True Colors Event Planners

The Bailors

For their wedding, our couple Angela and Jonathan chose True Colors Events to help organize everything, from the flowers and food to the venue and music. Today, we talk to them about their experience working with Jesse and Travis of True Colors, about planning a Seattle-area wedding, and about planning an event with out-of-town guests.

First, why have a wedding planner? Why not just do the whole thing yourself?

After we got engaged we started searching for the right venue for our wedding. After looking at about ten different venues in the Seattle area, we suddenly realized that we needed to sit down and think about more of the wedding details (i.e. how many guests are we were going to invite, is the tone of the wedding going to be more modern or traditional, do we have a lot of out of town guests that will need hotel accommodations nearby, etc.) so we could narrow down the venues and select the right one.

Once we realized the importance of the venue selection and every other vendor selection, the abundance of choices in the Seattle area, and the fact that we had very little time to devote to these selections since we were both working full time with families living in other states we knew the value that a wedding planner could add to our decision making process.

At any point during the planning process, were you worried about losing control over the creative aspects of the event?

No. Travis and Jesse sat down with us throughout the wedding planning process to discuss our ideas so they could help us create a wedding that was a true reflection of us as a couple. Also, they used their expertise to help us brainstorm ideas and make sure everything went together beautifully.

What made you choose True Colors Events as your wedding event planners?

True Colors Events has an outstanding reputation in the Seattle area so we started our wedding planner search with them. Luckily for us our search ended with them after we met with Travis and Jesse and realized their personalities, knowledge of the wedding industry, and creativity were the perfect fit for us.

What ideas did you have going into the planning process that you knew had to be a part of it? Did you have a concrete idea as to how big the event would be, or a theme that you wanted to follow?

We knew we wanted our wedding to be a memorable event that our family and close friends could look back on. We also both wanted our wedding to be rather intimate gathering full of love and laughter. We didn’t really have any other ideas going into the planning process other than the fact that Angela knew she didn’t want a large puffy princess style wedding gown but more of a close fitting gown and had decided on a few of the colors. She wanted more of a gentler cream color instead of a bright white gown and all of the bridesmaids’ dresses to be in chocolate. Everything else our wedding planners helped us decide.

What was the most useful aspect of having a wedding planner organize your big day?

With Travis and Jesse, it was their ability to know the couple so well that they could narrow down the vendors to those that would be a perfect fit for us. Every time we went to the initial meeting with a vendor we knew we wouldn’t have to look any further because they had already thoughtfully selected them right from the start.

Most of your wedding guests were from out of town. Did that complicate your planning in any way?

Having a large number of out of town guests meant that we needed to get our “save the date” cards out as soon as possible, so our guests could start making travel and work arrangements right away, and we could get a feel for how many guests to expect. We found the guest count was a critical factor with our budget. Also, because the majority of our guests were from out of town, we needed to give a considerable amount of thought to the location of our wedding ceremony and reception, as well as guest hotel accommodations and transportation needs.

In many weddings, the bride takes on the bulk of the responsibility when it comes to planning and executing a wedding. In your case, Jonathan seems really involved in contributing his own ideas. Did you find that you were able to share responsibility for the planning?

Yes, Jonathan was more involved than most grooms in the wedding planning process. We wanted the wedding to reflect us as a couple, which meant we both contributed thoughts and ideas on how to make our wedding day incredibly special and meaningful to us. With every other aspect of our lives we share equally in the responsibility, and our wedding was no exception.

Do you have any general advice for couples getting married in Seattle?

One of the best things we did was hire True Colors Events to help us plan our once-in-a-lifetime wedding. Hiring an excellent wedding planner will help alleviate the stress involved in planning a wedding, and he or she will walk you through all the overwhelming decisions that need to be made. Wedding planners also make everything run seamlessly on your wedding day so that you can be in the moment without having to worry about anything. Having this piece of mind is amazing!

If you can’t hire a wedding planner due to cost constraints then the next best thing would be to make sure you do your research on each of your vendors to figure out which ones are true professionals, deliver incredible service and/or products, know how to overcome obstacles, and are reliable. Please get to know each of your vendors and experience them in action before enlisting them in your special day. It will have a dramatic impact on how your wedding turns out. Later on, you’ll be glad you did.