Santa Ana, CA

Tina + Spencer: 

Easily the best decision we made in preparing for our wedding was utilizing Jackie Santos as our wedding planner. From day one Jackie made it clear that no detail was too small and she was always available to answer any question we had throughout the entire process. One of the great takeaways we had from our experience with Jackie was her thorough understanding of our vision and budget. This was especially critical for us as our wedding included two very different ceremonies (traditional Vietnamese tea ceremony and a traditional Western wedding). Jackie's expertise in both types of ceremonies was immensely helpful in allowing us to have the wedding of our dreams. 

Jackie acted as the perfect liaison between us and our many vendors, especially as we attempted to plan our Southern California wedding from our home in the Bay Area. For every major element (hotel room block, DJ) and small nuance (photobooth, bistro lighting) featured in our big day, Jackie kept our vision at the forefront and was cognizant of our budget when suggesting vendors, all of whom turned out absolutely great! Additionally, Jackie was especially valuable in handling the contract negotiations with our venue, the Bowers Museum (again we just communicated our budget and vision to Jackie and she did the rest). Jackie was also keenly able to separately negotiate several free upgrades with our venue and hotel which we didn't even know were available. There was also a bit of turnover at the Bowers Museum as the venue's event coordinator took a job elsewhere just a couple months ahead of our wedding day. As nervous as we were about transitioning the biggest day of our lives to a new coordinator, Jackie alleviated all of our concerns by getting the new coordinator up to speed quickly on the event. In all honesty, we wouldn't even have known there was a new contact at the venue because Jackie had ensured such a smooth transition!

Our wedding was a full day affair, 12 hours from start to finish with the Vietnamese and Western ceremonies taking place at multiple locations in addition to the reception, and Jackie provided a detailed itinerary for the day's events down to the minute (which was something we didn't know we needed until we realized it as our big day was actually happening!). She was great at corralling our wedding party and guests for the various activities and kept us right on schedule throughout the day. There were so many moving parts during our wedding weekend (rehearsal dinner, Vietnamese tea ceremony, Western wedding ceremony, reception, multiple vendors, multiple locations (not to mention 220 guests) and our entire weekend went off without a hitch and was completely seamless, all thanks to Jackie and her tremendous organizational skills and hospitality. Jackie was instrumental in taking our concept for our multicultural wedding and turning it into the amazing event we'll cherish the rest of our lives. Our big day truly wouldn't have been possible without all her help.