Alison Events

I had the pleasure of working with Alicia from the AE team. She researched and sought out my company as the photo booth provider for her client’s 40^th birthday party. The event was originally scheduled to be at The Stable on Folsom St., but the venue had flooded after that nasty storm in early January. With only a week to locate a new venue for the event (in SF, that is a HUGE task, by the way), I was unsure that a rescheduling of the event was not in order. But she did located a perfect venue match and executed the celebration with flying colors. The client was beaming! I have to give it to Alicia — she focused and made it happen when all the cards were stacked against a party that weekend. Well done, Alicia and the fine folks at AE!

Alison Events were absolutely amazing this holiday season in helping me coordinate and execute my company’s holiday party. Alicia Matsumoto headed my event and she brought a vision I couldn’t have even thought of to life starting with a beautiful storyboard all the way to the finishing touches. Anything I asked for, AE delivered and more with perfect implementation of the evening.
I am always worried about the guests having a great time and making sure I host the events I head, but Alicia took all the stress away from that and it truly let me enjoy the party just as much as everyone else. I can’t wait to contact her again for our next company event! Alicia’s keen eye for detail and extraordinary taste level brought our party to the next level. Thank you Alicia and AE — you guys are event planners for a reason and it shows!

I’ve been working with Jesse (Alison Event’s Sr. Event Producer + Designer) for years now planning and designing events. When I heard he left The Battery to join the AE crew, I called right away to get help with my companies holiday event. From day one Jesse was helpful, fun to work with and full of ideas. I never had a doubt in my mind that the event wouldn’t be delightful, lighthearted and personal. Jesse just gets it. He’s smart, fun to work with and a real person. Everyone I talked to at Alison Events was kind, outgoing and creative. I could not have asked for a better experience planning a holiday party with them. Jesse had the best access to new vendors, venues and he’s a wealth of information on event planning. I can’t wait until next year to do it all over again! Thank you, Jesse!

Every year at salesforce we run a thank you event for our employees that have been with us for 10 years. We call it dinner of the decade. I hired Alison and her team — Holly & Alicia to come up with the concept, find a space for us and mastermind the entire evening from arrivals through to thank you. Our CEO and the entire leadership were attending so everything needed to be incredible and top notch.
Alison and her team took the details to a whole new level. It’s the little touches that make a big difference and the 100 plus attendees were blown away by the atmosphere, the food, décor and the level of service. Every suggestion they made added to the «specialness» of the event.
I worked with the team on this event day in & out for weeks, they were as passionate about ensuring we blow everyones socks off as I was.
We had a lot of last minute changes, and Alison’s team took everything in their stride and accommodated my requests with ease and simplicity.
When I hire an events team, I really look for a team that is going to take the stress and burden away from me, turn my vision into reality, and do it with grace and simplicity.
Alison, Holly & Alicia did just that. I’m always looking for ways to work with them again.

This review is long overdue, but also perfect timing as we just got our wedding photos a few weeks ago and spent a lot of timing showing them off to people over T-​giving! We got married in Rutherford, CA in mid– September and had the best weekend of our entire lives (yes, weekend — we had the AE team working for 4 days straight). They helped us pull off welcome gift distribution at no less than 7 different hotels all over the Napa Valley, a Friday welcome cocktail party for the entire group, obviously ALL day Saturday wedding shenanigans including an after party at a separate venue with entirely different furniture/​ambience/​music AND a Sunday brunch that EVERYONE showed up for. Everything was completely flawless and our guests felt spoiled the entire weekend. The BEST part is that I’m generally an extremely type-​A personality and everyone kept remarking throughout the entire wedding weekend that I was so calm it was disturbing — they’d never seen me that way. It’s because I knew that Sunna (and Susie and Hilary and the rest of the team) had everything more covered than I ever could and that not only were they handling all the preparations but they were also telling me/​the groom/​my family where and when we needed to be places. I’m one of the first of my friends to get married and the only girl in my family so my parents (and groom) and I didn’t really know where to start, other than we wanted a Napa wedding. Sunna helped us create a vision from very minimal ideas and make it into the wedding of our dreams. We LOVED every single vendor that we worked with — the florist, the caterers, our photographer (the photos are absolutely AMAZING) and we found them all through Sunna’s guidance. We rarely even met with more than one of each vendor because we trusted Sunna’s opinion and taste so much — and we were definitely right to do that!
I could ramble on forever but the bottom-​line is that Sunna, Susie, Alison and the rest of the AE team made a pretty stressful process (we certainly hit some major issues with hotels, etc. along the way) extremely easy on us. The best advice I can give you is to trust their opinion — Sunna knows what she’s doing and also manages to stay calm throughout the process (at least on the outside, haha), which can’t be beat! We will absolutely use Sunna and AE again when the opportunity arises. BEST WEEKEND EVER!!! And we never could have done it without Sunna!

Alison Events helped plan our August wedding in beautiful Sonoma, CA. Words will never be enough to thank Sunna and Susie for all the help and guidance they provided during the planning process and the big day. From the very beginning, everyone at Alison Events made you feel like you were their best friends. They were super friendly, upbeat and always made my husband and I feel special. Since we were planning a destination wedding from the East Coast, we were concerned with not knowing great vendors. Sunna knocked it out of the park bringing us the best vendors to work with i.e.best photographer and videographer, florist, DJ, rentals. She was even so amazing that she went out her of way to search a guitarist I found online with no name or company provided, just a picture I found from a wedding blog! The day of our wedding was so unbelievable and completely stress free. Alison, Susie, and others from Alison Events made it impossible to worry about anything. I can honestly say nothing went wrong. Thank you so much to Alison Events for making my dream wedding come true. I would recommend them to anyone planning a destination wedding anywhere in the world!

I can’t begin to explain the amazing help this team was… I was one panicked bride and every time I saw Laura and Susies face day of the wedding they put me at ease :) I seriously (I am biased) think may wedding was perfect but I couldn’t have done it without them… not even close. They went over and ABOVE what they needed to do. This was seriously worth EVERY penny and anyone that is debating getting an event planner… DON’T it was the best decision I made. I seriously want to thank Susie, Sunna, and Laura for all you did. I just wish I had more to work with you guys with
I had a vision, they enhanced it, and then implemented it. There creative ideas were just ridiculous. I seriously thank you guys SO MUCH

Alison Events (Sunna Yassin) planned my 50^th birthday party recently. I am completely not a planning type and did not have any idea what is required to pull off a fantastic event. Luckily, Sunna and her partners at Alison Events were able to discern what I was looking for and made everything happen. All the details about food, cake, drinks, location were handled smoothly and beautifully. But the thing I remember most is the magical space they created, the feel that it had. My guests and I were enchanted and had a wonderful time. I can’t imagine having wanted anything to have gone differently. And the several months leading up to the party were a breeze, too, because Sunna was on top of everything.

Sunna Yassin from Alison Events planned our recent dream wedding in Sonoma and it was just that — a dream! She is an absolute doll and total professional. She will give it to you straight and that directness is a quality I appreciate more than any other. She is fantastic with immaculate taste. I can’t recommend her more and my husband and mother would say the same. She really became a great friend to all of us throughout the process and we were sad when it was over bc we wouldn’t get to talk to her as often. Can’t wait to ask her to help plan friends’ weddings, and maybe even a baby shower in the future. :)

I just realized that I never actually posted my Unilocal review of Alison Events after our wonderful June 2011 wedding!
We ended up working primarily with Kelsey (with Alyssa’s support) over the course of more than 18 months — and during that time, my husband and I were actually traveling out of the country for a full year, which meant we did a lot of our planning with them remotely. Our wedding weekend was a 4-​day affair at a venue in the Russian River Valley — rehearsal dinner on Thurs; welcome BBQ on Friday; Saturday wedding ceremony & reception; Sunday farewell brunch. Between the long-​distance wedding planning and the number of events (and logistics) we needed to plan at at our venue, there’s NO way we could’ve pulled off the amazing weekend we did without the ladies at Alison Events.
As others have noted here, they are super fun to work with and ended up feeling more like friends than planners by the end of our year and a half together. That said, they’re also very much what my husband and I call GSD — «get shit done». :) They were very good at keeping us on task with decisions that needed to be made, bills that needed to be paid, etc. They tend to work frequently with the same vendors (Brown Paper Design, Hello Lucky, etc) and will nudge you in that direction, but those vendors were all excellent, and honestly, it saved us so many hours of having to do our own research by just being able to go with their trusted vendors. And the few times we wanted to use someone they hadn’t worked with before (as we did for our invitations and our band), they were totally supportive.
Since our budget ended up higher than we originally planned, we pushed them to look for ways to cut costs and they were quite sensitive to that. Kelsey did some hardball negotiating with our venue over some of the items on the contract, and she managed to keep our rental costs lower by finding clever ways to re-​use our rental items over the course of the weekend. Those things didn’t make a huge dent in our overall budget, but I appreciated how they were always looking for ways to try to keep our costs lower. Their planning fee is admittedly pretty high, but it’s important to remember that once you hire them, they will work their butts off for you. (I can’t tell you how many hundreds [thousands?] of emails I exchanged with Kelsey… she is seemingly always online.)
They’re design aesthetic is excellent, and for me, that was also a great help. (I’m not the type of woman who has spent her whole life looking at bridal magazines, so I didn’t come into wedding planning with a specific «look» in mind — it helped to get their great suggestions for design.) Kelsey is awesome about brainstorming new ideas on the spot… and once you get to a point where you’re ready to start making decisions about table settings, etc, they’ll have you come into the office and literally have different table settings laid out for you to choose from. So easy!
The other great thing I’ll say about them — and I’m not sure I would’ve recognized the importance of this early on — but they are super relaxed. Every bride encounters stressful moments in wedding planning, but Kelsey and Alyssa have this amazing ability to calm you down with their zen vibe. It seems nothing ruffles their feathers. That’s a huge help when you’re in the thick of things — you want someone who will keep you calm, not up your stress and anxiety level.
The last thing I’ll say is that we ended up having a very logistically complicated wedding. Lighting, furniture, heat lamps — all of that stuff had to be brought in, and Kelsey and her team had the whole system down pat. Not once during our entire wedding weekend did I have to worry about things getting moved to where they were supposed to go or being set up at the right time. I trusted that Kelsey and her team were on it, which freed me up to spend time with our guests and really be present in the weekend. I think that is single greatest gift a good wedding planner can give you, and Alison Events were superstars there. They were on it, and everything flowed perfectly. In the end, that’s what it’s all about, right?

I’ve had the pleasure of working with the ladies at Alison Events on a several different projects over the last few years. They are a couple of the most hard-​working, attentive, patient, talented and creative people I’ve met in the event planning world, and my job has me interfacing with a lot of them. Its a stressful and frazzled atmosphere dealing with lots of conflicting personalities, demands and setbacks, and they are masters at cultivating a ‘got things under control’ vibe mixed with a fun-​loving, rational, and cheerful attitude. They take such personal pride in each of their events and are truly vested in all they do without any sense of being jaded or annoyed– its SO refreshing to see that.
I’ve worked mostly with Kelsey who is incredible– she’s consulted on some of my corporate and nonprofit projects in the past and is always my go-​to when I need event related advice and help with logistics. I kind of wish I could have her in the delivery room for my first born child– she’s super collected and professional. I’m already married but If I wasn’t I’d hire Alison Events in a heartbeat and have consistently recommended them. They have a spectacular eye for design and a voracious spirit to do find new and inspired looks tailored to their clients– their is definitely a reason they always end up in Martha Stewart Weddings, Style Me Pretty and other major wedding publications. But I have to say, if you’re a bride-​to-​be into satin table spreads and lots of bling, they’re probably not your cup of tea.
They only allow a couple weddings a month, so they do get booked up pretty quick since most of the times when they are not at a wedding, they are away on site visits, client meetings, vendor coordination and all the rest of the behind-​the-​scenes work, and are girls on the go. So I suggest contacting them really early! They’ve got really strong vendor relationships that result in the best collaborations– after all, event planning is like being in a band– you have to trust your partners and they always pull off amazingly unique creations each time.
More than anything, I appreciate their straightforward and honest communication style– if something wont work, Kelsey is the first to give it to me straight and constructively and always has problem-​solving alternatives– she’s a true advocate. In the event world $&^t happens all the time and they always seem to pull it off without a hitch.
Did I mention they’re a blast to hang out with as well? It’s a win win.

Alison Events (A.K.A. Alison, Kelsey and Alyssa) helped us plan our wedding about a year ago and i have nothing but great things to say about them — so if you don’t want to read a bunch of positive stuff, you should probably move it along now.
i never really thought about my own wedding before we got engaged, so it was very overwhelming to come up with a plan. (secretly, i had kind of hoped we’d just do the City Hall thing but that was out of the question, according to our parents.)
my aversion to planning and my love of procrastination would probably have stifled the entire process had we not enlisted Alison Events for their help. it was honestly the sheer will, vision and stick-​to-​it-​iveness of the women at Alison Events that made our wedding happen.
and what a wedding. the best thing about it was that it felt like Ours, and yet surpassed what we’d ever imagined it could be. not to be overly shmaltzy, but they took our ideas and turned them into poetry. or something else that’s much more intricate than just an idea.
also, they appreciated that we were from a creative industry and protected us from the cookie cutter, boring stuff that some weddings can become. they upheld our high standards.
plus, they’re just nice, funny, down to earth, normal, cool women who bring their senses of humor and enthusiasm to every meeting, right along with their professionalism.
anyway, they’re great. honest. i would totally, totally use them for my next wedding. KIDDING, honey. kidding.

Honk Honk for AE!
LOVE these very talented women.
Unilocal, can I get a 6^th star for AE please?
My wifie and I recently worked with AE to plan our wedding. It was out of town and they made it all happen…
The AE team is:
* CREATIVE — great eyes, vision, artistic capabilities and all done very tastefully. Great at listening, following the bride and groom’s lead, taste prefs, etc. and incorporating our requests into the event. They were AMAZING.
* HARD WORKING — when it is your turn to meet, greet, travel and come the weekend of, the AE team is there and kicks arse. They worked long hours (can you say a 16 hour day on the day of)? They execute very well and work their butts off!
* FUN — they have a fun time while working and you will have fun hanging out and collaborating with them.
* COOL — These chicas are IT. ‘Nuff said!
In addition, they served us great hors d’oeuvres (apricots ‘n nuts yo!) during our office visits.
We worked with Alison, Kelsey, Alyssa and all were fab. They also hired some helpers where the event took place and they too were filled with complete and utter awesomeness.
DO IT.
AE, I DO!

One word — fabulous! This review is LONG overdue…
Kelsey was our coordinator for our wedding, and she is absolutely fantastic! Wildly creative, she helped take my vision and make it a reality, while at the same time staying very mindful of our budget. She was there every step of the way — without her we would have drowned in all the planning!
But Kelsey’s best quality, and the reason you MUST choose Alison Events for your wedding/​event, is that she actually cares about you — it’s not just a job, she genuinely wants to make your day as amazing as possible.

Let me start off by saying that, I was absolutely thrilled with the way my wedding turned out (see the pics in my profile) — due in large part to the hard work Stacy McCain put into planning and organizing. We chose the «little more than the day of» package because we had a limited budget and a vision that we wanted to carry out. (Hey, I married an architect.) Stacy went above and beyond the month before the wedding to painstakingly ensure that everything would be planned and executed according to our vision.
Alison Events definitely understood the «look and feel» we were trying to achieve. We didn’t want someone to simply coordinate. Stacy’s suggestions and advice were critical. It was nice having her there to answer questions, coordinate with vendors, look over contracts, and help us with all of the little details that made our day so special — she even added some little touches we hadn’t thought about, like putting nice candles, soap, and lotion in the bathroom.
The most helpful thing Stacy did on the day of the wedding was to be calm. Her calmness helped reinforce that she had taken care of everything. Which she had! It was great that Stacy was so on top of things: she anticipated what we would need, in some cases, before we even knew we needed it. When we got to the venue, she had a kit for me that included needle and thread, deodorant, and a bunch of other little items. Thank God for the deodorant because with all my beautification throughout the day, I had forgotten to apply my pit stick. And the last thing a bride wants is to smell like BO!
Stacy didn’t hyperventilate when we ran out of red wine at 8:30 and still had three hours of reception left. She just came over and softly said, «We’re almost out of red wine, shall I get more?» We said yes and she waved her magic wand and made it happen. At the end of the night, she even helped get some drunken guests get home safely (thanks to all the extra wine!), running outside and waving down a cab for one super wasted lady.
Seriously, I was dubious about the whole wedding planner thing and whether we should pay for one, but it was well worth the money. My advice would be to find a good one you trust, even if you don’t use Alison Events. You don’t want to be worrying about little details (or smelling like body odor) on your wedding day.

I just got finished with a wedding that was a joint venture between Alison Events and Sillapere (the designer). I produced the event for Sillapere and got to know the ladies at Alison Events intimately to say the least.
I worked mainly with Stacy McCain, who is in my book one of the sweetest, most prepared, accommodating, understanding planners out there. I would work with her (personally) in a heartbeat.
Stacy was the lead planner on this event and was a big help in coordinating all our production efforts leading up to the big day.
She is great with the clients and with vendors alike. She put out many a fire before it got out of hand and helped me stay on good terms with the site (hopefully they’ll have us back again, after all the craziness… eek!).
I personally can’t comment on the fees they charge. However, as with all planners there is a sizeable expense I’m sure. But you can’t beat the level of service and coordination that they can provide. If you can swing it, it’s more than worth it.
I’ve worked with a variety of the top wedding planners in the Bay Area and love that Alison and her team have a cool, casual demeanor that relaxes everyone from the bride & groom to the workers putting together the tents on site.
It was a pleasure working with them and I’m looking forward to our next project together!