Alternative Weddings for Independent Couples
I’m Lisa Gordon, of Lisa Gordon Events, and sometimes I get to do the funniest things in my job as a wedding planner and coordinator. You never know what the day is going to throw at you. That’s why I always have a wide variety of tools and supplies at hand on a wedding day.
At one wedding recently, the bride’s beautiful white dress had developed a problem. The loop that went over the button to create the bustle had torn right out of the very delicate, sheer organza fabric of her overdress and train. The train was hanging down asymmetrically – and was definitely likely to trip her up if it wasn’t fixed.
I took three steps over to my emergency kit and picked up a roll of white fabric tape (known among stage managers as spike tape for its theatrical uses). Two pieces of half-inch tape later, the thread loop went back over the button and – poof! – the dress was back in one piece.
If you looked really closely, you could see the repair, but as I said to the bride, if anyone was looking anywhere but her beautiful, smiling face, they were looking in the wrong place.
(See the full story here.)
Non-traditional weddings of all shapes and sizes are my specialty. From eco-friendly affairs in Chicago’s South Shore to same-sex soirees in Evanston, I help you celebrate your individuality.
I offer day-of coordinating, full-service wedding planning, and consultation services for alternative and traditional couples alike in the Chicago area.
More Things I Can Help You With
- You have no idea where to start and could use a helping hand (or two). A bit of advice to get you going: Begin with four interconnected pieces: the ceremony location, reception location, officiant, and date.
- Or, you are pretty sure you have everything handled, but you still need someone to cover the unexpected and to make sure that every event happens on time.
- You have set a budget that makes sense on paper but sticking to those numbers is proving a challenge.
- You want to get married in Chicago but don’t live here, so you need someone who knows the local venues and vendors and can coordinate everything on the ground here.
- You want something you haven’t seen before, such as a new way to make your wedding greener, and you don’t know how to make that happen in Chicago.
- You know what you want to happen at your wedding, but you don’t know how to make it all fit into your schedule.
- Your idea of a dream wedding doesn’t include researching twelve wedding vendors every time you need to make a decision.
- You don’t want to spend your wedding day managing family logistics. I will (with kindness and tact).
Things I Cannot Help You With
- Planning and installing elaborate decor
- Shopping for jewelry
- Controlling the weather (but I will make sure you have a solid plan for that).
There is no wedding industry conveyor belt in what I do. Couples hire me to do things the way that makes the most sense to them. You bring an independent vision and some creative ideas (maybe with some feminist flair or nonconformist fun?), and I will bring the expertise, problem-solving skills, and foresight to craft the wedding that’s completely you. So if you have a unique take on something, I want to hear all about it.
Still Not Sure What a Wedding Planner Does?
Rave Reviews
Here’s what my clients say about my work:
Lisa helped plan my wife and I’s wedding. We are not from the Chicago area and needed help selecting all of the vendors. Lisa was amazing and helped every step of the way. She gave great recommendations for everything from flowers to caterers to venues. I believe that any of the options she provided would have resulted in a great wedding. She was always very prompt to answer any questions or address any concerns that we had. She was always ready and willing to help. Her day of services were crucial. We knew that we didn’t have to worry about anything.
We highly recommend Lisa to help you plan your event. Our perfect day was absolutely perfect in large part thanks to Lisa’s hard work and efforts.
–Amanda F., Yelp 5-Star Review on 11/1/2015
Great Experience with Lisa Gordon Events!
Lisa is amazing! As our day-of-coordinator, she made my life so much easier in the weeks leading up to, and on, our wedding day. She was extremely organized and made many helpful suggestions that I would not have thought of to make everything run smoothly, and did a wonderful job coordinating all of our vendors and setting up and striking all the decorations etc. at the venue. It also helps that she is extremely kind and patient 🙂 I would 100% recommend using Lisa for your wedding needs!
— Sarah S., Wedding Wire 5-Star Review on 5/10/2019
Lisa helped us plan and execute our wedding. We loved that she was easy to work with, kept us on track, and created a master to-do list! MOST of all, it was great to have her and her assistant on-site on our big day, so we didn’t have to do any troubleshooting. If anything went wrong during the wedding … we didn’t hear about it! 🙂 Lisa was fun and easy to work with. Although I never want to plan another wedding, I’d recommend her to anyone who is working on one!
PS – what originally made us want to work with her is the diversity/inclusion statement on her website. Lisa is really that invested in equality and comfort for all. She’s got a heart of gold and great business acumen – exactly who you want planning your big day!
–Kate S., Facebook 5-Star Review on 10/14/2019
My wife and I hired Lisa as our day-of wedding coordinator. From our first meeting months in advance of the wedding to the hectic weeks right before, Lisa was a tremendous asset. She offered helpful tips, vendor recommendations, and advice on everything from our venue set-up to timelines and transportation logistics. Best of all, Lisa was encouraging and deeply committed to supporting our vision the whole way through. On the day-of, she and her assistant supervised the 10+ vendors at our backyard reception flawlessly. My wife and I highly recommend Lisa for her knowledge, good judgment, and can-do attitude. Lisa is a pleasure to work with!
–David D., Yelp 5-Star Review on 10/27/2012
We absolutely love Lisa!! She was really easy to work with and it was so nice not to have to worry about dealing with all the details on our day of. She also is one of the only wedding coordinators in our area that can offer tangible tips about greening up your wedding.
–Julia S., The Knot 5-Star Review on 8/9/2010
Lisa helped me plan my commitment ceremony. At no time did I feel like she was uncomfortable with it. (like other planners) Quite the opposite! Lisa was super helpful! I was doing all my planning from 5 hours away and Lisa helped set up everything with the caters, looked at the venue with him, and in general made everything as smooth as possible. She saved me from several stressful “freakouts” and helped me keep a level head. On the day of the ceremony she really helped make sure everything went according to plan despite all the bumps we had! I would strongly recommend her to anyone and will probably use her services again if given the opportunity. The only bad thing was I got so used to talking to her that after the ceremony I missed her for a couple weeks!!! Thanks Lisa!
–Ann M., Yelp 5-Star Review on 4/29/2010
My wife and I hired Lisa to be the day of coordinator for our wedding and I can’t emphasize enough how crucial she was toward us having the best experience possible on the day of our wedding. She is super friendly and more than willing to work with whatever kinds of requests or ideas you have as well as answer any questions that come up. She’s cool, calm and professional which is definitely appreciated in an event coordinator.
We didn’t have to think about anything on the day of and Lisa was able to not only keep everything moving smoothly, she threw herself at it and managed everything so well that we didn’t even realize just how smoothly everything went till the next day when my wife and I talked about the whole experience. Everything went perfectly and what more can you ask for?
They say that every wedding has a few things that go wrong, but we didn’t even know about any hiccups with our wedding till at least a week afterward and I credit Lisa’s skill and talent with keeping everything together and moving right along. All of the things that apparently went wrong had to do with the venue and her ability to not only fix the issues as they came up but to work around problems created by our less-than-stellar venue manager were downright amazing and she was easily one of the, if not the best people we hired for our wedding.
–Ryan R., Yelp 5-Star Review on 11/8/2012
Her leadership and organizational skills on the day of the wedding made everything go smoothly, so we were able to enjoy ourselves. I would highly recommend Lisa for planning any event!
–Jackie A.
Lisa was fantastic. She was responsive, easy and pleasant to deal with and very professional. I would use her again if I needed to plan another event and whole heartedly recommend her to anyone else planning a big event.
–Beth A.
Hiring Lisa was one of the best decisions I made in planning the wedding…. She was very organized and was readily available over e-mail, in person, or by phone. I can confidently recommend hiring Lisa Gordon for event and wedding planning services.
–Suzi S.
Special thanks to you for your excellent effort in making Suzi & Tim’s wedding reception run smoothly! You did an awesome job against many difficulties…. We highly recommend you for your superior organizational abilities!
–Pam K.
Lisa was our day-of coordinator for our recent wedding at the Garfield Park Conservatory. I can’t recommend her more highly! Lisa is very calming, unpretentious and down to earth, which I really appreciate among all the insanity of the wedding industrial complex. We planned the wedding ourselves but Lisa provided lots of helpful suggestions about vendors, transportation and more. She helped us develop our timeline, ran our rehearsal, coordinated with the other vendors, helped set up before the wedding, kept us on schedule during the event and was there to the very end making sure everything was packed up properly.
–H.L., 5-Star Yelp Review on 9/26/2015
Lisa was our day of coordinator for our wedding at Architectural Artifacts Inc on 8.8.09. She was worth every penny! I wish we could give her more, because she deserves it! She was very easy to get in touch with, returned emails almost instantaneously, and was so willing to work around our schedules. Any idea we threw out there she was more than willing to take care of. The week before she called all of our contacts for us and all of our vendors were on the same page (which is so very important). Anytime we added a new vendor I just passed along the information and she added it into an updated spreadsheet with names, numbers, contacts, etc. So many little fires were put out that day before I ever even knew it happened! Not to mention out wedding venue was very very hot- Lisa worked so hard and didn’t complain one single time! We are so grateful to have her coordinate our day- and at such an unbelievably reasonable price! Thanks Lisa
–Alicia and Ryan, WeddingWire 5-Star Review on 8/8/2009
Yes, they are all 5 stars. Thank you for noticing!
You made it all the way down here? You are my kind of person. We should meet!
