Imagine Weddings & Special Events

Rebecca planned our wedding at the Millwick in downtown Los Angeles. She was extremely helpful in coordinating all of our vendors and made the entire process much easier. I can’t imagine having done everything myself! I definitely recommend her!

My now husband and I decided to get married quite quickly, and we hired Rebecca within 2.5 months of our wedding date. Despite the rushed engagement, Rebecca pulled off the most incredible wedding I could have imagined!
I happen to be very detail oriented and picky, but Rebecca had a tremendous amount of patience with my constant input as well as my odd aversion to traditional bridal things. As my mom and I worked with her, Rebecca was able to expertly guide us towards the vendors who best fit our style. She was honest about what she thought would meet our expectations, and her instincts were completely on point. Her connections allowed us to hire the best vendors on extremely short notice, a feat which was made even more challenging due to us getting married four days before Christmas!
All of our guests continue to compliment us on the incredible wedding — not only on the beauty of the day but also the fantastic organization. Rebecca thought of everything, and every detail was well executed. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of Rebecca’s hard work and creativity. We will never forget our beautiful wedding day and Rebecca’s talent in pulling it all off! Thank you, Rebecca!

In October of 2015 I had the most beautiful wedding ever! Rebecca of Imagine helped to get it to the perfection level! I am a very strong minded person and needed to work with someone that understood this was my day /​my way and after I interviewed Rebecca I knew she was the perfect fit! She allows the bride to be the bride and ensures the day is about you and goes perfect. Rebecca has a very calm temperament that is so needed and appreciated during the wedding year. She also knows all vendors for all accepts of a wedding at all price points. Thank you to Rebecca for all of your hard work, advice and patience. To all Brides out there looking for a wedding planner– Rebecca is a wonderful choice and will ensure your day goes perfect!

Words can’t adequately express how much we love Rebecca & her extraordinary wedding & events company! She went above & beyond to ensure our wedding weekend was gorgeous & a once in a lifetime experience. She truly cares about the details & is dependable, reliable & always calm, positive & a pure pleasure to work with! We absolutely love her & highly recommend Imagine to anyone & everyone even considering tying the knot!!!

Simply put, Rebecca Gigandet is incredible. If you are wondering to what extent you might need a wedding planner or are even unsure about hiring one — listen when I say you absolutely need Rebecca. I initially thought that I could plan my wedding for the most part on my own — in general my husband and I thought we knew what we wanted and I have experience executing large scale events for work. But I hired Rebecca after our first phone call, because I immediately realized the depth of her expertise and that she would be able to help us do what I most likely could never do on my own — keep the wedding planning process enjoyable. Rebecca not only did that but also created such a personal, special and memorable experience that it surpassed all of our expectations. She really did help us create the wedding day of our dreams — it was everything we wanted and more.
Rebecca prioritizes all of the right things — what the bride and groom truly want out of their day. She took the time to really get to know and understand us so that she could properly guide us in the right direction. She has the most amazing contacts and vendor relationships I’ve ever seen — and she made sure to lead us towards people that fit us and our personalities, so we would have a good experience working with everyone. She was completely on point with all of them. Her instincts were flawless, she kept us on track, was able to pull together many things at the last minute for us without complaint and her incomparable experience definitely helped us avoid potential issues.
Our wedding was not the easiest to coordinate — we wanted a customized experience and rented a private estate where everything had to be brought in. But even though there were a plethora of details to worry about Rebecca was always a total joy to work with. After our wedding, friends kept asking how we found a vendor or how we made this decision or that — the answer was always ‘Rebecca.’
My husband and I respect Rebecca immensely for her professionalism and how much she genuinely cares about her clients, as well as her patience, integrity, compassion & understanding, impeccable level of taste and ability to stay completely calm in any kind of situation. We recommend her 1000 percent. We absolutely would not have had the amazing wedding (or fun journey planning it) that we did without her!!!

I don’t even know where to begin on this review about Rebecca short of saying everything about her work is PERFECTION! I’m so grateful to have had her as our wedding planner. I interviewed about 8 people before Rebecca was recommended to me and all it took was one phone conversation to know I had found «the one» (ok, the other one…). I’m so glad to have found her. She made all my wedding dreams a reality and I will be forever grateful for her!
Over the course of the 10 months from hiring her up to the day of (and even after) our wedding, Rebecca was everything I wanted in a planner and more. She has such a good read on her clients, she knows exactly when to step on the gas and when to lay low. She would take my vague ideas and turn them into concrete realities. She is connected with the BEST vendors around and would help match me with the right people for my wedding: photographer, florist, videographer, henna artist, DJ, lighting, rentals, etc. etc. I felt so confident in all the decisions we made thanks to Rebecca’s experience, knowledge, and insights. The planning process was relatively stress-​free working with Rebecca. Even when it came to allocating the budget, Rebecca helped us stay on top of things and in the end we actually had a surplus I used to splurge at the last minute on other types of rentals. She made last minute plans come together so wonderfully and handled every change with such grace and flexibility. Speaking of budget, don’t even think twice about her fees — not only is she incredibly reasonably priced for the market, she recoups all of that money and more back through her clever ideas, incredible handle on the budget, and her relationships with vendors which result in discounts back to you!
The day of the wedding was absolute perfection and I didn’t have to think about anything other than enjoying the moment because I knew Rebecca had it all covered. All in all, she is the absolute best in the business. I was actually a little sad when the wedding was over because I enjoyed our working relationship so much.
The other reviews here are SPOT ON and all I can say is that they mirror my experience with Rebecca as well. She’s a wonderful person and I would just say, stop reading Unilocal and hire her already!

Rebecca is as good as they come. She is knowledgeable, patient and has that immeasurable quality of making you feel comfortable and calm. I couldn’t say enough positive things about her.
I don’t think my fiancée and I will be getting married in Santa Barbara, but felt compelled to post my feelings about Rebecca. She met with us last weekend and took time out of her day to walk us through the process. I am very grateful.
Thank you Rebecca!

I had the pleasure of working with Rebecca Gigandet for our February 2015 wedding at El Encanto in Santa Barbara. She did a phenomenal job as our wedding coordinator and I can’t imagine how we would have pulled off our wedding ceremony and reception without her. We hired Rebecca about six months before our wedding and I’m very glad that we had her throughout the planning process. She has relationships with all of the best vendors in Santa Barbara (at various price points to meet your budget). I feel like I know Santa Barbara fairly well, but she was able to offer up so much invaluable information that I never would have come across on my own when it came to vendors and in-​the-​know SB stuff. She’s professional, easy to talk to, responsive and extremely detail-​oriented. I was very impressed with the Wedding Planning Calendar that she maintained for us. It covered things that I would never have never thought of — little things that make all the difference in ensuring that your overall planning process runs smoothly and on schedule. The ‘day of timeline’ that she maintains for bride, groom and family was another item that I was incredibly impressed with. It was an essential guide in making sure our party ran smooth — and that’s not to say that everything was overly-​regimented either. Rebecca has a way of organizing things in a seamless, effortless way. She does the heavy lifting so that the bride and groom can enjoy their moments throughout the day. Rebecca was an invaluable investment. I highly recommend her to any bride and groom who are looking for a top-​notch planner who completely invests their time, resources and connections into your big day.
Thank you, Rebecca!
Kind Regards,
Jay & Michelle

My husband and I were blissfully married in September of 2014… just seven months before that I was frantically searching for someone to help plan and coordinate our wedding. Rebecca at Imagine Weddings and Special Events was recommended to us, and we were so glad that she was!
Rebecca is easy to talk with, and was completely respectful of our wedding budget. She recommended the most stunning venue and incredibly talented vendors, and even informed me about the salon where I ended up buying my perfect wedding dress. She truly has a wonderful eye for detail and organization, and was vital to making our wedding day as beautiful as we imagined. Our wedding went so smoothly with Rebecca there to oversee everything, my husband and I were able to just relax with our family and enjoy the day without worrying about a thing.
We highly recommend Rebecca as a wedding coordinator; we are so thankful for her help and will be forever grateful.

Rebecca Gigandet, Imagine Weddings was beyond our ‘imagined dreams’! She was a stellar wedding planner. My daughter had chosen San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, CA as her wedding venue. Rebecca was on the preferred list from SYR and she was one of three planners we met and talked with before choosing one to work with. From our initial meeting she was professional, fun, filled with great ideas and
helpful at every turn.
As the mother of the bride Rebecca made my job seamless and seriously stress free.
We were traveling from San Diego to have meetings with Rebecca, florist and stationer, hair and makeup artist all recommended by Rebecca. ALL proved to be
wonderful. Our floral arrangements were so wonderful that not only were we pleased but friends attending the wedding were so impressed they stated that it was the most beautiful wedding they had attended.
We could not have had a more perfect day and can honestly say that without Rebecca doing much of the behind scene labor as well as working so closely with us throughout — the day would have been beautiful but not as stress free or fun as it turned out for all our family. Thank you Rebecca.
I would recommend Rebecca, Imagine Weddings to anyone having a wedding or event in the Santa Barbara region.

Rebecca is amazing. I didn’t know the first thing about planning a wedding or had any idea what i wanted. I’m super busy, terribly indecisive, and picky about the weirdest things… Rebecca is honestly the most patient and kind person i could have wished for during such a stressful time. While we lived in New York, she helped us plan a beautiful beach wedding in Santa Barbara. She gave us excellent advice and recommendations, steering us in the right direction, while being mindful of our personal styles and needs. She even spent hours talking to me as a friend, when I was devastated from the loss of a pet… However, as nice as she is, she always gets the job done. She means business! If something isn’t right, you can be sure that Rebecca will fix it. Since we were planning a destination wedding and working with so many different vendors, it was important to have a wedding planner that was experienced and had our best interests at heart. In the end, our wedding was more than we ever could have wished for.
Thanks Rebecca! You’re the best!
You can see our wedding here:

I was married on December 7^th, 2013 at the Four Seasons Biltmore, Santa Barbara. Rebecca was my bridal planner and to say that she was the VERY best is an understatement. Rebecca from start to finish far exceeded my expectations of a bridal planner. I worked (and when I say work, I use this very loosely as it never seemed like work because she made it all so much fun) with Rebecca from August 2012 to December 2013. She was involved in every aspect of my wedding and all of it went over flawlessly. Throughout the whole wedding process I felt she was the one who ultimately had my back. She got to know me to figure out what my «dream wedding» would be and she made sure that on my wedding day, it was all that I had ever «imagined» (pun intended). Our wedding day was by far the best day of my life… Rebecca took care of every little detail to make sure that I was not burdened by anything on my wedding day. There was rain in the forecast on the day of our wedding and so there was a possibility of having to move a few things and I literally had no stress since I knew that she would never compromise my wedding dream and vision. Rebecca is cool as a cucumber… There were several moments in the wedding planning process that were stressful and whenever I contacted her to ask a question about an external thing going on, she was knowledgable and always made me feel taken care of so that I could enjoy the process entirely. Throughout the wedding process, Rebecca made me feel like I was her only client… She always answered my questions promptly, always was available to help, and never NEVER let me down in any way, shape, or form. When I say that she was perfect in every way, I mean it. Now that our wedding day is over, I miss all the correspondence, planning, and get togethers with Rebecca because you see, Rebecca not only is an amazing wedding planner but she is a beautiful person inside and out and you want her as a friend. If you want a phenomenal bridal planner, look no further. So grateful for your help, Rebecca. Love, Lisa & Michael Strauss
* If I could give 100 stars here, I would!
Here is the vimeo link to our day, which was perfect!

I had the pleasure of having Rebecca Gigandet as my wedding planner for my October 13, 2012 wedding at The Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara, Ca. After talking with the top planners over the phone, I came to the conclusion that Rebecca was by far the most talented, professional and best for the job. We hired her and a 10 month planning process began, as well as a lifelong friendship.
My mom and I strongly agree we would not change a thing about the service we received from Rebecca during this 10 month time period. Never having visited Santa Barbara and being long distance when we booked our wedding initially, my mom and I put total trust into Rebecca and could not be any more thrilled with the outcome. Not only did Rebecca plan our big day, she continuously communicated with us throughout the process and organized a week-​long lavish itinerary!
Unlike other Santa Barbara wedding planners, Rebecca herself works on all of her client’s work versus passing it off to junior staff. Therefore, there is no communication gap. Rebecca quickly proved to me she knew her territory, as well as had experience and relationships with vendors. She is well respected by other vendors and holds long-​standing relationships with the community. While owning and operating Imagines Santa Barbara Weddings and Special Events for the past 13 years and devoting her life to successful events, Rebecca also has quite the impressive and reputable background in events throughout the country and with other hotels. She is a strong negotiator; has only the best customer service skills; is a hard worker; and does this while being extremely professional, knowledgeable and courteous, all while working with your budget. Rebecca overcomes any challenges that may be thrown in front of her, can multi-​task and work under high stress situations.
Not only was our wedding absolutely perfect in our eyes, it was also chosen to be featured in Mississippi Magazine’s 2014 bridal issue! If you want a planner to go above and beyond your expectations, as well as be by your side throughout your entire process, choose Imagines Weddings and Special Events. Although Rebecca is no longer my planner; she is such a good person that I know I can always depend on her to help us if need be, whether that be advice or just a simple hello. I truly miss working with her!!! Rebecca’s dedication to her clients and time management skills truly amaze me! It is absolutely mind boggling to think that she does this for every bride and client! Our rating, as seen above, is definitely an A+++++, 5-​star, 100% customer satisfaction rating.
With deepest gratitude and best regards,
Adrienne and Rickie Pares