WEDDING PLANNER | Cygnet Events And Design

Cygnet Events And Design is a destination wedding planning studio renowned for creating unforgettable and unique weddings. The team dedicates itself solely to weddings, providing each event with their full attention and creativity. Their approach is characterised by warmth, unexpected design, and an avant-garde style, always prioritising the couple's preferences and requirements. Cygnet Events And Design welcomes challenges and guarantees flawless execution for every wedding they plan.

Tell us about your business!

Cygnet Events and Design is a design-focused destination wedding planner. Founded in 2012, we are firmly established as top wedding planners in the U.S. due to our high standards in taste, organization and communication.

Cygnet Events and Design focuses exclusively on weddings, taking on a limited number of commitments each year. We understand the demand for excellence and focus that our work entails, and we are focused on delivering above expectations for each and every client.

We love a challenge: give us your tented weddings, your multi-day events, your international elopements, your blended cultures, your avant-garde designs and your elegant restaurant gatherings. Every single event we plan has our signature touch of warmth and creativity, always with client and guest needs at top of mind. Flawless execution isn’t just the goal but the standard.

What would you like couples to know about you?

We strive for a relationship with our clients that blends professionalism and personality. We’re responsive, proactive, thorough and warm. We believe that we excel in the three most important pillars of planning: logistics, budgeting and design. We take our work very seriously but always make sure we’re making the process feel effortless and transparent for our couples. Since we only plan weddings, we are uniquely focused on those particular needs and demands.

Aside from the work itself, we are a company with progressive values that gives back to environmental and social justice causes. We are inclusive and enthusiastically serve clients with all identities and from all walks of life.

Where are you based?

Chicago.

Do you travel for weddings?

Yes! We most frequently travel to the East Coast but are available domestically and internationally. For international events, we particularly love France.

How would you describe your style?

Warm, unexpected and avant-garde. We stay on the cutting edge of what is trending in the industry, but approach each design concept with a unique perspective that prioritizes the couple’s taste. Unusual, whimsical events are a particular love of ours. Tented weddings and lush estates also get our creative juices flowing. When couples observe our body of work, we hope that they will observe the variety in what we do and how we are able to realize each couple’s unique vision.

What is your most memorable career moment?

We recently had a parade float built for a wedding. Our idea to build an oversized, pink 3D clamshell for a go-go dancing stage could only be executed the way we needed by a parade float fabricator, and it was such a hit!

What inspires you?

Our clients inspire us more than anything, as we pull through their inspiration, logistics, budgets and spaces to curate a cohesive, boundary-pushing aesthetic. Blending timelessness with updated style is always the goal, as is creating something that hasn’t been experienced before.

We find inspiration in interior and graphic design as well as the nautral world. Art history and natural history are some of our teams’ passions, and this inspiration constantly flows through our work. Another source of creative inspiration is 1950s and 1960s technicolor film sets: they’re elegant, playful, have a flair for the dramatic and are just the right amount of over-the-top! The immersive experience of watching these scenes is something we want to evoke for everyone on site at our events.

How would you describe your working style?

Our working style is highly organized and more defined by scope than time. We find it stifling of the creative process and personal connection to track time. Instead, we define the scope of our work and then we simply put in the amount of time that is required. 

We are huge proponents of spreadsheets and use a highly customized, detailed spreadsheet that we have developed over more than 10 years to help keep our clients on track. We love email and Zoom, and of course there is always a healthy mix of in-person meetings including site visits. 

Since we limit the number of clients booked each year, we always aim for our planning team to have a close connection to each couple. Finding the right personality match is so important; we want to feel like a creative partner from day one.

What is a favourite product or service that you offer and why?

Complete design management is included for all of our full service clients and it is such a joy! Being able to touch every part of a design and the design process is crucial to ensure a high quality product. We offer so much value being able to do this and we thoroughly enjoy every aspect of developing designs alongside our clients and vendor teams, building everything from the ground up and completely tailoring it to our clients’ personalities.

Where would you love to travel to for work?

We go to France at least once a year, even if it’s just for meetings and antique sourcing, and are always thrilled to visit more.

Who is your dream client?

Our dream couple knows what they like, even if they don’t know how to translate that for their event (that’s our job!). They are collaborative and trust the creative process with their vendors. Any couple who wants to get weird and think outside the box gets major bonus points.

Cygnet Events and Design

Website: cygneteventsanddesign.com

Instagram: @cygneteventsanddesign

Images by Melody Joy, Joanna Creates, Stacey McLean & Hannah Conti Photography