The Stylish Soiree

This is an updated review for Yelena and her team now that we have had our wedding. We most definitely want to give her 5 stars as we are so pleased with her work. She came as a recommendation from a friend and really I would have been lost without her direction and understanding of design.
Throughout the process I trusted that she had it covered and when the day came she most definitely did. It was beautiful and warm and more than I could have dreamed of. We also worked with her assistant, Jasmine, who was so pleasant and on top of things. Jasmine actually did the day of set up and she directed it all so well.
As far as budget goes she completely respected what we wanted to spend and even reminded me when we were going over on what we originally had set as our budget. My husband really appreciated this about Yelena. We felt so good about making room in our budget for a designer and would not have it any other way. Go with Yelena you will be so happy (we loved her work so much that when we move in a year and a half we both would love her to do the design of our home!!)!!!

I can’t thank Yelena enough for designing and planning our wedding. Her taste is impeccable and her stylistic flair speaks for itself. But don’t take my word for it, she did such a great job that our wedding was selected to be in Brides magazine. Everything from working with vendors, managing contracts and the invite list was handled professionally and with the utmost concern for our wishes, tastes and budget.
Now for the all juicy details :-)
Weddings are stressful, there’s no doubt about that, but the working through the details with Yelena was smooth for us because she has the experience and knows all of the little nuances that can come up. Our wedding was a destination wedding in the caribbean and if you think planning a local event is stressful, try planning it from thousands of miles away. Even still, on the day of the final event, everything turned out to be even better than we thought it would be. The décor, the food, and all of the arrangements were a direct reflection of us. Everything was beautiful and everyone had a great time. And even as the festivities went late into the night, her team was relentlessly focused on making sure everything was right for us and our guests.
The Food: Yelena arranged for us to meet with the chef of our resort, design a custom menu and make sure everything was within budget. We had vegetarian options, seafood, meat, custom beverages and a fantastic cake that was outsourced from another vendor.
The Décor: this is where Yelena’s talent really shines. We wanted a rustic beach feel and she knew exactly what elements to put together to make it look authentic and beautiful. Her execution in this domain is flawless.
The Flowers: we had a couple of rough spots with the flower vendor but Yelena found options for us, we worked through the limitations (issues are bound to come up getting fresh flowers to a remote beach in the caribbean), but again everything turned out even better than we expected.
Managing the Guests: she arranged for custom welcome bags filled with all kinds of goodies for when our guests arrived and everyone knew what to do if they needed anything.
Vendors: from lighting and furniture to the DJ and photographer, Yelena managed the details and the timelines really well.
Budget: all of the elements of our vision had to be balanced within the overall budget. So if something came up to cost more than we expected, we would have to weigh the importance of that and decide if we’d compromise on something else in another area. That being said we decided on a range for the total budget and then have a buffer within that range for things that were unexpected. And Yelena actively worked on our behalf to save wherever possible.
A wedding is one of those events that people remember forever. So much stress can go into one event and I can’t believe, even being a guy, that it went so well. Having the right team makes all the difference.

Talented Designer, Mediocre Planner
Yelena is a very talented designer who was able to design a beautiful and unique wedding for us. A++ on design. But two, not-​so-​trivial criticisms:
1– She did a poor job of managing the budget. She was late in getting us vendor invoices/​bids until the last minute. This resulted in going 15% over budget. Not happy about that.
2– Her contract says she will «review and negotiate» contracts with vendors. She didn’t. We ended up having to pay several hundred dollars for a mistake that (according to her) was the caterer’s fault. But she failed to include language in the catering contract to protect us from that issue. And then would not even bother negotiating a resolution with the caterer but instead put it back on us.

We became very concerned after hiring Stylish Soirée when we felt several details were being missed about our wedding, and should have decided then not to move forward with this company. However, the owner, Yelena assured us that they were on top of things. Following our concerns, the company was helpful with rental ordering and continued to assure us that all of the details would be handled on our wedding day.
Despite these assurances, on our wedding day we experienced issues with vendors, putting flowers out, guest transportation and several other personal details we wanted to ensure were taken care of to make our wedding a special day. My wife and I noticed during our wedding/​reception that there were certain personal touches to our wedding that we had invested in financially/​emotionally that the Stylish Soirée failed to take care of. We felt we had to remind our planner of several issues during the course of the wedding/​reception, which is not something we wanted to do on our wedding day.
Additionally, prior to our wedding we had specifically set forth our budget, which Yelena assured us she could work with. However we felt the budget they ended up sending us was not in line with the budget we spoke to them about. We ended up finding all but one of our vendors on our own, and felt that the vendors suggested by Yelena (which were limited) fell outside of our budget.
Overall it was a bad experience, as I believe the Stylish Soirée missed numerous personal details on our wedding day that we had counted on having.

Hiring Stylish Soirée was hands down the best decision we made in the wedding planning process. Yelena picked up on our style almost immediately and conceptualized a wedding design that fit us perfectly. Jill did a fantastic job of coordinating all our vendors and making sure that everything went perfectly on the big day. Some of our other vendors even commented on how organized everything was leading up to the wedding and on the day of. The Stylish Soirée team took care of everything — not a single detail was overlooked. I got a lot of comments from friends who were surprised about how calm I was as my wedding was approaching — thanks to Yelena and Jill, I knew I had nothing to worry about!

We are so glad we worked with Yelena and the Stylish Soirée for our fall wedding! We had a large wedding and Yelena and her team were a dream to work with during the lead up and execution of our big day. Yelena was extremely organized, easy to talk to, and responsive to all of the design and detail ideas. The day of the wedding Yelena and Courtney were effortlessly calm and prepared and made our day so very special.
I can’t recommend The Stylish Soirée highly enough– thank you thank you!

Honestly, I cannot say enough good things about Yelena and Courtney. My wedding (this past August 2012) ended up being an event that surpassed all of my expectations. And I PROMISE that this is almost all thanks to the Stylish Soirée. When I got engaged I actually interviewed about 7 different wedding planners and trust me, there is a lot of great talent in the Bay Area – but when I met Yelena, she totally understood my vision and was so calm and collected – I knew I had met my match! From the very beginning of the process she was a total professional and her creativity and serious design talent is hard to even describe. From coming with me to dress fittings, wiping my tears after a bad day at work, hand potting 150 succulents into wine corks, styling my bridesmaids, to working tirelessly with my vendors, and sourcing all of our design components, Yelena was a rock star. When I walked into the room of the wedding on August 4^th, there was not one detail that had been overlooked, it was perfect. Yelena and Courtney were there to chalk the stains on my dress, make sure my grandparents were taken care of, and even worked magic to re-​print our wedding script last minute, when we realized the wrong one had been printed. Yelena is GOOD PEOPLE– get her on your team!

Yelena and her team are wonderful event designers and impeccable planners. Their attention to every detail as well as their creative insight make for a dream to work with. I would trust them with any event!

Yelena has a fantastic personal style, so it is no wonder that it translates to her events quite seamlessly! Her events are well-​thought-​out and stylish down to the last detail, without feeling over done. I’m always blown away by her work, and can’t wait until it’s MY day that she’s planning. :)