When I dreamed of planning my wedding I never envisioned having a wedding planner, nor did I ever think I needed one. Boy was I wrong! Having Heather and Kathy as my wedding planners was the best decision we made from the start. They have more resources to pull from than we as brides may have access to. They sat down with us right from the start and took our ideas of what we were looking for and helped us make our dreams into a reality. Without Heather and Kathy we would have not found a hidden gem where we had our reception. They worked with us throughout the entire process from start to finish. They don’t take over and make you feel you’re not in control; they are there to assist with what areas you are looking for help in, could be as little or as much as you need. At first I thought I wouldn’t need that much from them, but found out as the planning continued that I was asking for more than I thought I would. Most brides I assume can’t take off a year from work to plan out a wedding. It takes time to figure out the details and call around for pricing, etc. I didn’t have that time during my day to do all those things. It was so nice to know that as I’m at work my wedding planning is still going on and I would get emails or texts with updates and prices, etc. It’s a great feeling knowing you have people backing you up and looking out for your best interest! The stress that is relieved from you with having Heather and Kathy as your planners is tremendous! The day of my wedding the weather was not on our side, we had power outages and dripping water from the slate of the barn where our reception was being held. I never even knew of the chaos that was happening at the barn until after the reception was over. When we arrived everything was in place ready to go for us and our 200 guests. This would not have been possible without Kathy and Heather. My wedding was one of the best days of my life, as it should be. I didn’t have to worry about any details on my special day; I knew it was all being handled in the care of my wonderful planners. I can’t thank them enough for being a key component to a day I will never forget!! Thank you Heather and Kathy!
Lisa and Tim Ringer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Where can we even begin. When we first starting planning our wedding we thought we could handle it. Hillary is great at putting parties together and organizing things. Ken is all about Hillary getting what she wants ;-) so we thought this would be easy. Well with working and life, things got crazy. Phone calls were always hard to make when you have limited hours and so does the venue. Low and behold who would have known that the neighbor boy who plays with Hillary’s 8 year old daughter would be our life savor. “Hey Hillary do you know my mom and her friend are wedding planners?” From that one statement on, little to any of our knowledge, we got one of the best things ever. Kathy and Heather walked into our lives and gave us a GREAT wedding! Not only that, we also got two great friendships out of the deal. Heather answered Hillary’s question non-stop through text message and IM on the computer, which is the easiest way for Hillary to write out all her thoughts and ideas and craziness. She also made tons of phone calls and was constantly on the look-out for things we needed. Kathy was always just literally a hop, skip, and jump away! She had so many creative ideas that just floored us. A good amount of our vendors were family friends and people just starting their business. They made sure to make them feel at home and got all the info and arrangements made. In addition to all of that, they listened. That is a BIG thing for us. They didn’t say what they want or think, they LISTENED! Some of our ideas in the wedding were new or out there or something they haven’t officially done yet. Like our sand ceremony and the infamous CANDY BUFFET! They took it on and created a beautiful display way more then we could have EVER done. we thought we had a lot done of planning our wedding before these two wonderful ladies came in but we had no idea. Little things like taking RSVP and calling the venue to check on pricing made things so much easier. They knew how much we needed to tip and how to figure out how much Champaign people would drink. Definitely not something we would have known without their help. We had such a smooth and great wedding. If anything went wrong we have no clue about it. The pastor and multiple guest commented on how it was the smoothest wedding they had ever seen with no hitches or anything. We thought something would go wrong… I mean come on it’s a wedding and we don’t think we have EVER seen one go without a hitch but ours did. People almost 3 months after are STILL talking about our wedding. These girls are the way to go. If there is any drama they fix it and they have so many talents up their sleeves it is not even funny. Kathy HAND PAINTED our toasting glasses! Where can you get that?! They created our candy buffet and it was spectacular and everyone loved it. They made the bar at our reception look like something you would see in Cinderella’s castle. They also didn’t cringe up their noses and question the bride when she said her wedding colors she chose were hot pink and hot orange like everyone else did. This is what every bride needs. Someone who understands what you want and then makes it happen without spending your future children’s college funds! Please check out our pictures and contact Kathy and Heather. ALSO: Kathy and Heather can really help you with your budget. You can ask them how we had a whole wedding in WAY less than $10,000, which is barely heard of now a days and we had over 150 guest! Thank you ladies so much for everything! Thank you for allowing us to have the best wedding possible and still be us!Mr. Kenneth J Bauer III and Mrs. Hillary L. Bauer
established 9/15/12
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Grand Illusions Wedding and Event Planner,
I was a bridesmaid at Lisa and Tim Ringer's wedding on September 8, 2012. Heather and Kathy were the wedding planners for their special day and did a great job keeping their cool despite all the issues we had: from the bride frantically trying to get pictures together last minute, to the power going out toward the end of the ceremony, not to mention the reception hall having puddles of water all over the place! You wouldn't have even known we had a huge storm and things were a muck because Heather and Kathy rolled with the punches. Need wedding coordinators who will keep their cool on what often becomes a very stressful day? Heather and Kathy are your gals!~Nicole Ramos
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was such a pleasure getting to work with you ladies! K.J. and Hillary Bauer's wedding turned out so wonderful! Everything went so well! Hopefully I will have a chance to Photograph and work with some of your future Brides and Grooms again! Also if I ever get married I will definitely be contacting you!! Again You did a fantastic job!
~Angel Appel, photographer
Photography by Angel
