Dream It Events

It has been awhile since my wedding day (Nov. 1, 2008) and my husband has actually already posted a review as I was over everything wedding by the time review writing came into play (see Tony T. below). All that being said, I was a bridesmaid in a wedding this past weekend and witnessed what my experience could have been had I not had an utterly amazing day of coordinator in Melissa.

While nothing went "wrong" during the wedding or reception, the day of coordinators that my friend hired were utterly useless and no one understood what their purpose was because they were unmotivated to help, more concerned with socializing with their "assistants" and the makeup and hair people, and failed to take the lead on anything from the smallest responsibility to the larger directives.

This stood in stark contrast to my experience with Dream It Events and Melissa. I could not have asked for a more dynamic person to fix the zillion things that could have gone wrong on our day since we went from an outdoor wedding/reception to a completely one room affair with the entire room being flipped during cocktail hour. She ran with all of my ideas and never complained when I showed up with box after box of decor to be put out on the wedding day.

She worked closely with our wedding vendors to make sure everyone understood the timeline of the day and the changes needed due to the torrential rain. Every time I think of what my day could have been like I am beyond thankful that I had Melissa there to keep me from becoming a basket case. I cannot thank you enough for all that you stepped up and took care of, my day was truly magical and would not have been otherwise.

While you were only there to take care of the day of, the week before I felt like I had hired a full wedding coordinator since you were everywhere and doing everything. Thank you!

I just had my wedding yesterday at Thomas Fogarty Winery and hired Melissa Franco from Dream It Events for full planning. I was planning to wait until after my honeymoon to write a review but decided I just couldn't wait to let everyone know the absolutely fabulous job Melissa did on making my wedding flawless. Melissa did everything, all the nitty gritty detailed "un fun" stuff that goes with a wedding while I got to do the fun stuff (picking out the dress, cake tasting, etc).

She created my timeline, was on top of my budget, went to all vendor meetings with me, researched to find the best budget-friendly options for wedding-related items, and more. To write everything that Melissa did would be too much. Yesterday on my actual wedding day, it happened to be extremely hot and when I arrived at the venue, Melissa greeted me with smiles and good cheers.

She had been there for at least 3 hours already setting up my arch, greeting the vendors, buying ice cream from Safeway at 7:30am so I could have ice cream with the cake.my sister, who was also a bridesmaid, took me aside and specifically mentioned that she thought Melissa was great and that her good humor was making the rest of the bridesmaid feel at ease.

Above everything, if there was anything that went wrong yesterday, I had and still have no clue because from a bride's point of view, everything went flawlessly. I couldn't have asked for a better coordinator. Melissa stayed through the end, even though my husband (wow, that sounds weird to say) and I stayed later than all the guests to take post-wedding pictures with our photographer, Sam Hassas.

I do have to say this - I think Melissa and Dream It Events is extremely underpriced for the incredible service they provide. I recommend taking advantage of this fact now before they catch on!

I wasn't planning on writing this but felt compelled to do so because I am tired of how Melissa and Kasey have conducted themselves after our wedding, specifically, with these Yelp reviews. Making up reviews is not only unethical, but it completely defeats the purpose of a peer reviewed, unbiased website. Quite frankly, this company makes up their own 5-star reviews. Don't believe me?

See the below, which I've cut-and-pasted in case Yelp removes it as I've flagged it. It's supposedly from a former friend. Now why in God's name would a former friend who attended our wedding go out of his or her way to defend these people who they didn't even know, and not only that, create a new Yelp account, under a name that we have never seen before (there was no JOYCE on our guest list) is beyond me.

These event coordinators were unprofessional and were both drinking alcohol at the reception. That is a fact and not a subjective statement. We have video to confirm it. We did not hire them to drink and make merry with the guests. We hired them for a professional service, which was to coordinate and watch over the wedding. That is something you cannot be trusted to do under the influence. Thankfully, our caterer, Thomas John Events, immediately recognized the clusterf*ck that was about to unfold and took the initiative to take control and saved our wedding.

Dream It Events, if you wanted five stars, my wife Sara O gave them out to SEVEN of our wedding vendors (and two 4-stars). You were the ONLY vendor to receive less than 4 stars, largely due to your lack of professionalism, which clearly, continues to live on SIX MONTHS AFTER OUR WEDDING. Here is the "review" from "JOYCE S." ___________________________________________ I was at Sara O. wedding, since we no longer are friends; I just had to set the record straight.

Dream It Events is a 5 star business. There is no doubt in my mind. They worked very hard at my ex friends wedding and all the bride did was bitch and complain. They went above and beyond what I would expect of a "day of" wedding. There were problems, to say the least. But none were the result of bad planning or organization. It was not Dream It Events fault.

The problems happened because of a few things, first it was in a very public park and because someone who was not at the wedding got hurt. Which required a fire department etc. The bride, in her selfish glory blamed everything on Dream It Events.which is down right silly. So.long story short, please do consider this incredibly talented group of people to plan your wedding. ___________________________________________

I never had the chance to meet with Melissa or Kasey, as I was the groom, thus making me utterly useless until the wedding day. But my wife had nothing but great experiences corresponding with them until it was time. We had planned for an outdoor event, and unfortunately it decided to rain that day. My wife was extremely stressed, but Melissa really stepped up, rearranging setups and timelines, calling vendors to make adjustments, the whole nine yards.

She even managed to call our florist, and have some manzanetta trees brought in to take a drab, ordinary room and turn it into something very special. The night went off without a hitch, and you would of never of guessed that this was a plan B. My hat goes off to Melissa and her assistant, Kim. You guys went above and beyond and really made our day special.

I hired Dream It Events for Day Of Wedding Coordination. I went back and forth on hiring an outside coordinator since my venue kept telling me that was included with our package, but I am so glad I did! My venue coordinator got really snippy with me at the rehearsal in front of our bridal party and I had no desire to deal with her on my Wedding Day.

I had a Candy Buffet, a Photobooth and tons of DIY details that I did not want family/friends to have to be setting up that day. Melissa & Kasey came up to my hotel room that day-took all my huge tubs filled with menu's, program's, petal cones and all my little projects and they set up everything exactly as I pictured it. The morning of the wedding they also stopped at a party store to get me Photobooth Props because it was just one thing that I couldn't get to the last week of the wedding.

They also suggested asking my venue if I could bring raspberries for the champagne and a guest actually commented on how festive it was and asked who had the great idea? My dress was constantly stepped on all night long on the dance floor-they pinned it numerous times and after dancing till midnight, I woke up in the morning with a start-thinking of all the things I was supossed to get back from the reception room to return to the florist-I walked into our living room@the hotel and of course, there was everything neatly packed for me by Melissa & Kasey. I would hire them again in a heartbeat!

With the size and scope of my wedding, I knew I wanted to hire a day-of-coordinator. Our wedding had two separate locations for the ceremony and reception with a big chunk of time in between where I would be at a tea ceremony at the groom's house and not available to get the ceremony site cleaned up and the reception site set-up. Our ceremony had approximately 190 guests and approximately 270 guests for the reception. Melissa and Kasey were the fourth DOCs we met with.

Immediately after we met them, my (now) husband and I sat in the car shocked and amazed that we could hire coordinators as personable and organized as them for such a reasonable price. and there were two of them! We hired them as soon as we could get to a computer to print out the contract. Our pre-wedding meeting was also extremely organized. Both my husband and I are engineers so we are pretty thorough, but Melissa and Kasey found areas that we forgot about.

They had a checklist to go through so nothing would be forgotten on the day of the wedding. They helped us go through our timeline to make sure we added some time where the married couple could rest and eat so we could be energized for our guests. I had been extremely stressed before we had met, but after our meeting I felt soooo much more relieved knowing I had them in my corner.

For our rehearsal and wedding day, Kasey could not attend due to health reasons and doctor's orders (and they let me know as soon as they could) but Melissa was ready with an intern to help out. The rehearsal went great. Melissa had suggested giving her as much of my decorations as I could on the day of the rehearsal so I would not have to worry about trying to get it to her on the day of the wedding.

Great suggestion! The day of the wedding went beautifully. Melissa made sure everything was set-up and kept us on track. There were times where we slipped a bit on schedule and she laid it out how we could get back on track. She was my go-between and handled any hiccups that arose that I didn't know about. They stuck around until everything was packed up in all the cars ready to go. (11 AM to 10:30 PM) They took care of a lot of the little things that need to be done for weddings so that I could be free to talk and visit with guests. Melissa and her intern Maria were fantastic for my wedding and they were short one person. Imagine how fabulous they could be for your wedding with two healthy coordinators! I cannot recommend Dream It Events any higher.

I just read the bad review of Dream It Events below. I'm very surprised. We really had a wonderful experience with Melissa and Kasey. I'm a doctor and my husband is a software exec, we are both pretty obsessive-compulsive and hands-on about things, but really thought they did a great job. We got to know them pretty well, they are both cool, smart, and organized.

Some notes: -We met with them 3-4 times at the beginning of the planning process, 6 months before the wedding, to review the overall plan and a detailed budget. They were very responsive to my frequent emails and requests. -They did an amazing job of sourcing random things for us: We wanted a jar of jam with a custom label to send out to our guests as invitations. Melissa found a friend of her dad's who cans apricot jam every year and convinced her to can 100 jars of jam for us basically for free.

A few weeks before the wedding, I went to the nursery with Kasey to pick out the plants that we would have on the tables at the reception. I chose among flowers within our budget, but at the end of the day, we got a 25% discount because Kasey's mom is a "frequent flier" at the nursery and she had a coupon that we were able to use. Kasey took the flowers home and repotted them herself into metal buckets that we wanted to use as planters.

Her husband even drilled holes into the 60 buckets so that we could water the plants and they wouldn't overflow. We wanted a photojournalistic style for our photos; Kasey recommended her friend (and photographer at her wedding) to meet us. He gave us a GREAT deal and the pictures turned out great. At the last minute, we decided we wanted parasols for all of the guests, and Melissa found the cheapest (and prettiest) ones online 2 weeks before the wedding. -They did a great job on the day of: We played a game at the wedding that required putting labels on each of the parasols. Melissa came to our house on the morning of the wedding to pick up the labels and attached them to the parasols herself.

She also dropped off the flowers that I wanted to put in my hair. During the wedding, Melissa and Kasey had to "manage" the team of servers that we had hired. We got great feedback from the guests on the servers. -They did a great job following up: After the wedding, we were supposed to get a refund from one of our vendors because they hadn't brought enough lemonade for all of our guests.

The check they sent bounced, so I emailed Melissa, and she dealt with them until I got a new check issued. This was a month after the wedding! Overall, I think we had a really "hard" wedding because it was all done at a public park--no electricity, no caterer, nothing set up except for a few picnic tables. In the end, Melissa and Kasey converted the park into an amazing outdoor celebration with linens and flowers, a dance floor, large umbrellas for shade, a swing band, amazing food and drinks, and a serving staff of 8. It really felt like it was out of a movie--all of our guests told us it was the outdoor wedding that everyone wants (but never gets). We got it.

I hired Melissa and Kasey for only the day of the wedding. I basically wanted them to do the little tasks that the mother of the bride or the maid of honor usually end up doing- running around, putting out fires. They did just that- they helped set up the reception, then Melissa was at the ceremony site helping us with the little tasks that tend to come up before the ceremony starts.

I really appreciated how they made sure I had water throughout the reception, appetizers, dinner, and cake. They also made sure our parents had plenty of water all night. My mom has expressed how much she appreciated Melissa's help, so that's good enough for me. The only problem I have in hindsight was that I was surprised that for a 4pm wedding, they didn't arrive until 1pm.

Our day started at 8:30am with hair/makeup, etc, so there was plenty that they could have helped with earlier than 1pm. But I found out too late that they were arriving then, so I didn't bother asking them to come earlier. To me, "day of" should mean the whole day. Aside from that, I have no complaints.

I made a commitment to myself on the day of my wedding: I wasn't going to let anything upset me, no matter what went wrong. I definitely succeeded in that. Our guests told me that I was one of the happiest brides they'd ever seen, and that the smile never left my face. I wasn't under any delusions, though. I knew the things that were going wrong, and I chose to ignore them on the day of the wedding.

The day AFTER the wedding, though, I definitely had a good cry about it. I really, really wish things had been done differently. Melissa and Kasey did not do the job we hired them to do, from beginning to end. We hired them for DOC services for $750, and they were not worth it at all. --prior to the wedding, they didn't do what they said they would.

Despite my asking multiple times, they didn't help me with my timeline (my catering manager ended up doing it). They also said they would confirm with my vendors two weeks before my wedding, and they didn't even start until less than a week before the wedding. As a result, we ended up with a string duo instead of a string trio. --I didn't feel that Melissa and Kasey knew much about my wedding.

I didn't feel like they were making an effort to understand what I had planned in order to execute it. The day of the wedding, simple things went wrong because they didn't know fundamental parts of how the day was supposed to work. --the setup of our ceremony (the only thing they were responsible for setting up) looked terrible. Melissa and Kasey asked me to give them exact dimensions for how wide the aisle should be, etc.

I did (even though I thought it was simple), but it looked nothing like we'd discussed. --We hired four trolleys to transport our guests to and from the ceremony site. Before the ceremony, Kasey asked my husband to be responsible for loading the guests on the trolleys while she went to the ceremony site to help Melissa and their intern. My husband, with no wedding/transportation experience whatsoever, did this flawlessly. --After the ceremony, however, Melissa and Kasey crammed half the guests on the first trolley, and the rest of the guests were waiting for 45 minutes for the next one to come.

The remaining trolleys had 6-15 guests each on them. My husband and I missed out on a part of the wedding that we were really looking forward to because our trolley was so late. Rather than having the wedding party on our trolley, we were with guests we barely knew because they were so disorganized. --They had no idea what time our reception started in order to tell the trolley drivers what time to be back at the reception site--one of our guests had to tell Melissa and the driver.

I couldn't believe it--that is a pretty necessary detail to know. --Melissa constantly told me all of the problems with the wedding. If there was an issue, I felt like she was very dramatic about it and got people worked up, and then told me about it. I hired a DOC so that I wouldn't have to know about or deal with the little things that went wrong. -- During the reception, Melissa checked in every half an hour to let me know how many minutes were left before the wedding was over (which made it very hard to enjoy).

The rest of the time, though, Melissa and Kasey were both socializing with the drunken members of our bridal party on the patio. I had to track them down if I needed anything. --Rather than keeping an eye on potential problems (drunken people throwing cupcakes? Someone trying to steal our cardbox? My parents having to deal with an unruly guest of a guest? Yeah, those crises were NOT averted), they were hanging out as if they were guests. --They DRINKING ALCOHOL at our wedding. BOTH of them had alcoholic beverages AT OUR WEDDING.

So unprofessional. They didn't ask permission for this--not that asking would have made it more acceptable. This is their JOB, even if it's not in an office. They were not guests at our wedding and should not have acted as if they were. I would not recommend Dream It Events to anyone. To me, most of the things that went wrong were a matter of using problem-solving skills, common sense and being super organized.

These are qualities that are absolutely necessary in a wedding planner or a DOC, and I didn't feel that Dream It was up to par. ETA: I decided to update this review because I am frustrated with the personal attacks by the other reviewers on this page. I know that a lot of you are friends with Melissa and Kasey--but that doesn't make me a "bridezilla." I had a bad experience with one of my vendors, and I am sharing that experience with this community.

Please respect that I am a REAL person, and that I spent a lot of time planning my wedding and a lot of money on that single day, which Melissa and Kasey messed up. That does not make me a bridezilla, Joe C. I reviewed all of my other vendors, and they all (over 10 vendors) received 4 or 5 stars. I'm clearly not that picky.

I don't even know where to begin with this review. What Melissa Franco and her team did for our wedding is something money cannot buy. She was thoughtful and caring and treated me, my husband, and all our family and friends with such kindness. She has a wonderful personality and diffused every stressful situation by making everyone laugh and by coming up with excellent quick fix solutions. Melissa is an amazing problem solver and she is just the person you want to take care of you and those you hold most dear on your big day.

I hired Melissa as my Day of Coordinator, but she did so many things that fall far outside that job description. Our venue called less than two weeks before the wedding to say that the city had begun construction near our ceremony location. I called Melissa in a panic and she straightened everything out - there were no remnants of the construction visible on my wedding day.

Then there was the rehearsal, for which we were almost an hour late. Melissa stayed a full extra hour and never complained or rushed us through it. She made sure everything was right and that everyone was comfortable with their role before we were done. We had a lot of printing trouble, and so by the day before the wedding we still had not assembled the programs, place cards, favors, and many other crucial details. Melissa stepped in and went to the fabric store to get the exact ribbon I wanted for the programs, then assembled them all herself.

She assembled our favors and cleaned up the mess the printers had left with our place cards. She even found a way to fit in 4 last minute guests and she picked up 150 sparklers for our farewell at the end of the night. I felt so guilty throwing all these extra tasks at her the day before the wedding, but she never complained and executed everything perfectly.

On the wedding day I was so thrilled to see that all the decorations and projects I worked so hard to plan were all perfectly executed by Melissa and her team. She brought along two interns and they all wore those wireless headsets so they could communicate easily by cell phone. Melissa was a superhero that day. I wasn't there for all the setup, but my in-laws were and they were amazed at how she was always in 10 places at once and was always one step ahead of the other vendors, helping them set up.

During the wedding, Melissa consistently made sure that my husband and I were happy. She handed me a glass of the special sangria we asked for and if she hadn't, there's no way I would've been able to taste it. She helped me with my dress change for the reception and made sure my husband and I had lots of cake in our getaway car to enjoy later. Hiring Melissa was the best decision we made for our wedding. She made our day so special and memorable and we will always be grateful to her for that!

We hired Dream It to plan our wedding and run the show "day of" (the complete package). We wanted our wedding to feel like a family reunion/picnic/party. They got our vision immediately, and never tried to shoe-horn us into the wedding template. Even though we're control freaks, we felt comfortable leaving a lot of decisions up to them. Kasey and Melissa did an amazing amount of high quality work.

For example, they sourced our unconventional invitations through friends of their parents, who did an amazing job. The cost to us was a contribution to the local public library (!). There were a number examples like this where they went above and beyond. Their budget estimates were amazingly accurate. We tried to run a lean operation, and they were completely on top of that. Finally, they were just a pleasure to work with. Kasey and Melissa get an A+, and we're not ones for grade inflation. Next time we have an event, we will certainly use them again.

I was so lucky to find Melissa Franco and Kasey Ross! While I had coordination for the ceremony at the church, we weren't allowed to set up the reception until 2pm (when I was walking down the aisle). I met with Kasey and Melissa a few weeks before my wedding and described my vision. They picked it up right away and helped me think through some of the details.

I sent them diagrams of the reception venue and how I wanted things laid out and got everything delivered to the hotel and then went to my wedding. When we arrived at the reception, it was like walking into my dream. Everything was PRECISELY as I had envisioned! (Later I learned that the hotel staff had started to set things up before they got there and had gotten things wrong and Kasey and Melissa had to undo their work.there was also drama about a limit on the number of votives and they had to negotiate with the hotel to put out more candles than the hotel wanted.) During the receiving line, someone told me they had a large heavy package for us in their car.

I told them to talk to Melissa and Kasey.they moved the package to our car. During the reception they also moved all the other wedding gifts into our car. When my MOH stepped on my train and broke one of my bustle loops, Kasey and Melissa fixed it while I chatted with guests. At the end of the night, they packed everything up that needed to be brought home and transported it all to my car.

They even took the risers from my cake back to the baker! I didn't have to worry about a thing, everything was just done! I dreamt up my wedding, but Dream It Events made it a reality!