From Trust to Wedding of the Year

The Story Behind an Award-Winning Celebration

There are some weddings that stay with you long after the last candle is blown out and the final guest leaves the dance floor. Amara and John’s wedding was one of those weddings. 

On August 4, 2026, I sat in a ballroom at the National Association for Catering & Events Experience Conference in New Orleans and heard CM Event Design announced as the recipient of the NACE ONE Award for the 2025 Wedding of the Year ($50,000 – $100,000). 

Even writing that sentence still feels a little surreal. 

The award itself was an incredible honor, but what makes it especially meaningful to me is everything that happened long before anyone knew this wedding would become an award-winning one. 

It Started With Christina 

My first connection to this wedding wasn’t actually with Amara. It was with her mom, Christina. Christina reached out to me about planning her daughter’s wedding, and from our very first conversation, there was a connection and level of trust that I don’t take lightly. In fact, she was ready for me to send the contract before I had even had a chance to speak with Amara. 

That has always stuck with me. 

Of course, Amara and I needed to talk. This was her wedding, and it was important to me that she felt comfortable with me, my planning style and the process we were about to go through together. Once we connected, everything began to take shape. 

One of the greatest compliments a couple and their family can give a planner is trust, and throughout the planning process, Amara, John and Christina gave me room to do what I do best. 

They didn’t come to me with a completed vendor team and ask me simply to manage it. They trusted me to help build it. 

Curating the Right Vendor Team 

A wedding like this isn’t created by hiring a collection of vendors independently and hoping everything comes together. 

Every decision affects another decision. 

The venue affects the design. 

The rentals affect the floral. 

The tabletop affects the overall room. 

The timeline affects the guest experience. 

And the personalities and working styles of the vendor team matter just as much as what each company provides. Before I ever started recommending vendors, I spent time getting to know Amara & John. I wanted to understand their style, their personalities, what mattered most to them and, just as importantly, what didn’t. 

Every couple has different priorities. For Amara and John, it was important that the wedding felt like them, not like a collection of trends or a copy of something they had seen before. Once I understood the overall vision, I was able to curate a vendor list specifically for them. 

Not a massive spreadsheet filled with dozens of names. A thoughtful group of vendors who I believed were the right fit for their wedding, their personalities and the experience they wanted to create. 

From there, I connected them directly with each vendor and stayed involved in those conversations. I was on the calls, helping guide the discussion, answering questions, making sure everyone understood the vision and helping Amara and John feel confident in each decision. 

The process moved quickly because there was trust on both sides. Contracts were signed right away with Justin Wright Photography, DJ Russ Pollard and Dream Events & Catering. Deposits were paid. And one by one, the team behind their wedding came together. 

That is one of the parts of full-service planning I value most. My clients don’t need 25 options. They need the right option. It is not simply sending a couple a list of names and telling them to start calling. It is knowing the right people to bring into the room, making the introductions, helping navigate the conversations, and creating a vendor team that works well together from the very beginning. 

By the time we moved deeper into design with The Laughing Petal and St. Croix Designs and further into logistics with Signature Transportation and Details Nashville, we had a team in place that understood the vision and was invested in creating something special for Amara and John. And that foundation of trust became an important part of everything we created from that point forward. 

And Then There Were the Plates… 

No wedding planning process is completely without a curveball.

Ours came courtesy of the specialty dinner plates. 

We had already gone through the rental selection process and created Amara’s tablescape when we learned that Curated Events did not have enough of the specialty plates we had selected for the entire wedding. 

On paper, it might sound like a small detail. But when you have spent months making decisions and picturing exactly how your wedding will look, a change like that can feel much bigger. 

We scheduled a second rental appointment so we could rebuild the tablescape and find another combination that still felt like Amara’s original vision. That appointment was a hard one. Amara was understandably stressed and disappointed. She had already made this decision, loved what we had created, and now she was being asked to revisit it because of something completely outside of her control. 

As her planner, seeing her upset was one of those moments you never want to experience. My job wasn’t to tell her it was “just a plate” or rush her into choosing something else. My job was to understand why she was disappointed, take some of that stress off her shoulders and help find a solution that still felt intentional and beautiful. 

So we slowed down, looked at the options again and rebuilt the tabletop piece by piece. By the end, we had a new design that worked for the full guest count and still felt cohesive with everything we had created for the wedding. 

And when the wedding day arrived, no guest knew there had ever been an issue. They simply saw a beautiful, finished tablescape. 

Those are the moments that often never make it into the wedding photos, but they are a very real part of planning. Things change. Inventory disappears. A vendor may not be able to provide exactly what was originally selected. The planner’s job is to protect the vision while also protecting the couple from having to carry every problem themselves. 

The Details Were Beautiful, But the Experience Was the Goal 

It is easy to look at photographs from a wedding like this and focus on the design. 

The tablescape. 

The florals. 

The lighting. 

The details. 

And those things absolutely matter. 

But a beautiful room has never been my only definition of a successful wedding. The goal is to create an experience where all of those pieces work together. Guests shouldn’t be thinking about timelines, rental counts, vendor arrivals or what had to be changed behind the scenes. 

They should simply feel like they are part of something special. 

And the couple should be able to experience their wedding instead of managing it. 

That is where months of planning, vendor communication, design decisions, logistics and problem-solving finally become invisible. 

Then Came New Orleans 

When this wedding was nominated for a NACE ONE Award, I was already incredibly proud. Being recognized by an organization of event professionals who understand exactly how much work goes into producing a wedding is meaningful on its own. 

But I still didn’t expect what happened next. 

Sitting at the awards in New Orleans, when it got to our category, I looked down at my hands waiting for the winner to be announced. For a moment, I didn’t hear our name. And then I realized they were announcing CM Event Design. 

We had won. 

Wedding of the Year. 

There was shock, excitement and probably a few seconds where my brain had to catch up with what was actually happening. 

What I thought about afterward, though, wasn’t simply the trophy. 

I thought about the first conversation with Christina. 

I thought about finally talking with Amara. 

I thought about the vendor recommendations, the design meetings and all of the decisions that eventually became one wedding day. I even thought about those specialty plates and the second appointment where we sat down and rebuilt the tablescape. 

Because that is wedding planning. 

It is hundreds of conversations, decisions, relationships and solutions that guests will never know happened. And then, eventually, it all becomes one day. 

More Than an Award 

Winning the NACE ONE Award for Wedding of the Year is one of the proudest moments of my career. But what I am most proud of isn’t that this wedding eventually had the words Wedding of the Year attached to it. 

I’m proud that Christina trusted me before I even spoke to her daughter. I’m proud that Amara and John trusted me with one of the biggest celebrations of their lives. I’m proud of the vendor team we built and what we created together. I’m proud that when something didn’t work, we didn’t settle. We went back and found a better solution. 

And I’m proud that a wedding that began with one family placing their trust in CM Event Design went on to be recognized nationally by our industry. 

Awards are incredible. 

But the trust that comes before them? 

That’s the part I will always remember.