The Green Ribbon Party Planning Co.

Nicole is awesome. And hilarious. She told my wife and I at one of our pre-​wedding sit downs that «She is not a wedding planner because she ‘Loves love’, but because she is organized and detail oriented.» It’s totally true and thank goodness for it. Our wedding was perfection because my wife and I figured out exactly what we wanted the night to be and Nicole helped us execute it perfectly. Nicole was always very responsive to our emails and phone calls. She was present at the venue. She wrangled my hooligan groomsman like a champ. She recommended THE PERFECT caterer. She also jumped in to lend a hand the day before when we were setting up the space (which was something that my wife and I chose to take on as a cost saver). I cannot recommend Nicole and The Green Ribbon Party Planning Co, Highly enough.

Nicole planned our destination wedding, as well as a Welcome Party and Farewell Brunch, and it honestly was the wedding weekend of our dreams thanks to all of her hard work, commitment, experience, & great sense of style!
We got married Labor Day weekend in Palm Springs, CA at The Parker hotel. We have family & friends all over from Southern California to the East Coast so we wanted to do an entire wedding weekend so we would have more time to enjoy & celebrate with everyone.
We really wanted our wedding to reflect our personal style. We love Mid Century Modern, the 60’s, Jonathan Adler, and a lot of color. From the moment we explained our style to Nicole, she knew exactly what we were looking for and we knew we could trust her guidance. She was very receptive to our ideas for décor, etc while keeping us focused on what would look the best. She’s not just going to agree with everything a couple suggests, she’s going to make sure your wedding turns out gorgeous, even if that means being honest with you about some of your ideas, it’s for the best!
As far as vendors, all of our vendors came from Nicole’s recommendations (invitations, florist, photographer, videographer, table & chair rentals, linens, lighting, desserts, DJ, dance floor, hair & makeup). We loved that Nicole worked with & had relationships with such talented vendors because it really helped us save time from having to search for reputable vendors and move on to all the fun details! The vendors she works with are not the cheapest, but they’re also not the most expensive. But you can be assured they’re all amazing!
Nicole really knows what she is doing. She has done it all before, so the advice she gives comes from experience. But she treats every wedding as its own special thing, so you know your wedding will be unique to your personality and style. Nicole is not a person that will just agree with you all time, but to be honest, do you want someone who says yes to everything and either cannot deliver or causes you to go way over budget? No, you want someone who can help guide you to what is going to be the most important things to focus on. That being said, if you feel strongly about something, it is your wedding and by all means tell her and she will always respect your wishes.
Onto our wedding day, it was way beyond our expectations and honestly was the BEST day of our lives! From the early morning where Nicole was dealing with vendors and taking care of our wedding guests and wedding party needs to the ceremony where she was organizing our first look and wrangling people so we didn’t have to stress about it. And when Nicole guided us into our ballroom for a sneak peek prior to the reception starting, we literally were speechless at how beautiful it was. Sometimes throughout the planning process it’s hard to envision everything together and picture all the little details together, while you’re making a lot of hard decisions and spending a lot of money, but if you hire Nicole, you will know that it’s all worth it in the end and it will all payoff when you see how beautiful your wedding turns out!

We hired Nicole for month-​of planning for our January wedding several months prior to our event. She was hugely helpful leading up to our wedding fielding all the questions we had well before her contract kicked in. She quickly replied to all of our emails and phone calls and her deep knowledge of the industry eased several of the stresses and confusions associated with wedding planning.
We loved our wedding and everything seemed completely seamless and easy despite the day’s unexpected challenges. We had multiple venues and each had an incredibly challenging coordinator – despite this Nicole continually followed up with them to ensure all of our expectations were met. Finally it poured most of the day, yet everything went smoothly and Nicole seemed to have thought of every detail and issue as they popped up that day.
Lastly, both my husband and I are designers and Nicole did an amazing job of helping us layout the venues to our liking while having an amazing design sensibility for the details. I had an incredible time at my wedding and was able to relax and enjoy the day entirely due to Nicole’s extreme attention to detail, organization, and amazing planning skills. Every vendor thoroughly enjoyed working with her and all of her vendor suggestions absolutely exceeded our expectations. I can’t recommend Nicole more wholeheartedly, she is a wonderful, down to earth professional – I can’t imagine anyone better to have helped us navigate the wedding planning process.

My husband and I got married in Montecito on 11÷1÷15. Nicole helped my husband and I plan our dream wedding and rehearsal dinner in 4 months! She is organized, has great taste, has connections to awesome vendors and is easy to get hold of– Nicole was always available via phone or email. My husband and I had such a relaxing wonderful and FUN wedding day because Nicole had taken care of everything. I would highly recommend Nicole to any ‘bride to be’s’.

My husband, Tim, and I got married a year ago in Santa Barbara, and Nicole did a fantastic job on our wedding. We were overwhelmed when we started planning, and knew we needed help. We looked on the Santa Barbara Historical Museum’s website (our reception location), and saw that Nicole had planned a really beautiful wedding there before, so we gave her a call. After talking to her for a few minutes and finding out that she went to Boston College and used to work for J. Crew, we knew it would be a good fit!
We met with Nicole before we started any of the major planning, and she took a ton of notes about what we were looking for. One thing Tim and I were stressed about was how to choose good vendors out of the seemingly endless options. There was no way to tell from a website whether a florist, DJ, or caterer was really as great as he/​she looked or was a total nightmare. When it was time to choose a photographer, caterer, etc., Nicole would send us three or so options that she knew we would like, and then we would choose the final one. She coordinated the vendors, told us when to pay someone, helped us negotiate, and kept us on a timeline leading up to the wedding. Nicole also worked with our florist to develop a cohesive design for everything from my bouquet to the buffet to the cake table. On the day of the wedding, Tim and I didn’t have to worry about anything. Nicole had it all handled. And, because Nicole had it handled, our families were also able to relax and enjoy themselves. The wedding was beautiful, fun, and totally exceeded our expectations. Our wedding photos even ended up on the California site for
, which we didn’t expect but allowed us to relive the day.

We hired Nicole at The Green Ribbon Party Planning Co. to help coordinate our wedding this past Jan. after she had set us up on a blind date 2 yrs prior! It was an absolutely amazing experience. I remember Nicole walking Jason and I through our reception before the rest of our guest and it was just magical! I kept saying, «This is just a dream!» Nicole was able to execute and deliver everything we had communicated to her that we wanted for our big day. She has great relationships with many vendors in all the different areas of putting your big day or event together! We found this very helpful as I never feel like I’ve «seen it all» before I make my decision.
If anything went wrong that day we definitely didn’t know about it… Nicole is very hands on and takes pride in making sure that her bride and groom have the best experience possible.
If we could do it all over again… We’d change nothing! I’m just waiting for the next event we can have Nicole do! She’s truly a talented planner that you can trust!!!

My husband and I just got married in April at El Encanto in Santa Barbara and Nicole helped plan our big day from start to finish. Nicole was very professional, easy to get a hold of through out the planning process, well organized, and extremely attentive. We were completely stress-​free on the day of our wedding and that was thanks to Nicole and her unbelievable follow through and attention to detail. She seriously does not miss a beat and she was an absolute pleasure throughout the whole process. Nicole also has fantastic taste and she really helped take our ideas and wedding inspiration to a whole new level of design. All in all Nicole was simply beyond wonderful. We highly recommend her!

Nicole is an incredible wedding planner! I cannot believe we were lucky enough to have her plan our summer nuptials last year.
Let me begin by saying… this woman has impeccable taste and a knack for channeling her style genius into a couple’s unique vision. I was amazed at how effortlessly she enhanced our DIY projects (my hubby and I are crafty) with a tweak or suggestion, how perfectly she elevated our concept to something even better than we could have imagined and how she fine tuned every detail with such creativity and finesse that our guests still talk about how personal and beautiful the wedding was… a year and a half later. Our wedding was even featured on Style-​me-​Pretty a few months later simply because her details were so whimsical and lovely!
From day one and throughout, Nicole was organized, communicative and hugely supportive. She put my ‘type A’ mother with her 1,000 questions at ease after a single meeting. She introduced us to a range of wonderful vendors who matched our budget, aesthetic and energy flawlessly. She was with us through every planning ‘milestone’ and guided us through rentals, tastings, florals etc. I would have been completely overwhelmed and befuddled without her.
Our ‘day of’ was joyful, dreamy and completely stress-​free, thanks to Nicole. I was well aware, after months of planning with her, that things would be perfect, our guests would be happy and we could dance the night away without at care! She is wonderful and I would highly recommend her to all new ‘brides-​to-​be” and «soon-​to-​be-​hubbies».

Recommended to me by a friend who was also a wedding planner, Nicole will help you make sure your day runs and smoothly as possible. I’ve never met anyone who takes more notes! Over the year and a half of planning with Nicole there was nothing I mentioned that she didn’t take note of for my wedding, nothing slipped past her. She’s a take no nonsense kind of woman which is EXACTLY what you need for your wedding day, so you can just enjoy the day and have fun. Nicole will make sure everything runs perfectly and quickly handle any issue than might pop up. She’s fun to work with, flexible with schedule and meetings (she drove from Santa Monica to Glendale to meet me on my work lunch break — twice!), arrived early to help coordinate all the set up the morning of my wedding, and even dressed to match the colors at my location! She has so many amazing connections and can hook you up with fabulous vendors, I would have been lost without her :)

When looking for a wedding planner, a mutual friend suggested I meet with Nicole Arena of The Green Ribbon Party Planning Co. Nicole genuinely cares about each bride (and groom, and event) and making sure ALL the details are taken care of perfectly. She is a get-​it-​done, no-​nonsense planner and won’t sugar coat things (which is what many planners do). Nicole listened and really understood the vision we had for our special day and was seriously available ²⁴⁄₇ — whether it was answering a small question, to setting up meetings with wonderful vendors, and everything else in between. She seriously thought of everything — the tiniest details made it extra special. My wedding day was 100% stress free because she handled it all. I couldn’t have asked for a better planner and recommend her to anyone who asks!

Nicole planned 2 huge events for me: my wedding (150 guests) and my business’ grand opening party (approx. 115 people). I get emotional when I think about how much she has helped make those 2 very important days so perfect! My wedding was in Mexico and Nicole made every detail perfect. From the check in guests were greeted with a drink and a goodie bag (all courtesy of Nicole), to a very organized 4 days of activities. My flowers and décor were dreamy-​I NEVER would have been able to pull those together myself. She was very organized and focused. Nicole is a «tell you like it is» kinda gal. I love that about her and appreciate her honesty. For my studio’s grand opening she knocked it out of the park again! So many cute touches and details, clients were raving about how beautiful the space looked. I have recommended Nicole to several friends who have used her for weddings and they are all completely happy with her. She has done everything from huge mega-​budget weddings to smaller, intimate ones and they all have the same result: a happy bride with a gorgeous wedding.

If I could give negative zero stars I would. Nicole is the most unprofessional and rudest person I have ever come across in my life.
EVERY vendor other than the one she recommended, person in my wedding party, and guests all commented on how rude, unsociable and lazy she was. GUESTS were telling me how she was being rude, checking on her phone constantly and looking like she didn’t want to be there. She was never friendly to any of my guests and never had anything together. My photographer was running around arranging things because my planner wasn’t doing it. She refused to come to my venue any earlier than 4:00 PM, and my wedding started at 6:00 PM.
She did not want to help unload boxes, most of the decorations we discussed she said she didn’t know where they went, and she had attitude with the minister, the venue coordinator, and my bridal party.
Here are some examples of her not doing/​knowing/​wanting to do her job:
–Not wanting to unload any boxes, or meeting with us at our hotel before the wedding to coordinate.
–When I asked to her write what guests wanted to eat on the back of their cards, she told me «normally people have this done before a wedding.» I asked her if she could do it very nicely, and her response was, «Well I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?»
–Her responses to most of our questions were met with an «I don’t know.»
–When we did the bridal walk and I noticed my groom was not already at the altar, she rolled her eyes and said, «We’ll send him out now.»
–I could not reach her through telephone on the day of the wedding until 1 hour before the wedding started.
–She told me the ‘Here Comes the Bride’ sign was flimsy and couldn’t be hung. My bridesmaid ended up telling me later it was fine and beautiful, and was a shame it couldn’t be used.
–And again, EVERYONE, I MEAN EVERYONE COMMENTED ON HOW NEGATIVE AND UNHAPPY SHE LOOKED.
I hired Nicole as my Day Of Coordinator. I paid her a large amount of money to do menial things anyone could have done. The day would have been overall BETTER with her not being there. Seriously, I could have used the staff already provided at my venue. The only useful thing that came about the whole thing, was her picking up and dropping off my linens.
I received a friendly email from her after my wedding asking if I was able to drop everything off okay. I wish she had had that attitude during the day of my wedding. Part of me wonders if she wrote that because I left great reviews for all my other vendors.
A wedding planner is supposed to make your life easier, not stress you out on the day of. I would never, ever, ever, recommend Nicole Arena.