Lora received her certification in wedding planning and spent years immersing herself in different aspects of the wedding industry -- from the early, creative development of personalized styles and themes, to the minute-by-minute wedding day execution. These experiences gave Lora a rich understanding of both the importance of creating unique ideas for every couple and the importance of having a perfectly customized plan for bringing those ideas to life. Most importantly, Lora's love of meeting new people and having the honor of sharing in their happiness is the reason that she loves her job and the reason that she created Laurel & Elm. Her passion lies in learning every couple's story and inventing intricate ways to incorporate that love story into their most special day. Read more
5 recommendations
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While in the midst of planning our wedding this time last year, my (now) wife and I were leaning towards not even hiring a wedding planner. Her and I both had some event planning experience, and the venue we were married at also supplied us with a venue event coordinator. As the days to our big day counted down, we realized just how much we had taken on ourselves (on top of all the decision making my wife was doing, i also convinced her that helping me handmake all of our wedding decor in the months prior was a good idea...) and after much deliberation we decided together to hire Lora as our "day of" coordinator mostly as an insurance that all of our hard work would not go to waste .
Let me just summarize the paragraphs following this statement, and say that whatever Lora promised she would handle, she delivered, by tenfold, and our wedding would not have been anywhere near as successful as it was without hiring Lora.
Although we hired her as only our "day of" coordinator she met with us several times at the venue prior to our wedding day. we got married outside on the Delaware river and naturally there was some concern going in over the weather conditions for both the wedding itself and the rehearsal the night before. Lora was more than willing to spend time on the phone or meeting in person making sure no detail was overlooked. Not only was Lora at our rehearsal (some day of coordinators only show up the day of the wedding) but she basically coordinated our entire rehearsal for us, handing out pocket timelines for every single bridesmaid or groomsmen for the next day... She ran our rehearsal for us since our wedding officiant wasn't there to rehearse the wedding, and for the actual wedding she coordinated our timing for the entire ceremony to make sure it was exactly how we wanted! she also had an assistant with her for the wedding, so we basically got two sets of eyes for the price of one......
Lora coordinated all delivery/arrival times for all vendors prior to the day of our wedding... our band, the people delivering our tables and rentals, sound equipment, photographer and their photobooth, tent delivery and setup, all taken care of by Lora so that we didn't have to... and when it came down to the morning of our wedding, it all went off without a hitch, or atleast we never knew of any because Lora took care of it so we didn't have to worry at all.
when it came time for the reception and eventually dinner, Lora was always in my site. As I said before my wife and I came from event planning backgrounds and we were particular about certain things definitely happening and not happening... Lora approached us several times throughout the night when she merely saw a look on one of our faces and asked us what was wrong and she would immediately go rectify the situation. She personally kept the entire event on schedule, and was extremely attentive and professional from the second I saw her in the morning helping me and my groomsmen setting up the venue, to the very end of the evening where Lora and her assistant packed up all of our decor into boxes and took them up to the venues storage room on the 3rd floor so we didnt have to...
I also almost forgot a big one.... a month before our wedding day we found out we were expecting our first baby. Lora was so happy for us and made sure to help come up with a plan so nobody found out (on accident)
If you are looking for a planner I would look no furtherRecommended for
Wedding Planner -
Molly H
It's hard to put into words what Laurel & Elm, and Lora herself, means to us, and just how much impact she had on our big day. We reached out to Lora about a year prior to our wedding, and selected the design + styling package plus her wedding weekend package (I'm a corporate event planner and had already booked our vendors). I say this to just about everyone, but despite my experience in the planning world, ...
Original recommendation -
Katie B
I truly can't say enough about Lora! She is wonderful! Not only is her attention to detail impeccable, but she is extremely responsive and organized. We have high standards and are very organized ourselves, and we were a little nervous about hiring a wedding planner who would be able to keep up with us (we are never short on details or ideas) and Lora exceeded all of our expectations as our wedding planner. ...
Original recommendation -
Alyssa C
I was that bride that thought she could plan her wedding by herself (I couldn't have been more wrong) so I started to. I knew exactly what I wanted. I booked the venue, caterer, florist, photographers, band, made all the hotel blocks, and then I didn’t know what to do. I knew what the end should be, but I had no idea how to get there. With a full-time job and being the only person in my family on the east coast, it was really difficult to plan and I was stuck. ...
Original recommendation -
Sara
Lora was no doubt, the BEST decision I made in planning my wedding. Let me preface this by mentioning that I could not have been the easiest bride. I am an interior designer and I also live in California, so when it came time to plan my Philadelphia, PA wedding (not to mention an 18 month engagement) from across the country I thought I had it in the bag. I had every detail figured out, had most of my vendors hired, and enlisted the help of family and other vendors to try to bring my vision to life. I first met Lora when I flew to PA to tour wedding venues right after getting engaged, ...
Original recommendation