If you want a wedding planner who will actually roll up their sleeves and run the traps on all of the nitty gritty details of your wedding from start to finish, no matter how complicated things get during the planning or on the day of your event, and who will do it with grace and professionalism, you should hire Cathy. If you want to leave all of that up to chance, hire someone else, but I promise you will regret it. My husband and I were in no position to take on the complexity of our vision on a 9 month timeline and Cathy was honest with us at every turn about what it would take to get things done. On the day of my wedding when a forecasted squall threatened the evacuation of our tent, Cathy calmly came to find me during hair and makeup, helped me appreciate the options, and then personally moved heaven and earth to make an alternative cocktail hour plan happen as the storm passed.

Cathy is a hard-working, honest, experienced planner. She knows every vendor in the Hudson Valley. She chases people down and will not rest until there's an answer (e.g. given a very bad peach harvest this year, how will I source 250 peaches to achieve my client's vision?) When you’re writing check after check for your wedding and the thought crosses your mind — “can I even trust this person?” Um, yes, I would trust Cathy with most anything. She is not the wedding planner you see on TV or that your friends lament “didn’t even do anything”. Oh, no. Cathy will keep you on track week by week, organized in GoogleDrive, and even on top of things she’s not contractually responsible for (e.g. have you selected accessories yet? How is honeymoon planning going?), and then, when cocktail hour is going swimmingly and the first rain drops start to fall, she will just APPEAR with an umbrella over your head like she is ACTUALLY MARY POPPINS. She excels at the knowledge work, the hard work (turns out this can be a very physical job!) and is very service-oriented with families and guests.

I was perhaps the happiest I have ever been on my wedding day and I know that having a trusted, experienced planner like Cathy (and her team!) — who genuinely cared about us, our families, and our friends — gave me the freedom to enjoy my day to the maximum. There is no greater gift to give yourself.

Cathy is excellent. We felt a connection with her on our very first call, and we thoroughly enjoyed working with her throughout the entire 15 month-long process. She is organized, methodical, and was our partner and advocate every step of the way. Cathy brings expert knowledge and special thoughtfulness to planning. She knew the best vendors in the Hudson Valley to work with to execute our vision of a lush and vibrant summer wedding with our guests’ experience at the forefront.

She advised us through decisions large and small, listening to our ideas, spending countless hours working through the details with us, making expert recommendations. Cathy built and managed thoughtful, detailed timelines for the planning process and our wedding day. We came to rely on her as our trusted advisor, and felt assured that she cared as much about the finer details as we did. In the end, all our hard work together paid off. We had an absolute blast on our wedding day, and knowing Cathy was in charge played a key role in our enjoyment.

Moments before the ceremony began, Cathy discovered that Christine’s veil had been forgotten, and Cathy took off running to recover it. Another planner might have overlooked a detail like this, but Cathy took notice and immediate action to ensure our wedding went according to plan.

Heavy rain was on the forecast for our wedding day. Cathy diligently monitored the weather conditions during the weeks prior, and ensured our rain plan was in place the week of. The morning of the wedding, the weather appeared to have stabilized enough for us to proceed with our original ceremony plan. Nevertheless, Cathy remained prepared and had golf umbrellas at the ready for us.

We absolutely loved working with Cathy and would hire her again in a heartbeat. Along the way, vendors who had worked with Cathy in the past spoke highly of her work and genuinely seemed relieved (on all our behalves) that we had chosen her as our partner in bringing our dream wedding into reality. So are we!

We recommend Cathy’s planning services highly and without hesitation.

We knew Cathy was the right fit for us as soon as we got off the first call. We needed somebody to bring structure, experience, honesty, and attention to detail for an 7 month planning process. Cathy gave off that first impression and delivered in spades.

To illustrate an example of Cathy's approach that worked well for us: Cathy set up a shared Google Drive, budget, timeline, and biweekly calls, where we only focused on the decisions / discussions that had to happen at that point in time and didn't needlessly worry about the rest. We were in a very busy season at work, and this allowed us to direct the limited mindshare that we had to the right things at the right time.

Furthermore, Cathy has experience working with the best vendors across the Hudson Valley. We trusted her to give us honest advice and a range of options that honoured our preferences and price points - particularly helpful for a couple based in Brooklyn and could not always visit vendors ourselves. She also knows the best sandwiches in town for when we did visit.

Finally, Cathy worked tirelessly behind the scenes during our actual wedding weekend to make it truly more than we could have hoped for, while we got to be carefree and present (seriously, we went jogging through the trails and had bagels the morning of!) She monitored the evolving rain situation all day, with backup plans in place. She translated every detail from our conversations to execution (including pulling off adapted Chinese / British tea ceremony, and making sure we both had change of clothing for the after party in case of rain or sweat). And she coordinated with our vendors and wedding party, so we didn't have to field any questions.

Thank you, Cathy! We strong recommend her planning services.