Words can’t describe how grateful and fortunate we were to come across Sabrina and have her as our wedding planner/coordinators. My now wife and I had a vision to create a weekend getaway in Hood River for our guests, including ones that had never been to the Pacific Northwest and have multiple events that included a day of Indian wedding festivities (Mhendi and Sangeet), followed up a day of western wedding while still paying homage to Indian culture. Sabrina took on the challenge, coordinated, designed and planned events across the weekend and delivered above and beyond our expectations. Sabrina’s strength is carefully listening on her client’s vision, learning our communication style, problem solving in high stressful environments and bring proactive. Sabrina is easy to get along, very approachable and each time we meet with her made us more excited for the big day. Sabrina was great at getting early inputs from us on the vibe and feel for the weekend and events we envisioned, and brought her own design inputs which uplifted the theme of our wedding to create an incredible experience for us and our guest. Her recommendation for us to host the Indian events at the Society Hotel and have all our guest stay there really simplified logistics and created a fun weekend for us and our guest. She even helped us secure room blocks for accommodating our guest even though the hotel was initially very resistant in doing so. My wife and I, being very literal, needed more visual cues to better understand how different designs would come together. Sabrina understood that and was quick at putting together design boards/decks to simplify brainstorming but then to see the final vision come together was above and beyond what we expected. After our initial meeting, Sabrina had a compressive plan in place, including a budget planner that we followed, allowing us to stay on course. As a groom, I was very much involved in the design process and what I appreciate about Sabrina was balancing inputs from my wife and I who at times had different design aesthetic. Instead of favoring one design input vs another, Sabrina was patient with us, dove into understanding what was important to us and curated design blends that in the end were exceptional and satisfied both my wife and I. Her ability to turn a boring and empty gym at the Society Hotel into an incredible space with Indian wedding aesthetic was incredible to experience and more importantly was significantly better than we would have imagined. Something I really appreciated about Sabrina was having periodic check-ins that were quick and to the point to continue to make progress on items that required our input. She gently nudged us when needed to close on decisions and kept us on budget and found great alternatives when something we wanted would exceed our budget. Instead of given us too many options, she would curate vendor based on our preferences she has learnt and design choices to 2-3 items that helped us avoid being overwhelmed with choices.
Sabrina’s problem-solving skills, coupled with her knowledge about the wedding industry, her designing skills, and network of vendors is an asset. For example, when we weren’t satisfied with the existing lighting at our venue, she was able to put together a plan with one of her vendors even though initially it appeared that adding more lights would be difficult. Similarly, as we struggled to find an Indian caterer, Sabrina worked with the catering team for the non-Indian event to work with us to put together an Indian menu that was impressive. The pool of recommended vendors that J29 has in its portfolio is an important asset. Because of Sabrina’s personal connections to various vendors, it felt that the entire vendor team was in-sync and knew each other’s rhythm. Another strength of Sabrina is how well she is organized to where my wife and I were never aware of all the work happening behind the scenes during the events and everything were smooth and according to the plans Sabrina laid out well in advance of the events. Sabrina and her team managed and coordinated with all the vendors and it and ensured the event went on as planned with all the backup plans in place just in case they were needed without hassle. It was quite impressive to see them all curate each event.
I would highly recommend Sabrina and the J29 team and will looking for more excuse to require their service in the future. Throughout this process my wife and I became great friends with Sabrina and were really grateful to have made the choice to work with her and the J29.

Where to begin. If I could write vows to Sabrina and J29 Events, I would. My husband and I were on the cusp of hiring a different planner, and had even had an ideation/brainstorming session, but I happened to do one last phone call interview because why not. From that first phone call with Sabrina I immediately knew I had found the person and team that I would want with me throughout this process. We were aiming to put together a part-Western, part-Indian multi-day affair. We wanted it to be equal parts glamorous and cozy/laid back. We literally said “the vibe is Old Hollywood meets PNW organic and cozy.” Sabrina reveled in these contrasts and contradictions, and together we assembled an Indian-Western fusion wedding that dazzled every guest.

What was I looking for in the beginning? A team that was organized, reliable, and could help bring my vision to life. Someone who would run interference on my wedding day and help make sure things happened without a hitch. Did I get those things? Absolutely. Sabrina had every detail covered, helped me delegate every task, and had the most comprehensive planning document that she distributed to every vendor. Any person could have made sure things went to plan if she wasn’t able to be there, and I was able to hand that doc to our wedding party and all the little items magically happened (or if they didn’t, I didn’t notice). Vendors didn’t come to me with questions (and the one that did got a friendly but firm “please speak to me instead” from Sabrina). Thanks to her and the incredibly beautiful event that she helped us put together, we were 10000% present on our wedding day. So those are the things that the How-To-Pick-a-Planner articles say you should look for, and we got them in spades.

But man oh man, it’s the things that you don’t realize you need (or you think it might be shooting for the moon to ask for) that had me floored about working with Sabrina and J29.

One was the network. Sabrina and J29 are clearly well known within the event space for doing what they do with zest, gusto, and style. Every vendor we interviewed and worked with had amazing things to say about her, either from experience or from having heard incredible things and being eager to establish a relationship not just with us as customers but with her as a fellow vendor! (At one point I told her she should just go ahead and run for mayor of the greater PDX area). When we could not get response to emails or outreach calls, Sabrina had the connection (or knew a friend who knew someone) that helped us cut through the wedding industry red tape and get things booked. She knows the industry and the players like the back of her hand, and saved us HOURS of research by giving us as many options as we wanted and then helping us narrow down. (After the second time of me saying, ‘No please go ahead and give us your top 5-6 recommendations’ and then doing a bunch of interviews and research and arriving at the top two that she had originally recommended, I stopped asking for so many and started getting the perfect 2-3 vendor choices to make choosing a little easier). The team that we were able to assemble was sheer perfection. The catering was creative and delicious, delivering exactly the vibe and custom mouthwatering menu that we were hoping for. The flowers, after many many check-ins and discussions, were a delight. We were able to get a room block at a hotel that generally doesn’t do them during our wedding date. And the list goes on. All this to say, Sabrina and the J29 team are well-known, well-respected, and can get you connected to the team you need and want while not only saving you time, stress, and headache but actually making the process fun.

That’s the thing that really blew my now-husband and I away though - Sabrina herself. She is honestly Superwoman. Kind. Funny. Endlessly energetic. Did I mention funny? She had a way of speaking and doing that convinced me from the first phone call that “this is the person who will get sh** done” on my behalf. It’s like all the little details that my neurotic, type-A personality might have fretted about — Sabrina had already thought of them, and a solution or two up her sleeve, and was totally unphased. Any time we had doubts that we were being too fussy or particular, she would lovingly remind us that WE were “the pie,” and we deserved every drop of love we wanted to infuse. Every time I spoke to her I felt re-energized and excited for what we were building, even if I’d felt stressed before. She was the perfect salve to my procrastination when I wanted to avoid decisions. I couldn’t not pick up the phone when she called because every conversation was so fun. It wasn’t just Sabrina’s attitude though - she was also committed to making sure that both my personality and my partner’s were well represented and balanced throughout all the tiny details, from napkin color to DJ choice. She would help us talk through different opinions, getting to the heart of what mattered to both of us and offering creative, beautiful compromises that felt greater than the sum of their parts, and which made us both feel like our wedding was truly ours and nobody else’s.

A final thing I’ll mention is cost, but only because I read several reviews in the process of deciding to hire a planner that mentioned it and were very helpful to my decision. I read lots of great reviews about planners in which the reviewer said it was worth every penny - that hiring their planner was the best investment that they made in their wedding. I would triple down on this - hiring Sabrina and the J29 team was not only the best investment in our wedding, and one which I would make again in a heartbeat, but I honestly felt like what we got was so far above and beyond what we expected that we would have paid more. We had no idea the incredible creativity, knowledge, and execution that we were signing up for, and it was worth every penny we paid and then some. If you have the budget and are waffling at all on the topic of hiring a planner, or whether a few thousand dollars is really worth the difference, I am telling you that the ROI on J29 is huge — you will not regret this choice.

I could truly go on and on about Sabrina and the J29 team for hours (and all of my bridesmaids are probably sick of hearing me gush over her), so I’ll simply end with this: I could never imagine having thrown the amazing celebration that we did without Sabrina, and she really is the ride-or-die planner friend that people ache for. Our wedding was an actual dream come true and I firmly believe it would never have been as spectacular without her heart and know-how. She is our dear friend, she is our family. She has our hearts forever.

To those doing their research on wedding coordinators and to those on the fence…J29 has our HIGHEST recommendation.

We got married on September 17th and I honestly don’t know what we would have done without Shauna and the J29 team. We hired them for full-service planning – which they describe as the ‘hand holding’ package on their website – and that’s exactly what it feels like. Planning a wedding can be incredibly stressful, but J29 took the stress out of the equation and actually made the entire process fun! We looked forward to every meeting and always left feeling accomplished and even more excited to see the vision Shauna was putting to life. We didn’t have to worry about making sure we had our bases covered because we quickly realized just how on their game J29 events is. And that’s saying something, because we are both type-A and very meticulous.

Throughout the planning process, Shauna was able to capture the vision of our ‘perfect wedding day’ through constant ad-hoc communication as well as in-depth scheduled meetings. She was responsive and addressed all of our calls, emails, and texts and after a few weeks, it felt like working with a close friend. She never once gave off a ‘close enough’ mentality; her high drive and attention to detail is palpable.

It doesn’t just take someone with the characteristics of a good planner to make a good planner. J29 is well connected in the industry – and they clearly only network with the best of the best. Every single referral that they gave us was tailored to our taste and highly talented at their own craft. We watched as J29 events curated a dream-team of vendors who made our wedding day look like something out of a dream.

As we got closer and closer to the wedding, the value of hiring J29 became more and more evident. And when the big day finally came, J29 events set themselves apart as the highest value-add to our wedding. Shauna & Sabrina were absolute machines. Their ability to coordinate 30 or so individuals from various vendor teams, overseeing & handling 200+ wedding guests and ensuring that we were sticking to our day-of timeline was so impressive.

As stressful as that job may sound, neither one of them wore it on their sleeves; every time they came into the bridal suites, they had smiles on their faces and made sure that there was a stress-free vibe in the room. What has been even more impressive is that they handled issues without us even knowing about them! We had only heard of the few tiny hiccups after our wedding. We left our wedding and in a paid-for car service. We came back the next day, and the planning team had taken our keys and packed up our car of all personal belongings that we left behind.

In hindsight, it is easy to look at the various things that we chose to do and not to do and decide if those things were worth it or not. Undoubtedly, hiring J29 Events was the single BEST decision we made in the wedding planning process. We give them our highest recommendation and have nothing but positive things to say about the team and the amount of work they put in for us. Anyone who hires them will surely be in good hands.

Thank you SO much to Shauna, Sabrina, and the entire J29 Events team! You made our wedding the best day of our lives and we are so grateful. We’ve gained friends for life and will forever recommend J29 to any and all couples!