At Last Event Planning: 2009

At Last Event Planning is featured in a FABULOUSLY written article in the Chagrin Valley Times Magazine!!! We are thrilled to be a featured business in this lovely local magazine. Thank you Lisa for interviewing us!

By LISA FREDRICKSON
At Last Event Planning is the culmination
of everything about its owner and president,
Amy Hissa. She has combined her love for people,
attention to detail and creative flair with
her sense of entrepreneurship to build an
event-planning company that is garnering rave
reviews from clients. At Last Event Planning
offers a broad range of packages for parties and
corporate events, but the company’s specialty,
and Ms. Hissa’s, is creating and executing the
perfect wedding.
Ms. Hissa has always been interested in
planning parties. She has maintained a binder
of event and wedding ideas since high school.
She has a long history of planning church
events and theme parties and has helped many
friends plan for their own special day. Her
warm heart is evident through her work as a
physical therapist, and she sharpened her business
savvy by earning a business minor in college.
But it was through her efforts as volunteer
chairman for an American Cancer Society
Relay for Life fund-raiser that she learned she
had a real knack for visualizing the big picture
of an event while simultaneously attending to
each tiny detail.
For four years, At Last Event Planning has
been guiding brides through each detail of their
wedding day, from the engagement through the
honeymoon departure.
“People are increasingly busy,” Ms. Hissa
said. “They are overbooked and overscheduled,
and planning a wedding can feel like a
full-time job,” she said. At Last Event Planning
can present couples with choices of vendors
and venues and help them sift through and
compare packages and prices. “We can offer
brides real value by providing vendor discounts
they wouldn’t ordinarily have access to,” she
added.
The wedding-planning process begins with
a complimentary consultation. Services
include setting and managing the budget,
developing the timeline and negotiating and
arranging for rentals and vendors. The professionals
at At Last Event Planning will create,
assemble, send and track the invitations and
assist with the wedding-reception favors. They
will coordinate and execute event setup and
takedown, and they will even take care of dayafter
errands.
Ms. Hissa prides herself on really getting to
know her clients so that the bride’s and
groom’s individual personalities are celebrated
along with the nuptials. “At Last Event
Planning is unique within the industry because
of the personal relationships we develop with
our clients,” she said. “I know what is going on
in their lives,” she added. “We become
friends.”
Ms. Hissa is able to help couples with an
overall vision of their wedding day, but it is her
attention to detail that has made At Last Event
Planning so successful. Her experience has
given her the ability to glean a concept from
her clients and translate that to the little details
that together create the whole affect of each
individual wedding day. “We are the visionaries
that create a look and feel and put it all
together so that it looks right and makes sense,”
she said.
And those details can be challenging.
According to Ms. Hissa, one of the biggest
challenges in planning today’s wedding is
when the bride doesn’t live here but wants to
get married here, because this is where she
grew up. At Last Event Planning performs the
footwork, alleviating the stress for the long-distance
bride.
Ms. Hissa also helps clients meet the challenge
of staying on budget. Today’s family
dynamics present unique challenges with the
prevalence of step-families and “significant
others.” In these instances, she is part counselor
and part mediator, helping couples negotiate
ways to include and be respectful of everyone.
Ms. Hissa has expanded her service to
brides and bridal parties with the recent addition
of Ooh La La Bridal Boutique, offering
high-end custom wedding and prom gowns for
a fraction of designer prices. “We are able to
create designer-styled gowns for less by working
directly with a designer and manufacturer,”
she said. Their Web site — oohlalabridal.com
— brings a virtual bridal boutique to the client
from anywhere at any time.
Ms. Hissa has parlayed her people skills
and entrepreneurial spirit into a successful and
growing business. She enjoys being her own
boss, and many brides have taken comfort in
the knowledge that she is the boss of their wedding.
“I am kind of bossy,” she said with a
smile, “but brides want me to be in charge.”
But mostly, she said, “they just need someone
to tell them it’s OK.”Ms. Hissa has proven that
a wedding planned by At Last Event Planning
is much more than just OK.

Photo compliments of http://www.eyesoftheworld.net, the very talented Itamar!

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