Kate Whelan Events

Kate is such a pleasure to work with! I manage events at a venue and it is great to work with people who have everything under control! Kate transformed our ballroom into a magical «Midsummer Night’s Dream» fairy-​tale, it was absolutely stunning top to bottom! No detail was missed and she stayed on top of everything. I would highly recommend her as a planner/​designer to every bride that comes through our doors, or any other venue.

Kate Whelan was a very early and easy choice as we began planning our wedding, right after we decided on our date and venue (August 2015 in the Crocker Art Museum). As we live in Los Angeles but my parents are near Sacramento, they met with Kate for the first meeting, and felt extremely comfortable talking with her. Kate is a consummate professional who knows everything there is to know about wedding planning, and we quickly recognized that even if we didn’t make any more decisions, she could and would ensure a perfect event. We hired her for month-​of coordination, though I also corresponded with her intermittently during the year prior as I chose vendors, ran into questions, etc.
During the month before the wedding, having Kate in charge really reduced the stress level of the month, and in fact the week before the wedding was quite relaxed since we knew that all the logistics were set. Kate got the entire wedding party in order before the rehearsal, ran a very helpful rehearsal (we hadn’t realized how important this was until that day!), and made sure that everything was in place and unfolded smoothly on the day and evening of. (She also has an uncanny ability to appear whenever and wherever she is needed, and possibly to be in multiple places at once.)
Our wedding was perfect and so very joyful, and we are so happy to have had Kate on board.

Kate was our planner for an outdoor wedding at a vineyard in Napa. We don’t live in California. Also, the vineyard is owned by members of our family and had never held an event before (let alone a wedding). I can’t emphasize how much of an added degree of difficulty this placed on Kate, but she handled it great and the wedding was amazing. When problems arose (like when the electricity went out 30 minutes before the ceremony), we weren’t told about them. They were just fixed. This reduced our anxiety and made for a more enjoyable day. In the months leading up to the wedding, she was very impressive as well. She listened to us to understand our vision instead of trying to force us into a cookie cutter wedding. When we had questions, she always had time for us and took our calls ²⁴⁄₇. If she suggested a vendor that we didn’t like (which was rare), she wouldn’t try to convince us to use them. She would figure out what qualities we were looking for and would find someone who fit the bill. There is so much more I could say, but the short story is she has our whole-​hearted endorsement for anyone who needs a wedding planner.

Kate is absolutely amazing – that must be said first and foremost before I get into the details. We hired Kate to do month-​of coordination for our wedding – most of the fantastic things the can be said about Kate have already been said by other reviewers, but why not add one more voice to the choir singing her praises?
Kate came recommended to us by a close relative that works in the event planning industry, who confided that Kate was really the only one she could recommend, because she was THAT much better than all of the other planners/​coordinators this person had worked with.
We weren’t even sure we even needed outside help at first, but after that initial meeting with Kate, we agreed: «There’s no way we can pull this off without her.» Kate made an unbelievable first impression, taking her time to ask a million questions to get the full picture of what we wanted for our day (including many details we hadn’t even thought of yet!!!), and making tons of helpful suggestions for thing we were unsure about (while also being cool about not pushing back on decisions we felt strongly about). All along the way, she continued to be invaluable – consistently helpful, informative, professional, communicative, detailed, decisive, organized, and very reassuring. We felt comfortable and trusted her every step of the way. Our situation was also probably a little more challenging because we took a very «a la carte» approach to our vendors; e.g., has separate ceremony and reception venues; our reception venue was essentially just providing the space with tables and chairs; we had our favorite restaurant do our catering, but hired an outside staffing service to man the buffet and bars; brought the alcohol in ourselves, etc… the point being that it wasn’t as easy as, say, having a hotel wedding with a package deal where the venue provides most of the stuff, so Kate probably had a little more juggling to do BUT she handled every single vendor with absolute finesse and it all came together without the slightest snag.
Anyone who has jumped into the wedding planning process knows it can be pretty scary – you’re spending a ton of money for what is essentially a giant party, and there is all this pressure to make sure it’s «the best day of your life»! When we finally DID get to «the big day» it was genuinely stress-​free, and more beautiful and FUN than we could have ever imagined – it really WAS the best day of our life and we owe so much appreciation to Kate for that. If something went wrong, we never even knew about it. Not only did we not have to worry about *anything* other than being present and enjoying ourselves and focusing on what the day was really about (love!), but our families were also able to enjoy themselves because Kate and her assistant flawlessly handled everything (including random tasks that often I think often falls to family and friends when you don’t have someone like Kate involved – I am sure they would have been nice about it but we didn’t want our guests to do anything but have a great time). Our parents especially were raving for a week afterward at how impressed they were with her and her team.
Bottom line, if you want to ensure that you have a planning process that is as painless as possible, with the end result being a truly magical, enjoyable wedding day – call Kate. You will not regret it. If we had to do it all over again, we would do it in a heartbeat.

We hired Kate to help plan our wedding. It’s hard to know where to start. Kate, and her associates, Lauren and Shannon, are just incredible.
Everything leading up the wedding was fantastic. Kate and her team communicated with our vendors and friends that provided music, the cake, etc., handling every behind the scene detail with professionalism. She kept us motivated with helpful checklists and check-​ins.
On the day of, we faced the possibility of rain and Kate made on-​the-​go adjustments with grace. By the time we arrived on site, everything looked beautiful, even better, than we had planned. It didn’t rain, the weather was incredible, and the wedding (and its component parts) moved along effortlessly.
Afterwards, my husband and I reflected on how stress free and positive the day was with Kate at our side. We focused on celebrating with our family and friends and once the day arrived, we didn’t once worry about the details. It was the perfect day and Kate played an important role in it.
So, don’t think twice. Kate’s services are worth every dime and then some.

We hired Kate for our son’s wedding this fall. She was wonderful from beginning to end. She was extremely professional from the very first meeting where she just really wanted to know the couple, what their likes and dislikes were and what their vision was for their wedding. The day of the wedding ran so smoothly and if there WAS an issue with anything, she was on it. It was so nice to sit back, enjoy the evening knowing that everything was going to taken care of by Kate and Lauren. I would highly recommend them for any event you are considering.

By far the most organized wedding planner. We met with two others before hiring Kate and they didn’t give us ¹⁄₁₆^th of the information Kate did. You could tell she really knew what she was doing and the best way to do it. We hired her for her month of services as well as a few extra things for us like rental management and going to our venue to do a to scale graph of the room. The wedding day itself went so smoothly, and if anything went wrong I sure as heck was not told about it. She made our night so wonderful and we were actually able to enjoy the day!

I have worked with Kate on many events and I can tell you that she is one of the best in the area. She is truly a gift to any wedding. So organized and clear about how the day will run, she juggles all of the many wedding details with ease and stays calm and cool the entire event. I have also seen her handle difficult situations with ease and grace. You are in good hands with Kate Whelan !

Kate is the best! My now husband and I hired Kate for her Month of Services and it was the best choice that we could have made. She is professional, hardworking, honest, and unbelievably organized. I consider my husband and I pretty low maintenance as we really were interested in having someone pull everything together the day of so that we could just enjoy our day. Kate brought her incredible knowledge and attention to detail to the table and was such a pleasure to work with. Although we did not use her to plan all of the details of our wedding I would suggest that if this is an area that you find challenging that you let her handle it because her work is amazing!
I will be recommending her to anyone that is getting married.

Having photographed several hundred weddings in my career, I can say without hesitation that Kate is HANDS DOWN the BEST wedding planner I have EVER worked with. Her attention to detail is surpassed only by her care for her clients and the events they are throwing. She is simply incredible when it comes to putting together an outstanding event that is not only wonderful for her clients, but for the vendors that work with her too. Photographing a wedding Kate has planned and designed is an absolute treat for me. She keeps me well in the loop with what is happening not only on the wedding day but during the planning process, what is important to our client so it’s covered photographically, and fosters and a true team spirit. I absolutely adore working with her. She is the ONLY planner I recommend to my clients.

I hardly know where to start with singing my/​our praises for Kate and her whole team. Kate came highly recommended from the start, for working with our tricky, incredibly remote venue, which already says a lot. But she lived up to those expectations and surpassed them, in many ways. Even though we booked her for month-​of services, she was such a helpful resource from the moment we booked her, whether in our original, thoughtful conversation that already got us thinking about what we wanted, or through her incredibly thorough online portal with to-​do lists.
Come 1 month out, it was great to have her wrangling our contracts and making sure we either didn’t forget anything crucial, or helping keep me sane with the far-​less-​crucial pieces too — all of it was clearly important to her. If I emailed Kate, I knew I’d not only get a response straight away, but one with way more helpful information than I could have come across even with all my crazy research. Her timeline for the weekend came with a title page, which our dear friend/​cake maker says she’s never seen in all her work in the industry, and was so thoughtful that relatives who couldn’t make it to the wedding said it made them feel like they were there even just to read.
The weekend of, there was no one I could trust more to help, to keep my mind at ease, and to get things done effectively, professionally, and also joyfully. We ended up asking her to help out a couple extra hours on the wedding day, realizing I was over my head in the number of things I could take on for what became more of a 3-​day wedding than a 1-​day one. We just expected that extra time would help with décor we couldn’t get to and such, and that would be plenty… but I also mentioned to Kate that we’d thrown the idea of a chalkboard program out the window, and didn’t even write content for it anyway… Well I just about cried when getting to the aisle, even before seeing my now-​husband, as I spied one she made for us. Wow. That’s Kate.
She was one of the very best «things» we spent our money on for the wedding, and we simply can’t thank her enough.

I have worked closely with Kate and her staff to produce wedding flowers over 20 weddings. Those weddings have been some of the most beautiful and well planned events I have ever helped make happen. Every detail, whether it is the fun details of the décor to the less fun budgeting and timeline, are attended to perfectly.
I love working with Kate because she helps the client create the perfect vendor team for their event. For the bride and groom, it feels like they have hired their best friends to make their wedding go off without a hitch and for the wedding professionals, it makes doing an amazing job easy because you know Kate has everything under control.
Working with Kate Miller Events is a joy and a privilege!

Upon getting engaged, I was immediately overwhelmed. I knew I wanted some wedding planning help, but I also knew that our budget was tight and it felt like an expense that would be hard to justify. My fiancé (now husband) Chris was even more skeptical.
Well having now been through the process, we’re both believers, and we couldn’t be more happy that we not only chose to have a wedding planner, but also that we chose Kate from Kate Miller Events. KME’s baseline services are for «day of» planning/​coordination, but even her «day of» package starts almost 2 months out to make sure your vendors, venues, bridal party, and families are all ready for your big day. Additionally, as soon as you book KME, Kate’s fantastic online tools are available and at your disposal to help track budget, to-​do list, contracts, milestones and more. We would have been lost without these, and because Chris and I are so online oriented, it was so much easier for us to collaborate using her tools.
I could probably write a short novella of all the ways that Kate helped us and went above and beyond for us as clients, but for the sake of brevity, I won’t. What I will say, is that hiring Kate was probably the single decision that went the furthest in making our wedding day as wonderful as it was. Not only is she just very good at her job, but the knowledge that she is on top of everything gave us so much less to be worried or nervous about in the weeks leading up to our wedding. As a matter of fact, our venue’s veteran wedding coordinator (you know, the one the venues tout as the reason you don’t need an outside planner… «We handle all of your coordination needs!»), was actually laid off just 3 months before our wedding and replaced just 6 weeks prior to our big day with a part time coordinator. If we hadn’t had Kate to rely on, this would have definitely freaked us out, but instead, we simply knew it would all be fine.
The best part about working with Kate, is that although we know she has clients buying the whole kit and caboodle from her, and we were only able to afford her base package, she never made us feel like she was anything but committed to us as clients. She answered questions when she didn’t have to, she had our back when vendors tried to pull fast ones on us, and she was a fantastic point of reference throughout the entire planning process. And above all, we really liked her. She’s just awesome at what she does. Chris and I couldn’t recommend her more.

Definitely the best wedding planner in Northern California!! I am so happy she won the title this past year because she deserves it!! She is amazingly creative (designed our invitations, signs, etc.) and organized. She is so sweet and doesn’t show when she stresses. I remember the right colored linens didn’t arrive she still remained calm and collective. didnt mention it to me because she didnt want me to stress (she’s the best!)but she still managed staff to rechange the linens. I absolutely adore Kate and I wish her all success!! i am so glad I chose her and she is definitely mindful of your budget. I remember I interviewed another planner and she was like…“oh you only have that budget for your wedding?.. and basically was going to hand me off to her associate to work with. but Kate was different. she embraced my budget, concept, stress, and made it the best day of my life!!! HIRE HER because you won’t regret it!!!:)

Flawless is really the word for a wedding done by Kate Miller and her staff. My wedding went so smoothly. When someone who I had invited +1 showed up with +2 i simply told Kate and it was taken care of. When I forgot to put my veil on, Kate was right there with it. All the accessories and little details were handled by Kate. The budget. The spreadsheets. The coordination with all the vendors. She helps you take control of your wedding. I was never stressed about my wedding. Instead, I enjoyed my wonderful beautiful flawless day. My husband and I are oh so grateful!

As the father of the bride, our wedding was a logistical challenge because it was a destination wedding at a vineyard. It was a logistical challenge that included contruction of a large tent, lighting, floral arrangements, rehearsal dinner for 150 people, transporting 150 people from hotel to vineyard (and back) and, lastly, the brunch following. Kate Miller knows detail and the wedding was a huge success because of her attention to detail. No aspect was too small to avoid her scrutiny. She ensured that every vendor knew what they had to do, when they had to do it, and the quality she expected. I’m not new at being the father at the wedding so my views are not based on the uniqueness of the experience. She is the best I have seen and worth every penny.

Planning a wedding is something most men rarely do. Most husbands-​to-​be allow their brides-​to-​be do all the planning. Girlfriends are called up, mother and mother-​in-​law pick out china patterns, and a gaggle of ladies plan to their hearts content. The men, in my experience, simply must provide the occasional yes or no.
So when two men decide to get married and neither one has the wedding planning gene… well, they need to get a little help.
Enter Kate Miller, who quickly took the hands of two somewhat misanthropic grooms and helped them put on what had to be one of the most amazing weddings ever conceived. While I can stress up a storm at the drop of a hat and my partner is a tad forgetful, she was able to actively engage us and get to know us both as a couple and as individuals.
We knew right away she was the right choice when at our very first meeting she helped us figure out our budget. We were on a tight one. She was able to explain what parts of the kind of wedding we wanted to do were necessary and what wasn’t, and she kept us realistic about what we could do. That might sound rather blah, but because she made thing so financially clear she was able to provide multiple options that still got us what we wanted, or helped us find even better options we hadn’t thought of before.
In addition, Kate also used plenty of technology to keep things organized. Her team uses a dashboard on their server that allowed us to send messages, assign tasks, share documents, review vendor orders, and keep us on task with timely checklists that kept us on task for what needed doing and when. Kate was always on time with what she needed to do, and kept us on time for the things we needed to do (get suits tailored, send out cards, etc.).
Come the day of there was no stress at all. We knew that Kate was on site and that everything would be handled beautifully. And it was.
I cannot recommend Kate and her team enough. She will ensure that your wedding is perfect, organized, and stress free.

Dear Kate,
With all the energy and emotion of Amanda and Mike’s wedding day, I didn’t get a chance to thank you personally for all that you did to make it a success. My family and I would like to express our gratitude to you for your part in making Amanda and Mike’s wedding such a wonderful memory. Your coordination of vendors and attention to the details of the wedding was amazing. The wedding site and all the decorations that Amanda wanted were very beautifully arranged. Your staff was very efficient, thoughtful and helpful through the entire celebration. I know the inclement weather was a challenge, but your experience and calm demeanor allowed our guests to enjoy the food and music without interruption.
One of the memories that will remain of the wedding is how many times your staff patiently tossed plastic tarps over the vintage furniture and removed them when a ray of sun broke through the clouds and my glimpse of you in your «garbage bag» attire to protect against the rain.
My sincere thanks for your efforts and genuine concern for Amanda and Mike and our family and guests at the HideOut wedding last Saturday. I will certainly recommend you to anyone I know who is planning a destination wedding.
Yours truly,
Fran Rozoff

Kate Miller and her team did an amazing job throughout the whole planning process and the execution of my wedding. Not only is she personable, experienced, and very detailed but she also has good taste, an eye for design, and a good list of excellent vendors to work with. She was always on my side when it comes to dealing with vendors and had my best interests in mind when working out prices and deals. And she has a good hand at logistics — exceeded the expectations of an obsessive compulsive project manager. :) Seriously, you will not regret getting Kate and her team for your wedding — it will be wonderful, beautiful, and perfectly implemented.

If I could give more than five stars I would. Kate Miller has a gift. She automatically «gets» her brides and brings their vision to fruition. I knew I wanted to work with her after our first phone conversation. She asked questions no other planners did, she was full of ideas, but also listened to everything we wanted. I mean I could literally write you a novel here. Kate was the day of coordinator for my South Lake Tahoe wedding on 9÷10÷2011. Yup I’m so happy with her and her team I wanted to write my review first thing the day after my wedding while my new hubby is nursing his hangover! Kate told me I was a very calm bride and there’s a reason for that… because I had her and her assistant Christine. I didn’t have to worry about one thing. Even before Kate was technically «on the clock» she was there for phone calls, advice, suggestions… etc. When I found out we were going to get rain on our wedding day a week prior, Kate talked me off the ledge and drew up a rain plan. I loved that she sincerely cared about us and wanted our day to be perfect. I did a lot of DIY projects and Kate displayed them perfectly and then brought them up a notch! I truly hope Kate and Christine stay in our lives as they have become our friends. They even came to the casino after party with us;) Now that is a team you want to hire! Trust me you deserve to be present on your wedding day and Kate will give you the opportunity to do just that! Thank you Kate and Christine! We love you both:)
Love, Josh and Leesh