "day of" navigation and she was so helpful, she even helped with an event on the Friday before the wedding-- I could not have done i...
t without her. She really took all the stress off. My brother in law who is a seasoned wedding DJ mentioned that she was one of the few wedding planners he's seen who seemed to really enjoy her job and loves what she does! Would definitely recommend her. She is also a very nice person : )
Hi everyone,
My name is Elizabeth, and I got married in early September 2021. Karen was our wedding planner.
Karen is fantastic at what she does, and super easy to work with. Her ...
ability to roll with the punches is absolutely amazing. My wedding was originally planned for Tahoe, but due to the mega fire, I was not able to have it in Tahoe. Karen helped us quickly move the wedding to Napa. She went above and beyond to help us accomplish this move in just 10 days!
Her compassion and empathy for me as a bride was so wonderful. It was so nice to have a guide and friend throughout the process. She was such an asset and helped me pick everything from flowers, to linens, to menu, to venue, to rehearsal dinner.
Thank you again, Karen. You are fabulous.
Contact
256 Kingsbury Grade, Ste. D, Stateline, NV | CA, NV
