Coastside Couture

Coastside Couture was the single most important service that we contracted for my daughter LIndsay's wedding. They made the whole wedding experience so much easier and enjoyable for us that I would tell any bride or mother of the bride to not hesitate to hire them. Heidi and Karissa are professional, personable, efficient, trustworthy and fun! Their value is immeasurable!!

Karissa and Coastside Couture made our wedding day incredibly memorable. Being a groom, I was reluctant to hire a wedding planner. However, after the whole experience I think it was the best investment we made. Karissa made our destination wedding everything that we wanted. I had a specific vision in mind and Karissa searched for the perfect venue to create this. She was on top of every decision and made the wedding day stress free. We had numerous guests comment about how well run the day went. I would highly recommend CC to anyone looking to have an amazing and stress-free wedding!!!!

Karissa was amazing -- I truly can't say enough wonderful things about her. She's everything you want in a wedding planner: responsive, thoughtful, organized (which is of the utmost importance!), creative, and just SO on top of it. I cringe when I think of all the work she did on our gift bags alone (think running all over Carmel and Carmel Valley delivering these ridiculous bags!). But I never once heard anything other than her being 100,000% positive. And the day of: I honestly couldn't have imagined a more perfect scenario. She was so on it! Everything from the time table to reminding me to change dresses, to fixing my hair during pictures ... I have never seen something as well executed as the hours leading up to, and during, our ceremony/reception. She didn't miss on anything. She is a total...

Words cannot begin to describe how fantastic our experience was with Karissa at Coastside Couture. As anyone knows who is planning a large wedding (250 ppl), these times can be stressful. Karissa managed to navigate us through the process all the while remaining confident, organized, focused, and even incredibly friendly, supportive, and FUN! The wedding day itself ran completely smoothly with Karissa at the helm, while I could simply enjoy myself and be a guest. I was the mother of the bride, am a very organized and fastidious person with high standards, and can unequivocally recommend Karissa at Coastside Couture.

Karissa is amazing. I highly recommend her services for any wedding. She made EVERYTHING happen in a professional manner. She saved the day for sure!!

Coastside Couture provided excellent service from the initial planning stages to the day of our wedding. We originally thought we could manage the wedding on our own, but choosing Karissa and her assistant to be there the day of was the best decision we made. Everything fell into place perfectly. There were no snafus. The vendors were all well taken care of and we could fully enjoy our day. Karissa has a wonderful upbeat personality that kept us smiling the entire time we worked together. We would sign up with Coastside Couture again in a heartbeat!

Karissa was a joy to work with! She is professional and organized and she was there to handle all the details. She also saved me money because she could direct me towards the best deals for my money. Karissa handled the wedding with calm leadership. She even dealt with my drunken brother-in-law crashing the wedding! Ahh..family. I highly recommend hiring Karissa as your wedding planner.

Even the most organized of brides will find weddings challenging because there's just so much in the mix, emotionally and logistically! Investing in wedding coordination was SO worth every penny spent. I worked with Karissa on an off-the-shelf "day of" coordinator package, which is more like "month-of" in terms of their involvement before the wedding. I felt like the first priority throughout the process and can genuinely say that I enjoyed every moment of my wedding in part because I knew Karissa was taking care of everything! I highly, HIGHLY recommend working with Coastside Couture!!

Hiring Karissa was one of the best decisions we made. She is so charismatic and fun - she always kept us smiling and at ease throughout our wedding weekend. We really valued her professionalism and strong ties with our vendor team - her ongoing collaboration and communication with us and our team and recommendations for last minute needs kept everything running smoothly. She listened to all of our ideas, gave us great advice, and handled every last detail exactly as we had envisioned. Our wedding party and family loved Karissa - she was so personal, respectful, responsive, and always ready to handle business. I can't imagine working with anyone else - she truly is the best.

In short, we adore Heidi and can't stop talking about how grateful we are to her. She's amazing (so much so that even our guests and family still talk about her). It's taken me a long time to write this review because I haven't known where to start. Heidi was absolutely incredible to work with and was the best decision we made with respect to our wedding. Our wedding was hands down the best, most joyful day of our lives (and the best party I have ever been to!), but I wouldn't have enjoyed a minute of it (and it wouldn't have been a fraction as great) if it weren't for Heidi. Starting 3 days before the wedding, I didn't do anything - and I mean anything - but hang out with my friends and family and really enjoy that amazing time. I felt so totally confident in Heidi's ability to handle it all that I was able to completely relax and leave it in her hands. We were floored by how talented Heidi is -- she has a fabulous eye for decor, and saved me many hours of research and worrying because she's so experienced and knowledgeable. Even after months of trying plan every last detail on my own (I'm a compulsive researcher and perfectionist), we wound up taking Heidi's advice on nearly everything… she would offer suggestions in a few minutes that were better than other options that I'd spent hours agonizing over! In the end, I was stunned by how beautiful and flawless everything was. You can see photos on Coastside's blog - http://blog.coastsidecouture.com/2012/01/june-private-estate-wedding-in-carmel.html For those who are considering independent planners (who generally have less experience and overhead, and can be less expensive as a result) - we considered this route until we met Heidi and Coastside Couture, and are SO glad that we went with Heidi's team. There are a number of reasons why going with Coastside wound up canceling out any incremental up-front cost (and that's not even considering differences in quality). Heidi had 3 people (including herself) working at our wedding (and working hard, I was absolutely floored by all the things they did, though I'll get to that later), which made a big difference. There was always someone in her office whom I could call, we shipped packages there (critical for a destination wedding!), and we also got discounted rates with our caterer and rentals (which added up to over $1000) because of her relationships and reputation. One caterer literally gave us a discount because she felt comfortable that Heidi would handle everything so it took a lot of anxiety off her plate. Heidi also helped us to find vendors that were fantastic and far less expensive than the options we found on our own (saving even more!). This is just the start, beyond obvious benefits of Heidi's company having full liability insurance, the amount of training and expertise that her team shares, etc. I didn't appreciate this until the night of our wedding, but there is SO much that Heidi took care of that a simple list can't even begin to describe it. Just to give a sense of the things that Heidi did for us: As an add-on to our package, we hired her (and a few staff) to set up and take down our rehearsal dinner on a bluff overlooking the ocean (http://blog.coastsidecouture.com/2012/01/rehearsal-dinner-on-beach-in-carmel.html). We kept things very very basic for this, and Heidi turned it into something spectacular. You can see the way it looked from the photos on our photographer's blog, but we basically just rented a food truck, my mom put together some basic flowers from Whole Foods, we reused the same rentals we used for the wedding (a deal Heidi negotiated, though I know we were the last ones to get that loophole before they changed their contracts), and we ordered a ton of wholesale blankets in case it got cold. Heidi made it look absolutely magical - and all we had to do was show up (and then just leave it there to go have s'mores on the beach). I'm mentioning the rehearsal dinner in particular because I felt like this was an example of how Heidi's eye really made our dollars stretch - she let us use her burlap runners, made table arrangements with our wine/beer and some lanterns we were using for the wedding, and thought to put the blankets on the chairs to add color (something I never would have thought to do). For the wedding, Heidi gave us - outstanding - vendor recommendations, and steered us away from some folks that I realize now that we would've regretted hiring. We had a musician bail on us a couple weeks out and Heidi found a wonderful replacement, negotiated his rates, and completely took care of the situation while I was on vacation. We dearly loved everyone that worked on the event for us, especially our caterers (Classic Catering), which we hadn't considered initially - but Heidi encouraged us to do a tasting with them anyway, and they blew us away. She helped us a TON with decor (we did this as an add-on to our package), and while my husband and I certainly had the vision of what we wanted in general, Heidi managed everything from recommending linen and giving advice on accents, to re-doing our rental order countless times as we changed our mind in those last couple weeks, to setting everything up day-of (including tying ribbons on all the chairs, her suggestion that I'd never thought of, but a great, cost-effective way to add color during the ceremony). I didn't communicate with a single vendor during the two weeks before the wedding, knowing I could trust Heidi to handle everything - and everything was flawless, from timing (she made the schedule and kept everyone on time), to presentation (during our "walk through" a couple weeks before, she figured out the seating chart, how everything would fit, where to put the bar vs. DJ station, etc. etc.), to making sure everyone showed up on time, got fed, stuck to their contracts, and the like. I can only imagine that that's an overwhelming amount of work, but I couldn't even tell you the details of everything she did because I never had to think about it. I do know that she sent around a very impressive, meticulously organized event packet (including every last detail of what needed to be done, who should arrive when, seating charts, where decor would go, names and contact info of all vendors, etc.) that she distributed to everyone involved. Despite the fact that we held our event at a private home (and had to bring in EVERYTHING - food, alcohol, chairs, sound systems, tables, decor, you name it - complete logistical nightmare), I don't know of a single glitch in the whole day. Once the festivities were over and everyone had headed home on their shuttle buses, we looked around and the house was spotless. We went to our bridal suite, and found that the bed was made and covered in flower petals (despite our flower girl having watched Blues Clues in there during dinner). Heidi's team had even left a sweet note and a bottle of their favorite champagne on the nightstand. And then I discovered that they saved me a half bottle of my favorite wine from our tasting bar (the Amarone) and hid it on the other nightstand with a couple glasses. We've been brimming with gratitude for wonderful, thoughtful Heidi and her magic workers ever since.

I hired Heidi about 2 months before my wedding once I realized that I wasn't going to be able to pull everything off on my own. It was hands down one of the best decisions I made regarding the wedding. She made sure that every little detail was perfectly executed (not easy at our venue) and I didn't have to worry about a thing. She is a master at her craft, and worth every penny.

Heidi ( and Karissa) are some of the most amazing Women I have ever met! Coastside Couture made our wedding more than we could have ever imagined! The planning process was very smooth and we knew we had nothing to worry about! On our weddind day Heidi made sure that its was about us and we could not have asked for anything more. Coastside couture and all the women associated with is were more than professional and always made sure that we knew what was going on throughout the entire planning process. We have not a single negative thing to say about them and they are 100% worth every penny we paid ( if they came back now and told us it would be more we would happily pay it)

Karissa is an ANGEL in our opinion! We held our ceremony and reception at a private residence that had just once held a wedding (there son's). As you can imagine, the homeowners needed reassurance that things would be handled smoothly. Once they met Karissa, all systems were go! We hired Karissa to coordinate the day of the wedding. Her services went well beyond that!!! We called her for advice on everything from portable toilets to djs, and she advised us on all venues we dreamed up. Her honesty was much appreciated when our vision was too far-fetched or out of our budget. We were in San Diego for most of the planning, so Karissa was our eyes and ears for everything. She remained in constant contact with us, and was always reliable. The day of our wedding was absolutely perfect, and there was no way it could have been possible without Karissa. She had a timeline for our review well in advance. She put all of our wedding worries on her back, and EVERYTHING was taken care of. She made sure everyone was where they needed to be, kept my groomsmen in check :), made sure we got something in our stomachs as we took pictures, coordinated our departure, was the go-to person for all vendors, etc. Mind you, I am not doing justice to how much she did behind the scenes. The amazing part is that we never really noticed all she was doing because before we even could fathom a request, it was already taken care of by Karissa. Our guests were struck by how perfectly everything went that day. I can honestly say Karissa was the reason. We were so lucky to have Karissa, and I would recommend, no insist, my closest friends and family to use her services!

Heidi Hughett of Coastside Couture was amazing. She is very friendly and helpful. Heidi and her staff made our day stress free. We couldn't have pulled off a better day without her help. Everything was perfect. She made sure everything went were it should go and my vison turned out fantastic. Good with Coastside Couture :)

Karissa and her team are the best. She helped us with every step along the way, from helping us to find a reception venue, to recommended awesome vendors for the cake and DJ given our tight budget and strange day for a ceremony (a Tuesday). She went as far as stalking the owners to get our deposit back after the first reception venue went bankrupt. Her team made everything run smoothly on our day so we did not have to worry about a thing. We would not hesitate in recommending her to anyone.

Coastside Couture is the BEST wedding planning business out there. My wedding was perfect because of the support, love, and hardwork of my coordinators. Everyone, including my bridemaids and mother, noticed how well cared for everything was and that we were in great hands with Coastisde Couture. I honestly could not have done it without them!!! Hiring them was the smartest decision I made during my wedding planning!

What can we say - Heidi was a "rock start"! She had fabulous ideas and helped us bring a vision to life. The vendors she recommended were great and very responsive. Whatever we asked about, she made happen and the actual wedding day was completely seamless - nothing went wrong and we credit Heidi with that. we can't thank her enough.

Heidi Hughett of Courture Celebrations is wonderful. Having her work with my daughter and I made the wedding so stressfree!!! Everyone needs Heidi as their wedding planner!!!

Coastside Concierge's quality of service was exceptional. I would recommend them and Karissa Paxton to anyone in need of a wedding planner. They took all the worry away from me and took care of all the details that made my wedding amazing and stress free. By using Coastside Concierge I was able to enjoy my wedding day because I knew they would take care of all the details. Karissa went above and beyond what I expected of her which made the cost of their services very reasonable and money well spent. She was always very professional while still fun and friendly to all my wedding party, vendors and guests. In planning my wedding she was very flexible with my ideas and provided amazing suggestions and recommendations that she pulled from her many years of experience in the wedding industry. I really enjoyed working with Karissa and Coastside Concierge and my wedding could not have happened without them.

Heidi and her team were fantastic to work with! They made my wedding day stress free and so wonderful. They pay attention to every detail and make sure everything runs smoothly but without being intrusive. They were friendly and helpful to my family, friends and the venue and vendors as well. I would highly recommend Couture Celebrations for any bride, it literally made my life so much easier to know that Heidi would be there to have everything ready and make sure the day ran successfully.