Of The Rest

Best Wedding Planner

Sara Franklin | Social Scene Events

Sara Franklin recalls the time a wedding cake fell out of the van upon delivery. Without skipping a beat, she asked the cake designer to put a faux cake on display at the reception and dispatched an assistant to Harris Teeter to buy sheet cakes that they could cut and serve. “It wasn’t the cake the bride ordered,” she says. “But nobody knew.”

On another occasion, an out-of-state bride and groom arrived at the church they had booked (long-distance) only to find the sanctuary under construction. Franklin ended up concealing ugly stretches of unfinished drywall with potted trees for the ceremony. “Plants saved the day,” she says.

Averting such catastrophes is all in a day’s work for the Waycroft-Woodlawn resident, whose rates start at $2,500 and have gone as high as $15,000.

Brides like Allison Fitzsimmons say the planner’s calm demeanor and savoir faire are well worth the expense. “She became one of my best friends during the process,” says Fitzsimmons. “We really trusted her.”

703-516-4224, www.socialsceneevents.com