Brittany Alphonso

We knew each other before either of us did this

Most vendor friendships in this city start at a load-in door. Ours did not. Corey and Brittany have known each other for years - since before either of them was in the wedding industry at all. The working relationship came second.

That matters less for your wedding than it does for ours, but it is worth saying plainly because it is the honest reason she is on this page. We are not swapping logos with a company we met at a bridal show. We have since worked wedding days together, which is the part that actually qualifies her for this list.

Knowing somebody for years does not make them good at their job. It does mean we are not guessing about how she runs a room, and it means we would say so here if the answer were anything other than what it is.

The fashion background is not decoration

Her own bio says the path to Honey Bee ran through producing fashion and special events before it ran through weddings. We would not normally lead with a planner's resume, but that one explains something you can see in the work.

Fashion production is the business of making a room look deliberate on a deadline, in front of an audience, with no second take. So is a wedding. The people who come out of that world tend to think about how a space reads from the back row, not just how the sweetheart table photographs. That is a design instinct, and design instinct is most of what separates planners once you get past competence.

Her three planning tiers

She does not publish a price list, so the number comes from a conversation. She offers a free consultation, which is the right way to start that one.

What a DJ notices

A planner who also caters is solving a specific problem, and it is a timing problem. The two moments most likely to knock a reception off its rails are the transition into dinner and the transition out of it. Those are kitchen-dependent. When the person running your timeline is also the person who knows exactly when the plates are going down, that gap between "toasts are done" and "the floor opens" gets shorter.

We are not going to tell you that in-house catering is automatically better than a caterer you hire separately - plenty of the best food we have worked around came from dedicated catering companies. But it removes a handoff, and handoffs are where wedding timelines go to die.

The one to ask her about is scope. If you want planning and catering and florals from the same person, ask early how she staffs a day where she is wearing all three hats. Any vendor offering that range should have a clear answer, and hers is worth hearing before you decide how much to hand over.

Where you will find her

Her site names the Fountain of Youth as a personal favorite, and says Honey Bee Events is a preferred vendor there. It is a venue we know well and have a page of our own about, so if that is where you are headed you have two vendors who already know the grounds.

When you do not need a full planner

Same thing we say on every one of these pages. If your venue comes with a strong in-house coordinator and your wedding is fifty people in one room, a full planning package buys you capability you will not use.

Her day-of tier exists for exactly that couple, and a planner who will sell you the small package instead of talking you up to the big one is telling you something useful. Ask her which tier she thinks you need.

If you want a different kind of planner - a larger team with more calendar depth, say - the other names on our planners list are worth a look. They are not interchangeable and we would not pretend otherwise.