Wedding Wednesday with Lyons Events | Wedding Planning & Design

I’m so excited to feature Lyons Events today as a part of the Wedding Wednesday series! Each Wednesday, we hear from a different wedding vendor about their stories, their tips & tricks for brides, and what they do!

Linda Lyons is the creative mind behind Lyons Events, a wedding planning & design service in Dallas, Texas. Linda helps brides navigate their way through the planning process & brings their wedding day visions to life! Read through her interview below to hear about her story, what she loves about helping brides plan their weddings, and her tips for brides on a budget. Check out the bottom the page for photo credit on the gorgeous images of weddings she’s planned, and be sure to visit her website & social media to see more of her amazing work.

Linda Lyons  |  Lyons Events
lyonsevents.com  |  Contact
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My journey in the event planning industry actually started back in college. I was super involved in several organizations that put on events for the large student body. I planned balls, fashion shows, banquets, concerts, speakers, etc… I never imagined it to be a career path for me, but I completely enjoyed the harmony of logistics and design. I actually moved to New York shortly after graduation and pursued my degree in retail merchandising to become a buyer in the fashion industry. I moved back to Dallas and worked corporate retail for almost a decade! During this time, many of my friends started getting married and I started to get my feet wet again with events! Soon, word got out and it wasn’t just friends of friends I was helping anymore – I actually had real clients! I had to moonlight as a planner for about five years, as I had a full time job, and finally quit the corporate world about three years ago and haven’t looked back!

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I LOVE the relationship part of weddings. I truly cherish getting to know my couples and love incorporating as many personal details in their design element as possible. I want their guests to enter and know that they are walking into a unique and personalized event. In our design consultation, I pull together all of their inspiration – whether it be from Pinterest, Instagram, magazines – and streamline their vision to create a design board complete with color palette that shows the aesthetic of their weekend. We incorporate this to make sure all elements are cohesive throughout their event through the use of the their florals and paper elements, etc…

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Oh, great question! I have to say – regardless of service level, I highly recommend having someone on the day to finish executing your vision! You’ve put so much work into your wedding, now you have to actually star in your own show so you need someone to hand the reigns over to.

I specialize in full service planning, which essentially means that I start working with you from whatever stage you’re at in your planning process. I create a pretty in-depth planning guide by vendor by month so that you can see the steps until the finish line. I help you source all vendors to meet your needs in design and budget, and help to manage all moving parts on your actual day. This means helping set up a timeline to coordinate arrival, set-up and teardown times, as well as managing all of the events of the actual wedding day. The design portion as I mentioned earlier is also included in this package, for me, and one of my favorite things to do in the planning process. Planners also save you a lot of time in terms of research as they have usually a great list of vendors by category so they can tell you average pricing, process and save hours of individual research. This is just a glimpse of what all a full service planner will do for you – but know that they will help you navigate these foreign waters, and be there for you on the wedding day!

I associate day-of and month-of services synonymously. Depending on the planner, they usually start to step in about 2-3 months out from your wedding date and take this time to start learning all the work you’ve done for the wedding. This would include gathering all vendor contracts you’ve signed, tying up any last minute details, and start compiling a timeline for all vendors and wedding party to follow. They will generally coordinate your ceremony rehearsal and be there to manage all vendors on the wedding day.

The difference between the two is essentially based on the legwork of the planner and how early in the process they start to be the point of contact. The reason I specialize in full service is that there are so many moving parts in a wedding, and I like to be involved as early as I can so that I can comfortably make the calls on behalf of my clients on the wedding day. There are so many decisions that have to be made then – and I can confidently make these for them since I’ve been part of their journey for so long.

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I work with all budget types and the thing I ask all of my clients to do is to give me a list of the most important things for their wedding day, and we prioritize their budget to make sure we can make those work before focusing on the rest of the categories. So for instance, if a couple comes to me and says that having a band is most important to them because they want to make sure their friends and family dance the night away – we try to tackle that first, and help spread out your budget to cover the rest. You can be so creative and think outside the box to work with your budget. Also, selfish plug here, but one of the many benefits of having a planner is that they can help maneuver you and help you be most efficient in maximizing your budget by category.

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There are lots of ways to find a planner, but most brides find me through referrals – past couples that have used my services, or current vendors that I work with frequently. I appreciate this SO much, as one question I would ask your planner is for past client references to have the ability to ask candidly their experience with them. Some questions you can ask these references are – How did the whole planning process go? Did the planner provide them with solid advice in securing vendors? Did the couple feel that they executed everything to the best of their ability on the wedding day? How confident would they be to recommend them in the future? HA this was more than one question, but you get it!

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My biggest piece of advice is to make sure that you have chemistry with your planner when making the decision to hire them. I spend upwards of 200+ hours working with my clients and it’s so important that they have a level of trust with me. It’s an honor that they would allow me to be part of their day, and hand off their wedding for me to run with. I go through the highest of highs and some lows with my clients as wedding planning can be a bit stressful and emotional, so it’s SO important that you jive with whoever will be with you on the journey.

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lyonsevents.com  |  Contact
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