V O N & J O R D A N
I cannot speak highly enough of Michelle Elaine. She takes each of her weddings extremely seriously – and personally. She will commit to your event and give you the time you deserve. She stays on top of everything to a point we didn’t think possible. We were a very hands-on couple and Michelle adjusted seamlessly to our level of need. In the middle of our wedding planning we moved abroad to Singapore and Michelle became even more valuable, taking over parts of the planning we had initially envisioned doing. Michelle is easy to work with, friendly and approachable for the couples, and a flawless coordinator with other vendors. While always friendly, she knows how to respectfully push vendors when they aren’t being responsive or are being troublesome. Michelle is clearly doing what she loves, and it shows in her work. Hiring her will make you wonder how you expected to do it yourself in the first place.
Full disclosure- I am a perfectionist and pay extremely close attention to detail. I am also extremely particular about delegating. After interviewing at least a dozen planners in the NYC area, Michelle stood out because of her instantaneous transparency, honesty and professionalism in providing a clear roadmap of what her services included. But Michelle always went above and beyond her contract and really demonstrated a commitment to our wedding and a degree of excellence unparalleled by most people. Michelle was always responsive. She was tactful and never overstepped boundaries while always exceeding all of our expectations. My vendors as well as both of our families raved about Michelle and her team and how wonderful they were to work with. Last but not least, my wedding was executed to perfection, and my day was drama free. I let everything fall onto Michelle’s hands and the peace of mind I felt that day was priceless- we were truly able to be guests at our own wedding and enjoy every moment of it. Michelle was an absolute delight to work with and I can’t thank her enough for making our day a fairy tale for everyone.
V O N & J O R D A N
D A N I E L L A & J A S O N
Michelle came highly recommended by a colleague of my husband’s, and we are incredibly thankful for that referral. She was tireless in her enthusiasm, resourceful in changing circumstances, and thorough in her execution. She was also flexible enough in her approach to accommodate our peculiar tastes regarding ceremony, music and food. The result was a beautiful wedding that came off just as we imagined it, and without a worry on either one of our parts. I really don’t know what we would have done without her. One final note: several vendors (who did not know her before our wedding) commented without prompting that Michelle was fantastic. This speaks not only to her professionalism, but to her innate charm as a person. People really do enjoy working with her!
D I A N E & S I M O N
Hiring Michelle was hands down the best decision we have ever made as a couple. She’s a true professional with an amazing work ethic, a wonderful personality, and the ability to get things done and put your mind at ease as she works her magic. She is absolutely incredible to work with and will do everything possible to make sure you have the wedding of your dreams. As extremely busy young professionals new to New York at the time, the prospect of planning a wedding was giving us a great deal of anxiety. We simply had no idea how we would be able to get it done, especially on our budget. Thankfully, we learned about Michelle from another wedding planner we were acquainted with (who, by the way, would not work with us because our budget was below seven figures!). We immediately fell in love with Michelle’s attitude and her approach to the whole process. She made us feel comfortable right away, and she was willing to work within our budget and our style to make sure we had the perfect wedding (which we did!). She handled EVERYTHING, even the stuff we hadn’t thought of, and she made sure we were on track and keeping up with what we had to do on our end. And she did it all with a smile and an infectious enthusiasm that made us truly excited to have a wedding and start our life together. Not only that, but she even helped deal with our families in the weeks leading up to the wedding, which is no easy task! So, if you want a beautiful and amazing wedding that you, your friends and family will love, all without the stress, drop everything and hire Michelle! She is simply the best that New York City has to offer. Thanks Michelle!!!
K A T E & S T E V E
Michelle and her team were FANTASTIC!!! She was an event saver. Like many brides, I thought I could plan it on my own, gather vendors, work through details, and still keep my 9-5 job! Ha. Boy was I wrong. 2 months before my wedding, I realized I needed help working through wedding day details, timelines, vendor communication, venue location issues and not having planned my rehearsal dinner!!! Oops! Enter Michelle, with such amazing positive energy, poise, expertise and professionalism. No tasks were too big, or too small for her and her team. From, having to find an alternate cake baker less than 3 weeks before my wedding, to planning my unconventional rehearsal dinner two weeks before she handled it all with a giant smile, and never demonstrated any worry. Communication with Michelle is a dream. I wish more vendors were like her during my wedding planning. The woman does not sleep!!! The day of my wedding, Michelle and her team took care of all of the details, and did an amazing job making sure all of the relatives were where they needed to be, was there to listen to any family request and day of stress. I can’t rave or thank Michelle enough for helping me have and enjoy the wedding of my dreams. She isn’t just a planner, she quickly will become your second best friend, therapist (if needed) and most all of is the wedding fairy godmother every bride deserves to have.
H A Y D E E & J A S O N
Thank you a million times, Michelle! We appreciate everything you’ve done for us. You made the planning process so easy and stress-free and we can honestly say that last weekend was the best of our life – you were the best. The venue looked better than we could have imagined and the night felt so seamless. You were a life saver!
G U I N & T O M
Michelle is AMAZING and she does it all (we had a multi-cultural Manhattan wedding in July with different venues for ceremony and reception)!! Michelle really does make the not-so-easy process of planning your wedding SO smooth. Before we hired Michelle I came to learn that planning a wedding is an inherently emotional thing to do, and therefore can become stressful. Michelle is a stabilizing force: she never multiplies drama, she always reduces it. This is a huge part of why my husband and I appreciate Michelle’s grace, strength, kindness, constantly positive energy, and professionalism so much. And she never makes you feel like what she’s doing is a business or that you’re a transaction–you really do feel her genuine happiness for you and her relentless commitment to making your day PERFECT, which she did!Michelle held our hand every step of the way. Michelle researched and found elegant and affordably-priced vendors (e.g., calligrapher in Long Island, printer in upstate NY, florist from New Jersey, shuttle buses for guest transportation). Michelle coordinated and negotiated so well with every single one of our vendors (even ones that we contracted before we hired Michelle!) that she was able to get us free floral arrangements for our rehearsal dinner, an extra half hour from the reception venue for FREE, re-arrange our contract with the hotel at no cost to us when the first contract we signed (before we had Michelle) did not give us the block of rooms that we wanted for our out-of-town guests, and more!She handled all communication with our vendors, which was SO important because we did not have the time to stay on top of all the little details or coordinate among all of the vendors (due to our busy work schedules) and Michelle was able to advocate for us in a strong but always professional and polite way. Michelle also is very creative and was able to do several DIY projects that saved us money and gave our wedding a very personalized and elegant touch. The DIY projects that Michelle made for us included a framed chalkboard menu for our buffet dinner (yes, she went around NYC and found the chalkboard, vintage frame, and a repair shop to cut the chalkboard to the right dimensions for the frame, and then put it all together herself), 175 table cards that she and her team cut into shapes of buses because my husband and I met on a bus, long ceremony programs with gold bows at the top, a vintage looking-lace card box for the reception, and more! We also loved how Michelle was always aware of and sensitive to family dynamics and other things that mattered a lot to us. For example, my husband and I really wanted to include our multiple heritages (Jamaican, Dominican, and southern American) into our wedding. Michelle understood this and as a result negotiated with the caterer to get the chef to learn my mother’s recipe for Dominican rice and beans (which they made perfectly for the taste test and for the wedding), and she got the caterer to allow us to bring in authentic jerk chicken from our favorite Jamaican restaurant in Brooklyn (for a Manhattan wedding)! This is the first online review that I’ve ever written for anything, but I just had to write about Michelle because she made the most important day of our lives truly magical and stress-free. We highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend Michelle–she is the best investment that you can make for the best day of your lives!
Michelle was available 24/7 and was extremely thorough. She has relationships with many people in the industry and has experience in several different areas of the industry. These things proved to be priceless when coordinating all of the moving parts. She communicated with us frequently and this made me, as a control freak, feel very comfortable. I would highly recommend Michelle Elaine Weddings!”
We were satisfied beyond our expectations!! Michelle was fantastic from start to finish. We would not have made it through the day without her! I would recommend her to run a business not just a wedding! Honestly, there needs to be more stars for Michelle.”
There are not enough words to express our complete and utter love and gratitude to Michelle! Honestly, I don’t know if we would have been able to pull off the wedding at all without her. From the moment we met her we knew she was “the one.” Honest, dependable, incredibly friendly. helpful and organized. I was very scattered and we were both very busy at work but she managed to fit to our schedules and keep us on track. I find timeliness and dependability critical and she was all that and more. She was always on time and answered my countless emails faster than I could read or respond to them. She met with all of our vendors (even though we hired her for “day of services”) and made such helpful suggestions in our meetings. She also made the wedding day schedule and actually kept us on it without us even knowing. I never would have even thought of making one and definitely wouldn’t have been able to have everyone follow it. When the wedding day came I was just shocked to see how she pulled all of our ideas together and more and I had more compliments on Michelle than anything else! My only regret is that I didn’t work with her sooner. And my husband who was very skeptical at first (because he was convinced that we could do it all without help) has admitted to me that Michelle was one of the best decisions we could have made about the wedding. Honestly, I could go on forever (which I did at the wedding) about how wonderful and invaluable she is but you won’t appreciate this until you work with her. Thank you thank you Michelle!
Michelle was wonderful to work with during the process of planning our wedding and a tremendous asset on the day of the wedding itself. Her cheerful disposition put all our family members at ease and kept the levels of stress and tension low. Michelle went above and beyond throughout the process, responding to emails at all hours of the day and ensuring that all the details of our special day were covered. In addition, Michelle was extremely flexible, adjusting to the changing dynamics through the day and coordinating with all our vendors behind the scenes. Everyone enjoyed working with Michelle! I would recommend her highly for anyone looking to simply enjoy their wedding day by letting a true expert manage the process successfully.
Michelle is the dream wedding planner. Behind the scenes, she works diligently to nail every detail down 110% so the bride and groom can fully enjoy their big day. She does this with ease, grace, humor, and deep expertise. She was a life saver for the month leading up to the wedding and the day of – from the rehearsal walk through to dress fitting emergencies! Cannot imagine a better wedding service, Michelle is really distinctive in this area.
My husband and I made two very smart decisions when planning our wedding, 1) Hire a planner and 2) hire Michelle!!! Michelle Elaine Fernie is THE BEST planner! PERIOD! You want her in your life! We decided to work with Michelle after meeting three other planners who just didn’t feel quite right. The second we met Michelle, we were sold! Her incredibly upbeat, energetic and charming personality will win you over. We worked with Michelle for a year planning our wedding. Michelle helped us find the perfect venue, vendors, stay on budget, assisted with finding us the perfect dress, bridesmaid dresses and tuxes, made all my constantly changing ideas come to fruition and did everything with an amazingly positive attitude. You can tell she TRULY LOVES what she does. She has amazing ideas and is INCREDIBLY patient. I must have changed my theme a dozen times and every time she was right there with me until I was absolutely sold on every single detail. She will NOT let you down. The one mistake I made was doubting Michelle! I quickly learned my lesson. Three weeks before our wedding we had a vendor fall through on a very important detail of our wedding, luggage tags for our place cards. Michelle WOULD NOT REST until she found me a replacement, which was not an easy task with our budget. Just when I was about to throw in the towel, Michelle came through in the clutch and found us some tags in our budget and color! And they were amazing! She truly will become part of the family and help you with every part of the wedding process. My mother worked with her to plan my bridal shower in another state, my MOH worked with her to plan my bachelorette party, and her decor ideas for our outdoor garden party/rehearsal dinner were amazing. She is truly FULL SERVICE!!! My family and our bridal party LOVED Michelle! I even had guests ask for a referral after our wedding! Michelle can win over anyone (very beneficial when negotiating for you! The Michelle Fernie charm never fails!) Most importantly, she will work incredibly hard for you. While I knew she had other weddings she was working on, I never felt like she wasn’t attentive to us. And on our wedding day everything was absolutely perfect. We had an amazing day! Michelle ran the whole day with impeccable professionalism. She will ensure your day will be amazing, fun and stress-free! Working with Michelle will be the best decision you will make during your planning process. She will definitely work tirelessly to make sure you are a happy and stress-free bride!”
J E N N & D A M I A N
T A R Y N [Mother of the Bride : Taylor & Jake]
K A T H E R I N E [Mother of the Bride : Anastasia & Joseph]
C A R O L I N E & B O B B Y
A N A S T A S I A & J O S E P H
C H R I S T I N A [Sister of the Groom : Kat & James]
C H R I S T I N A & J O S ERead More Reviews On Wedding Wire & Yelp!
