I've known Rachael previously before she started her company and when I heard she was starting this…read morebusiness, I was thrilled! I work as an Events Rental Director at a local art center and we host loads of weddings. Rachael is super organized, funny, calm, creative, and a great problem solver. She can handle all the details big and small and makes you feel like someone has your back throughout the planning process. I truly feel like every bride needs an event planner in their life and Rachael is someone I confidently and highly recommend!

We could not have done this spectacular birthday party for our daughter without Rachael! We had a…read morefabulous at 14 birthday party for our daughter Emma at the Goggleworks in Reading. Our daughter wanted to have a "teen nightclub" themed dance party for her 14th birthday! At that age it's really challenging to find a venue for a great party that is safe and supervised, but also, crazy fun! Rachael helped us put together a party that was the "talk of the school" event! Everyone was buzzing about this party! Rachael, with the help of some other fantastic companies, like LEO party rentals, and BELLY caterers put together a very reasonably priced and very trendy dance party for Emma and her friends. It was so easy to plan, and even easier to sit back and enjoy the kids having a fantastic time! We couldn't have planned this terrific event without her! Rachael helped us coordinate with everyone. She sat down with me to brainstorm many times before the party, and took care of everything. The tiniest of details were covered! All of the event was kept within a very reasonable budget! We would also like to send a thank you out to the Goggleworks for their terrific, and very trendy "loft" like room, for the party location. The dj " DJ JG" John Gosselin was also a fantastic addition to the party! He knew exactly what music the kids wanted to hear. Everyone danced the entire night! Thank you Rachael for making this night so memorable for Emma, and us too! If your thinking of planning a party for your teenage daughter you should contact Rachael! She will really impress you!

I try to save others the stress and expense of hiring a lemon by posting a review when the service…read moreis so abysmal I have to make others aware of it. This planner was very solicitous until she got her 60% deposit. Then it was radio silence. We waited 6 days for a response to a simple question regarding the caterer from Niki. Finally I called the caterer myself and got the answer in 5 minutes. We asked if Niki could recommend an acoustic guitarist. No response. We asked if the caterer did private tastings and she said yes only to find out a week later they do not do private tastings. We wasted valuable time and money hiring her. Some of these things could have been overlooked if she would have just made a phone call and kept us up to date but that didn't happen. Now I'm $510 poorer but hopefully I'll prevent someone else from making the same mistake.

Although I am a well respected event planner with 15 years of experience, I hired Niki to assist…read morewith the planning of my wedding because there simply were not enough hours in the day. My fiancé (at the time - now husband) and I hired Niki on August 31st, Several weeks into the contract, we determined that she was not meeting our expectations. On Oct. 13th we decided to find another wedding planner. However, it was too complicated to get out of the deal. We encountered so many challenges throughout the process. Niki was not organized or responsive enough. She often "missed" emails or only provided partial responses to questions. We felt like she was putting forth minimal effort. Some of her vendor referrals didn't respond or took several days to get in touch with us. Knowing how I would handle my vendors on events that I manage for work, I was extremely disappointed that Niki did not exercise appropriate control of the event plans or ensure her referred vendors were keeping up with expectations. This lack of quality control added much more stress on me than expected. I even had to research back-up vendors when concerned that the ones she selected were not able to meet expected deliverables. We wanted to add a few things to her wedding itinerary, but the itinerary she provided us was in a PDF format that she didn't know how to change. When asked to make the changes she replied "I am not able to change the pdf! But I can make written notes." This caused us to question whether the PDF File was hers since she couldn't change it. She was ill-prepared to adjust a wedding itinerary that she provided. I ended up creating the timeline and updating it myself. I asked her if there was any place to save money on the flower invoice and she responded, "I don't see anywhere you could save, sorry!" I responded that I found $300 in savings. A key part of being a wedding planner is to catch these types of details. Weddings are expensive and a wedding planner's job is to advise in the best interest of the client. We saw this as a negative and that we were not getting value in the service she provided (or lack of service). When we decided we no longer wanted to work with her, she refused to refund the portion of the deposit that she specifically outlined in an email was going to be applied to day of planning. We had to hire someone else to handle day of planning, one we knew we could trust and one that would follow through on the level of detail we were looking for. When we decided that Niki's services were not meeting our expectations, we called her to let her know. We then asked her to outline what services she provided to us and how they were worth what she was charging us. In her reply, she tried to deflect her responsibilities on me by stating, "I personally like both of you and chalked nerves and losing her mother for her behavior." The reference to my mother's recent passing was uncalled for and irrelevant. At the end of the day, she was hired to provide a service and did not do a good job. Event planners are not simply coordinators, they are supposed to help deliver a vision with minimal stress on the client. Business is business and if we weren't satisfied with the service we paid for, then we have the right to end the transaction. There simply was no need for that remark. It's unfortunate that I hired someone so underqualified. Overall, our feelings are that Niki is quite unorganized and not business savvy. Based on our personal interaction and experience as a client, we would definitely not recommend Niki or her company to anyone

We got engaged in August 2010 and wanted to plan a summer wedding. We started looking for a…read morewedding planner late August/early September. I e-mailed a few people, and Melissa was the first one to get back to me. We were married in July 2011 and worked extensively with Melissa and her assistant Katie. At our first meeting I was unsure if a wedding planner was really necessary. We live in Maryland and were having our wedding near my family in Lancaster County. After we spoke with Melissa and Katie it was clear we needed a wedding planner. We didn't quite realize everything that went into planning a wedding, and were confident that they were the people to help us. Melissa helped us find a venue and all of our vendors. She also negotiated between us and the vendors and negotiated our contracts. Trust me- you need Melissa. The last thing you want to do is negotiate contracts before your big day. Since we live out of state Melissa also gave us a few suggestions for vendors and coordinated meetings. We wanted vendors who loved their job and were good at it, and Melissa found us those people. We never would have found those quality vendors if we hadn't been working with Melissa. She also helped us find vendors that were better and cheaper than the most expensive vendors. She knew exactly where to go from flowers to cake to buying a dress to getting the dress altered! Melissa and Katie made the lead up to the wedding and the wedding day run smoothly. Her and Katie answered e-mails quickly and they received many e-mails from me regarding anxieties about the big day and our plans. They made sure our wedding day was stress free. We had such a great time that we are ready to do it all over again next year. I would recommend working with Melissa for a small wedding to a big wedding to an upcoming event. She knows the right people, and is good at what she does.

Melissa is absolutely amazing - we cannot recommend her enough. We worked with her through her Vera…read morepackage. Our wedding day was beautiful and ran seamlessly. By the day of the wedding, we had so much trust in her that we could rest assured knowing everything would be okay - it freed us up to just enjoy our day without anxiety about logistics - we knew we could count on Melissa. She truly cares about the weddings she plans and the couples she works with. She knows and has good relationships with top-notch local vendors, which is super helpful throughout the planning process. She also is a strong advocate for her couples and is really skilled at resolving any issues that come up with vendors. She is very detail oriented, punctual, practical, and on top of her emails and deadlines. She is also a really gentle, sweet person who is an absolute joy to work with. Melissa is a really calming presence too and was very supportive throughout our wedding planning process. She really got to know us and was able to give ideas/suggestions that we loved for our wedding that matched our personalities and preferences. During the week leading up to our wedding, we had an unforeseen change of plans and Melissa communicated with all of our vendors, reorganized our wedding timeline and worked this out with all of vendors, all basically behind the scenes to us and with no added stress on our part. Everything she coordinated and planned was taken care of - nothing fell through the cracks. If you're an anxious couple or tend to worry about worst-case scenarios, Melissa and Stylish Occasions is perfect for you - working with her and knowing the type of person she is will remove all this anxiety. We planned our wedding from out of state and she was super flexible with doing teleconferences with us and vendors when needed instead of meetings. She also helped us figure out which meetings were truly important to do in person. She helped us navigate innumerable wedding decisions and weighed in with her extensive experience when we weren't sure what to do. The best decision we made without a doubt was to hire Melissa as our planner. There is no way we could've had the wedding we did without her expertise and help. We are so incredibly grateful to her and are so thankful we got to know her. She's an excellent planner and a beautiful person to know.

Great to work with!…read more I can't say enough about Shumaker. They did the lighting for our daughter's wedding and it involved last minute changes due to the weather forecast. I called them on Thursday (wedding was Saturday) and they were so obliging, even though they had other weddings that day, too. The day of set up, they called me from the site because they saw an issue with the tents that were being set up (a different company). They discussed their concerns with the tent people and together they worked it out perfectly. This was above and beyond Shumaker's call of duty. It rained on the big day but all was well because of Shumaker! Great people to work with!

We recently had the pleasure and privilege of working with Dustin Imhoff of Shumaker & Associates…read moreEvent Planning for our daughter's wedding at the Casa di Fiori of the Inn at Leola Village on 6/6/15. From inception to execution, Dustin was the consummate professional, working diligently to ensure that our daughter's dreams of an "in-door garden wedding" came to fruition. Seeking input from us, our wedding planner, Briana Dixon of Nouvelle Weddings, Kaci Willwerth, the wedding coordinator at the Inn at Leola Village, and Tracie Boyer, the Inn at Leola Village's floral designer, he was able to transform our ideas into reality using his amazing design talents. Beginning early in the morning of the wedding day, he and his team brought trees, bushes, plants, flowers, soil, mulch, sod, stone pavers, bricks, fountains and landscape lighting inside the Casa di Fiori, transforming it into a truly magical venue that really had to be seen to be believed. The result exceeded even our highest expectations and there honestly was not a single thing that could have been improved upon. Every guest commented on the amazing "fairy tale garden" atmosphere of the venue. Needless to say, we were delighted with all aspects of our interactions with Dustin and his team and we are confident in stating with certainty that if you are in need of a motivated, talented, creative and quality-driven event planning team, you need look no further than Shumaker & Associates! - Ann & Bill Unwin, York,PA

They did an amazing job for my sons 1st Birthday party. 10/10 would definitely recommend them for…read moreany party. The owner Widmina is super friendly and made sure I got everything I wanted and more.

Very nice hotel. Exactly what I expect from Holiday Inn Express. So many franchised Expresses are…read morenot run properly or are not maintained properly... I usually give perference to the Holiday Inn Express brand.... But I am losing faith because there have been so many poor examples I've stayed at... but not the Lancaster/Mount Joy location! This location reminded me why I keep choosing Holiday Inn Express. The franchisees should be proud and the employees should be proud as their hard work shows. And the next time I'm in the area, I'm 100% sure I will stay at this clean, well kept, nice Holiday Inn Express.

I stayed here for over a week when visiting my family in Pennsylvania. I've done this trip many…read moretimes and stayed at a variety of hotels and AirBnbs, and to my surprise, this Holiday Inn Express is my favorite. Check in was a breeze, and the hotel receptionist was very friendly, which I appreciated after a long day of travel. The rooms are modern, clean, and comfortable. They come with a mini-fridge, plenty of drawer and closet space, outlets by the bed to charge your phone, and chromecast on the television, which makes streaming a breeze. These are all major pluses for me for such a long trip. I also found the bed to be quite comfortable. This hotel also has a gym and an indoor pool. I didn't end up using these during my stay, but I may try take advantage of them when I return. The stay also includes a hot breakfast, which was great. Every morning there was some variety of egg, breakfast meat (sausage or bacon), and potato (or biscuits) available. A heat lamp keeps the cinnamon rolls on offer warm and gooey. An automatic pancake machine serves mini pancakes cooked by the press of a button. But the machine jams a lot and the pancakes are tiny. One of the breakfast attendants had to show us the trick to make it work. There were also a variety of other pastries, yogurts, and cereals. In addition to a juice machine, there are carafes with regular coffee, decaf, and hot water available in the lobby 24-7, though they are refreshed less frequently as the day progresses. I had some lukewarm decaf a few times later in the day. One little hiccup during my stay was that there was a power outage. The power went on and off a few times and the elevator couldn't be used for some period of time. This occurred when a lot of folks were on their way to or having breakfast, so the timing was not great. I ended up having to make a few trips up and down the stairs, but it wasn't a big deal, and I felt lucky not to have gotten stuck in the elevator. But there wasn't any real communication about it, and we never did learn the cause. One thing I did note is that when you enter the hotel, there is a sign on the door that makes it clear that local residents are not welcome to stay, only tourists. I haven't been a resident for two decades, but I grew up in this area, and the constant reminder that locals are not welcome was off-putting. I have to wonder if there is a more tactful way for the hotel to handle this issue. Another thing to know is that a lot of folks who stay here are headed to the Soooky Nook sports complex nearby, so there are often large groups in the lobby and large vehicles in the parking lot. All of that being said, I enjoyed my stay here and would absolutely stay here again when visiting this area.