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April 2017 by Chelsea M.
Donna coordinated our wedding in May 2015. She was absolutely INCREDIBLE. I truly cannot say enough things about her and cannot recommend her more highly. She was on top of everything, anticipated issues, and gave way more help than it felt like we paid for. She was always there for us, and on our wedding day, I was completely relaxed knowing she would be sure everything was perfect-- and it was. I interviewed a lot of planners and asked around before meeting with Donna. After our first meeting, my husband and I knew she was absolutely perfect, and we never once felt differently. We did a lot of unique things, and Donna was always on board, happy to help trouble shoot our creative ideas, and always supportive. She worked hard to understand our vision and support everything we came up with. Not only did she support us, but she was always excited by our plans and enthusiastic about the way things would come out. When we needed to think about some aspect we'd miss, she'd bring it up in a way that helped us to see all the ins and outs of wedding planning. She is so organized and on top of everything, it made things easy. Wedding planning with Donna was a true joy! Stop looking and hire Donna, seriously, she's just amazing.
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January 2017 by Alana G.
This review is long overdue. My husband and I got married in Santa Barbara last year at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. We loved the venue and we were able to customize the event however we pleased (aka we had to bring everything in). In no way could we have made this happen without Donna. Even my father who tends to be highly critical of most services was blown away. Donna perfectly captured our vision and made the wedding run incredibly seamlessly. Since we had to bring in all vendors, we relied solely on Donna's recommendations. Every vendor was wonderful to work with and we didn't run into any issues. Donna even added beautiful personal touches - she hand-painted tiles to use as a reference for the seating chart. If we hadn't had Donna, my wedding would have been a stressful event vs a beautiful memory with absolutely zero worries. Lastly, people tell me to this day how my wedding was probably one of the best they ever attended- my stepbrother even told my mom he enjoyed it more than his own wedding :). Take-away, if you are looking for a wedding planner, look no further. You couldn't be in better hands than with Donna!
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January 2017 by Kayla H.
The moment my husband proposed my first wedding planning move was hiring Donna and it was the best move we made! She kept us on track from the very beginning (mind you, we were engaged for well over a year and planned slowly that entire time!) and she attended every meeting in SB that we had planned as well as gave us amazing advice regarding vendors, timeline and color schemes. Most importantly she referred us to the company that supplied our band, which completely MADE the party! She consistently provided amazing and helpful advice, always responded quickly to our emails, and kept us calm when things got crazy. On the day of, as soon as Donna walked in the room, I felt completely relaxed - she had it all under control. Knowing that she knew exactly what I wanted, I was at ease completely, which allowed me and my wedding party to just enjoy the day (moms included!) She made sure that my entire wedding party (including a large group of rowdy ex-frat boys) were looking sharp, boutonnieres on, and were on time to the wedding. If anything did go wrong that day, I had not a single clue about it - just blissful. Everything operated just the way I dreamed of and Donna and her assistant made it all happen! I could not thank her more for all the hard work and love she put into making our wedding an absolute dream while still being on a low budget. The perfect wedding planner for any SB wedding!
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January 2017 by C H.
Donna really was a dream to work with. She paid attention to details, worked closely with our vendors, and responded to us in a timely fashion. She brought our vision for the design of our wedding to life and maintained a calm, pleasant demeanor throughout our big day. She worked independently with our vendors to confirm everything and made it easy for us to just show up on the wedding day. She managed the timeline well, was willing to meet with us onsite at the venue when we needed her to, and helped us deal with challenges that came up along the way with our venue. She was incredibly responsive and never made us feel silly for reaching out with questions. Thank you so much for the gorgeous, smooth, and amazing wedding day, Donna!
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June 2016 by Lisa R.
I was a bridesmaid where the bride and groom used Donna Romani Events. I had a front row seat to many of Donna's slip ups as well as the frustration and stress she added to the bride and groom's big day. I was witness to or directly involved with Donna's sloppy and unreliable work and disingenuousness personality a number of times. Below are just two simple examples to give you a taste of what I experienced. Being a bride to be and a bridesmaid numerous times, I know the drill. When I would ask her what I consider to be a very general bit of information, she would always have to get back to us with an answer (which rarely happened). Great example of this was when I asked her about the details for the enterance and where the wedding party was to be during the first dance. This is a very small and simple part of the day, and seemed as though it was something she hadn't thought through two minutes prior to it happening. The wedding festivities started at 6 a.m.with us getting ready at the house. When we saw her while waiting for the 10 a.m. ceremony to begin she asked everyone how they were doing. We said we were ok, but could really use a coffee or even just some water. None of us had a chance to have anything to eat or drink yet, and were going to be heading outdoors for the ceremony soon. She basically told us sorry and walked away. Don't ask us how we are doing if you don't want to actually help.
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April 2016 by Holly H.
Not only did Donna plan for us the absolute wedding of our dreams, she was truly a joy to work with and a great friend the whole way through! Donna's extremely organized, professional, and also a great communicator - very responsive, receptive and patient through our many questions, calls and emails! What could have been a stressful process was easy and FUN and now filled with such wonderful memories I'll cherish always.... Can we plan the wedding again, Donna??!
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August 2015 by Jude C.
I own Top Shelf Event Staffing and Beverage Services of Santa Barbara. It was our pleasure to work Donna over the weekend. We work with a lot of wedding planners and Donna was professional, organized and quite talented. Donna I can not thank you enough, for helping to create such an amazing evening for the bride and groom. We look forward to working any event you are coordinating in the future.
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November 2014 by C M.
We got married at Elings Park in Santa Barbara at the end of September. Booking Donna as our planner was one of the first things we did, and initially we were both very excited to work with her. We signed up with Donna for basic wedding coordination. In the beginning, Donna was very helpful with finding vendors, and was pretty responsive to our questions. I was totally comfortable with booking vendors, and was looking forward to Donna taking over as we got closer to the wedding. Unfortunately, as we got closer to the wedding, I became less confident with Donna's abilities. She was half an hour late to our walk through with our caterer, even though we had confirmed the time with her three days before. In the six weeks before the wedding, I did not feel that Donna was being responsive to our emails and questions, and she was a little defensive when I tried to address these issues with her. I don't need someone to respond to an email within an hour, but a response within one to two business days is reasonable, and I often found that it took Donna one week to respond to my emails. She did not send along our complete list of our music preferences to our DJ, so it's a good thing that our DJ told us about that before the wedding day. I was also surprised to be contacted by three of my vendors with last minute questions 48 hours before the wedding, because I was under the impression that Donna would be in charge of talking to vendors during that time. The rehearsal did not go as smoothly as I would have liked. I feel that it could have been a more positive and personal experience if Donna had asked us how we wanted the ceremony to go before we got to the rehearsal. Instead, we were working out some of the details during the rehearsal. Even the people in my bridal party noticed that Donna was not really listening to what we wanted during the rehearsal. I know that Donna was busy working during the actual wedding, which we really appreciated. However, she did not catch a pretty big issue with our caterer (the toppings for our tacos did not get put out), and there were a few issues with coordinating the busses back to the hotel at the end of the night. I think that we were just expecting her to be more helpful in the 6 weeks leading up to the wedding, and were disappointed when she did not do that. She is more of a day-of planner than a "day-of plus 8 weeks" wedding planner.
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July 2013 by Tamara B.
Hands down, one of the best decisions I made in planning my wedding this past year was to hire Donna Romani. I'm sure like most people, I found the wedding planning process to be incredibly stressful, and Donna helped to reassure me every step of the way that we were on the right track. Donna is incredibly professional and was prompt in all of her replies to my emails. She also clearly knows the Santa Barbara/Santa Ynez wedding scene very well, as every recommendation she gave me for various vendors (DJ, Cake, etc.) was spot-on. I also really appreciated receiving a weekly checklist for the 8 weeks leading up to the wedding, as it helped to make sure I didn't drop the ball on any of the millions of to-dos that occurred during those busy weeks. Lastly, during the actual wedding weekend, Donna was great at helping to corral/organize my family and wedding party during the rehearsal and actual wedding. She brought a team of 3 people with her, so there was oversight on all aspects of the set-up and break-down of the venue. Once again, I cannot recommend Donna and her team enough. She really made me feel like I had the "dream team" of professionals supporting me on my big day.
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May 2013 by Katie C.
If you're getting married in Santa Barbara, please hire Donna! I originally wasn't planning on hiring a planner (I can do it myself, right?!), but am so so glad that I did. It took so much stress off my shoulders to know that every detail was taken care of, that every crisis was being handled, and I could just enjoy. Apparently the church opened late, the flowers couldn't be dropped off, and who knows what else, but I didn't know about any of that until the next day because Donna swooped in to save the day. Everyone had great things to say about how smoothly everything went and I know that was thanks to Donna!
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January 2013 by Michele M.
As pretty organized party planners, our wedding was on 8/25/12, the venue we chose required that we obtain a day of wedding coordinator which in hindsight was and is an excellent condition that we still to this day not take for granted. We had the great opportunity of working with Donna Romani of Donna Romani events. While one is aware of the basic agenda that goes along with a wedding, you just don't realize how much is involved behind the scenes and how the preparation and timing of it all works. Not just this, but the day, at least for me, happened to be pretty overwhelming, with all our family and friends there and the emotions that go along with it .... It was so comforting seeing Donna, just as I wondered where I needed to go next, she was there guiding me and us. Having her expertise and support was priceless. She tracked everything with the Four Seasons and made sure the pictures, the kitchen, orchestra/band stayed on point working even with the revised timeline as I had family members who alleged to not remember what time the wedding started. She and her team were magnificent and went above and beyond for us! Donna was wonderful in working with me to insert a surprise into the agenda that I did not want anyone including the MIL who took full charge of this wedding to see. While the surprise ended up not happening, Donna was timely with coming to get me to see if I wanted to proceed or not. In fact she was on point with everything. She was so supportive with this the entire time and I sincerely appreciate her support. If you are planning a wedding or special event, I highly recommend Donna Romani who was an absolute pleasure to work with.
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October 2012 by P J.
Planning a wedding reception in Godric Grove, Elings Park from out of town was helped immensely by finding Donna. It is a site where you need to bring everything in, and figuring that out from afar isnt the easiest task. Donna was a fabulous resource! She made great recommendations based on style and budget, and was calm and supportive throughout the entire process. She helped imagine and plan a glorious afternoon, enhanced by terrific vendors, perfect weather, and by having her to run interference with the little glitches which inevitably occur. (Or a rather big glitch in our case!) Our family cannot thank her enough for her steady presence and fantastic guidance, and we highly recommend her to anyone planning an event of any type in Santa Barbara!
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September 2012 by Ashley B.
My wedding was fairly complicated. We had 2 ceremonies, 2 locations, a large number of vendors, a ton of out of town guests, and a very long day. Donna was an absolute life saver from beginning to end. Not only is she very connected with all the best wedding vendors (who all adore her too btw), she is also organized, trustworthy, calm, and gets the job done. I'm pretty sure it was the best money I spent on my entire wedding. No one in my family (including me) had to worry or work at all that day and because of that, everyone could enjoy themselves and just have a good time. You will not regret hiring Donna and her team!
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July 2012 by Kevin C.
I'll keep this one simple... My Wife and I continue to say how lucky we were that everything went so perfectly on our wedding day. But it wasn't luck. It was Donna. Thank you so much Donna!! (Married 3/24/12 at Rockwood Womens Center)
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September 2011 by Michelle C.
I couldn't have been more pleased to have Donna as my wedding planner. The event was truly magical! Since we held it on a private estate (which means lots of different vendors), it simply wouldn't have come together without her organization and guidance. As soon as we met with Donna, I knew she had the positive and calming energy that I wanted next to me on our wedding day. She strikes the right balance of seeming easy going and relaxed, while simultaneously staying on top of the schedule and details. Donna is clear about what to expect from her (and as it gets closer, she sends weekly emails with reminders of what we should be doing) and yet, she makes herself accessible when questions come up. And for us, questions definitely came up! She was patient as my mom and I tried to make decisions during the planning process and would make suggestions at the right moments to help us along. She worked really well with the other vendors and keep us all coordinated during the walk through even though it was her first time doing a wedding at that venue. The wedding itself was smooth sailing. I was truly floating the entire time and it felt great to be able to just enjoy and be present with my friends and family knowing that Donna was on it behind the scenes. I only plan to do this once, so while I won't work with her again, I would definitely recommend Donna if you are looking for a wedding planner!
