My Event By Jen Kasten

Jen was extremely helpful in the process of pulling together all the moving parts for my son’s wedding. She was friendly and professional. We really appreciate everything she did for us.

Jen planned our destination wedding in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico which took place in December 2014. We started our wedding planning in January of 2014, and after deciding that we wanted to get married in Mexico, we found Jen through a simple Google search. Jen appealed to us because she was local (in Chicago), and is a native of Mexico. She first helped us decide on a destination in Mexico, and then sent us on a site visit to Puerto Vallarta where she had organized a packed schedule for us to see a ton of venues and vendors (hotels, restaurants, caterers, photographers, etc.). Having had to the opportunity to see all sorts of options, we felt very comfortable about making our final decisions. Jen showed us options we know we would have never found on our own.
As the planning process progressed, Jen made herself available to meet with us whenever we wanted and was always patient and generous with her time. She also created a to-​do list of activities for us to complete in between each meeting which made the whole process very organized and stress free.
In addition to planning our wedding reception, Jen also put together guest transportation, the rehearsal dinner, and a sunset boat cruise for our guests the day after our wedding. Jen really helped with the details that made our wedding feel special and unique.
We couldn’t have been happier about how our wedding turned out. It was truly amazing, Jen is a great planner and she was a pleasure to work with throughout the process.

Let me start by saying, if it was possible to give 0 stars, or negative stars– I would.
I was recently part of the wedding of a close friend where Jen was hired as the wedding coordinator. The wedding day itself was beautiful because the bride and groom are happy, beautiful people, the weather in Mexico was phenomenal and the hotel turned out a great party. That said, NONE of positive elements of the wedding were a contribution of Jen Kasten’s wedding coordinator services. Her presence seemed to add only confusion and stress and her negative, uncooperative attitude put a bad taste in my mouth (as well as the other bridesmaids).
Here is an example that illustrates her poor attitude (this is one of MANY instances): the five bridesmaids exited the bus in front of the church moments before we were to walk down the aisle. We each carried a small purse (containing bridesmaid essentials– lip gloss, compact, tissues, camera, etc.) and upon exiting the bus, we asked Jen if she would mind holding the purses for the duration of the short ceremony. She responded with a curt, irritated, «Girls, you should’ve thought about this ahead of time!!» before begrudgingly taking our purses (which again, were small and should’ve been no trouble to hold). I was floored by her rudeness and unprofessionalism. SHE should’ve thought of this ahead of time– it’s details like this that my friend and her fiancé were paying her A LOT to think about and take care of. One of the main responsibilities of a wedding coordinator is to think ahead and anticipate the needs of the bride, groom and yes, the bridal party, so the day is smooth and enjoyable for all involved. Jen seemed like she couldn’t be bothered to be helpful in any way which really mortified me since she was being paid to be there.
I was married less than a year ago and paid the daughter of one of my mom’s friends to act as a «day of» wedding coordinator for my wedding. This person did an INFINITELY better job than Jen and she doesn’t even work in the industry and had never done anything like this before! She simply understood that her job was to be helpful the day of the wedding and think of things ahead of time that would make the day go as perfectly as possible. Jen does not seem to understand that concept.
It also seemed like Jen was just lurking around serving no real purpose throughout the day, but then during important parts of the reception (toasts and dinner) found a reason to go bother the bride and groom– with God only knows what. Unless there’s a fire in the kitchen (maybe not even then!), the wedding coordinator should not be bothering the bride and groom once everyone is at the reception– that’s the point of thinking things through ahead of time.
Overall, I found Jen to be incredibly unprofessional and to add no value to the overall event. I understand she has a bit of a niche market in Chicago (lucky for her) — being from Mexico and living in Chicago– but I would NOT recommend her services to couples considering getting married in Mexico. She’s far more trouble than she’s worth.
Also, as people are reading other reviews and considering hiring Jen, I would caution you to think carefully about the elements the reviewers are attributing to Jen in their rave reviews. Many of the 5 star-​rated reviews talk about overall elements of beautiful weddings in Mexico. If I had to put money on it– these wonderful outcomes likely had very little to do with anything Jen provided. That’s the beauty of planning weddings in Mexico… Mexico is beautiful– it doesn’t mean Jen’s services made that happen. Just my two cents.

Jen planned our wedding for us in November 2013. She was really great to work with. My husband, Rocky, found her online. His google search was Mexico + Wedding + Chicago and he found Jen’s blog. We wanted someone to help us combine our two cultures – my American culture and his Mexican culture – into a great event but we had no idea where to start, we didn’t even know exactly where in Mexico we wanted to have the wedding. Jen took us through the whole process from setting up site visits to determining to cost of each of our options to negotiating rates with the hotels. She assisted our guests in making their room reservations and arranging their transportation to and from the hotel – even the little things like making sure those with young children had car seats in the vans. She assisted us in putting together a plan for decorations, entertainment and even came up with some creative ideas for place settings. She has a lot of contacts in Mexico in terms of vendors for music, perform the service, etc. For us, our best event was our Rehearsal Dinner Event (although it wasn’t so much of a dinner as it was a whole day lunch, DJ, day at the beach, dinner) that was really amazing. Our guests really loved that event and talked about what a great time they had – that day was all Jen’s planning. She found the venue, set everything up, gave suggestions for menu, cocktails. It was a very hidden spot – we would have never found it on our own!
We had probably a different wedding than most and our focus was maybe a little unconventional and Jen really worked with that. She worked within our budget, understood what our focus was and we were very happy – we wouldn’t have changed a thing. She spent so much time with us and her fee was worth every penny. Really a ton of time! We met with her every month for a first few months then closer to the wedding, it was every week. I think I am missing the «Bride Gene» so she helped me get excited about things like a dress and finding bridesmaid dresses and even helping to pull in ideas when it got messy. But, she wasn’t pushy and didn’t try to push her own ideas into the wedding. Jen is very classy and elegant but has a very eclectic personal style but she was great at finding fun way to pull in the style that WE never knew we always wanted for our wedding.
Then, about six weeks before the wedding, I got very sick with terrible migraines that left me hospitalized for several days and sick for several weeks. At that time, Jen really stepped up to the plate. It was around then that our numbers went from 80 guest to around 100 guests and we sized ourselves out of the spaces we had reserved at the resort. We didn’t have a place for the ceremony or the reception that the resort said could accommodate our group. Jen quickly took care of the details and got what we needed fixed. She made the big problem a non-​issue. She was able to work with the resort and send some of her contacts to find a space that could accommodate our group and it ended up costing us just a couple hundred dollars in chair rentals.
We realized at our reception that Jen really did so many things behind the scenes when I got another severe migraine right as dinner was getting finished up. Rocky immediately realized what was happening and my maid-​of-​honor took me to a quite place. Rocky told Jen what had happened and without even thinking she took off to the nearest pharmacy and found a high dose of Imitrex for me and was back before I could even realize it. She didn’t ask for money to be reimbursed or a Thank You for the expensive medication – she just took care of the problem because it was that important to her that we have a great party. Within 10 minutes, my headache was gone. Without her, we could have spent our wedding night in a Mexican ER or at least back in our room while our friends and family enjoyed the party without us.
After reading some of the other reviews, I am actually kind of shocked and wonder if it is just more about people taking out their own frustrations on the wrong person. It’s Mexico. You have to realize that when you are having a destination wedding and working with Mexican vendors. Jen was very organized and had a binder that she carried everywhere every vendor’s telephone number and contact information. Also, she absolutely can work within a budget. Anyone that knows my husband and me knows that we are very tight with our money and spending it on a big elaborate wedding was not something we were going to do. It was about getting our families together for a time that they would not ordinarily have been able to do. We could have planned something on our own at a Dreams or Secrets Resort without Jen. But, it I know it would have been much more and our guests would not have had such a unique experience. Everyone remembered the great Mariachi band that we had and the great Beach Club that Jen found us. I can honestly say that the details that people remembered the most were Jen’s.

We would not recommend Jen’s services to other couples. Several times during our planning process we felt her services were inadequate and frankly an added burden to us. She was frequently unprepared and late for meetings and did not provide information different or incremental to what we had researched on our own. We’re not sure if this was due to the distraction of her own wedding or typical of her business. In the end, we located and hired most of the key elements of our wedding and did not feel Jen added much to enhance the overall event. Of course, we loved our wedding, but feel that is separate from the services Jen and MyEvent provided.
Our Rationale:
1. Lack of attention to detail and failure to follow direction left bride/​groom feeling uneasy about every step of the process. Bride and groom could not trust Jen (planner) that things would get done and as discussed. As a result of this lack of trust, the bride and groom were often left responsible for managing not only the planning process, but the planner (Jen’s) role. A stressful process became more arduous with the planner’s involvement — quite opposite of what it should be!
2. Failure to provide the best vendor options & negotiate on bride/groom’s behalf
a. The bride and groom personally researched, located, contacted and hired the following services: Photographer (Del Sol), DJ (PluggedIn), Make up (Styling Trio), Hotel (Le Reve) and Transportation (Lomas Travel).
3. Poor attitude & work ethic
In summary:
At a high level on the day of the rehearsal and the wedding the planner (Jen) was unable to take charge of a group and explain things clearly to give people confidence that they know what they are doing. The bridal party stated they were fine at the rehearsal only because many of them had been in weddings before and were able to quick huddle and come up with a game plan but the direction from the planner (Jen) was minimal, scattered, and hesitant/​unsure.
It’s also fair to point out that the bride/​groom are NOT perfectionists or high maintenance people.
The planner (Jen) doesn’t seem to understand that as a wedding planner it is her responsibility to plan up front so that things go smoothly the day of. The planner (Jen) also doesn’t seem to understand that she should be available to help with things the day of. The planner (Jen) was being paid to be there and she was always missing when something was needed. Those little things should be taken care of by the wedding planner. It’s worth noting that typical day-​of-​coordination services offer more than Jen was able to offer. Planned timelines, contact lists, final vendor confirmations, vendor payment confirmations, specific and correct instructions on where everyone needed to be and when and what needed to be done. It’s not a wedding planner’s job to only check things off a list, but to make the day go smoothly and keep the bride and groom stress-​free which means helping where needed (and again, planning in advance to minimize last minute issues as much as possible).

I am STILL in awe of the wedding I attended last year… it was magical! Everything was planned perfectly, from beginning to end! No detail was overlooked and I have no doubt that this was due to the attentive planning of The Event Mexico! Everything was beautiful; personal touches were added according to my friends’, the bride and groom’s, tastes. The décor was gorgeous and the food was ah-​mazing.
Should I ever get married in Mexico, I would love to seek out these professional planners. I can look at their photos for hours… SO gorgeous. They will undoubtedly make all your dreams come true!

Thanks to The Event Mexico, we had the wedding of our dreams!
When my husband and I decided to get married in Puerto Vallarta, we were a little worried about how we would be able to plan the wedding from a distance, especially for a group of over 100 guests! We live in Chicago and it was hard to research/​contact hotels and vendors in Puerto Vallarta. We knew that we didn’t want the typical hotel package for our wedding (and we definitely didn’t want to pay the typical tourist rates!!), so we needed some help from someone on the ground in Mexico.
Lucky for us, we came across the opportunity to work with Jeniffer and Rebeca at The Event Mexico — they were absolutely wonderful! Most importantly, they helped us create our perfect wedding while staying well within our budget. They negotiated incredible rates for us with the hotel and all the vendors — we would not have been able to afford our wedding without their local knowledge, contacts, and negotiation skills.
A lot of hotels have an onsite wedding coordinator for destination weddings, however those coordinators are often unable or unwilling to customize the wedding details. They usually offer a couple of packages depending on what you can afford, but they don’t work with you to pick out your perfect centerpieces, flowers, dance floor, rehearsal dinner set-​up, etc. Jen and Rebeca took care of ALL of this and more. We got everything we wanted on a very limited budget.
Another reason I loved working with Jen and Rebeca was the rehearsal dinner. At our rehearsal dinner, many of our guests asked me «how is the wedding going to be better than this??» We had a BBQ on the beach with miami style lounge sofas, lantern lighting, and latin lounge music playing in the background. It was such a great party and precursor to our wedding, which of course exceeded everyone’s expectations.
I can’t say enough about how amazing our wedding was. So many of our friends and family are still talking about it (6 months later…). Everyone said it was one of the best weddings they had ever been to.
For all of this and much more, we are forever grateful to Jen and Rebeca… Thank you for making our dreams come true!

I was working with Jeniffer from The Event Mexico for my upcoming wedding in Puerto Vallarta Mexico. Jeniffer was not willing to work with budget set out when she agreed to take my wedding. The owner of my reception venue recommended her for my wedding and put her in contact with me. Details were discussed between them in terms of price before she even contacted me. Months later Jeniffer came to me and said she would not take care of my wedding with the budget already discussed and made me be the middle man between the venue owner and herself (isn’t that the point of having a wedding coordinator!). She did not even attempt to try and work things out in terms of price for me with the venue owner. She just flat out said unless I was willing to pay THOUSANDS more she would not do it. Then she suggested I look at her select locations and not follow through with my venue of choice. In my opinion she was very unprofessional. She wasted my time for months going over details with her and waiting until she was in Chicago to meet and go over more details in person. I was stuck starting over from square one with a new coordinator!
There are wedding coordinators willing do just as nice of a job for you who will not waste your time and money. She wanted me to spend as much for a destination wedding as I would have spent having my wedding in my area for twice as many people as I am having in Mexico.

Attended a destination wedding put on by The Event Mexico a few months ago and it was one of the best weddings I have ever been to! The location was beautiful and the wedding planners did an amazing job! If you are thinking of a destination wedding you must consider hiring The Event Mexico! They know everything there is to know about their business and will take care of it all so you don’t have to stress. I would recommend their services to anyone looking to have a wedding in Mexico!

Attended a wedding last month put on by this group and it was absolutely amazing. I usually wouldn’t review such a service but felt they deserve it. The team in charge went above and beyond to make sure my girlfriend and I had everything we needed whenever we wanted. Upon arrival we had transportation (waiting for us, not running late which I expected) and promt, fast, friendly, safe service.
The actual wedding and décor was incredible. I did not expect such attention to detail and such a beautiful set up. From the personalized pillow gifts upon arrival to the dance floor extended over the pool I was thoroughly impressed with the entire event. I would highly recommend The Event Mexico for a wedding or small to medium sized corporate event in Mexico.