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Emily Sullivan
Lead Planner
Owner and Visionary, Emily Sullivan, showcases her love for the city in every wedding she creates. Hospitality is her spiritual gift and many times she can be found cooking for friends or making dinner plans to meet up at the city’s best restaurants.
She started her business back in 2006 as a single mom and has established herself as a go-to planner in the area by creating a business that is always evolving and staying relevant in the industry. The business and daily struggles that come along with entrepreneurship have made her very passionate about educating others in the industry and she has spoken to groups including NACE, Wedding MBA, ILEA, Catersource and The Special Event. She was also recently listed on the Biz Bash List of 500 most influential event professionals in the USA!
As a Southern Girl, she has built countless relationships with local vendors. On wedding days, Emily is a master problem solver and logistics queen. She has a calm demeanor which helps her clients feel at ease and able to enjoy the day.
Her time off is spent traveling with her 2 boys, Lake and Taylor, who have a goal of visiting all 50 states together.
Likes: Dislikes:
Dim Sum Pity Parties
Coffee Watermelon
The Beach Covid 19
Getting up Early
Uptown Parades
Southern Fried Chicken
Chelle (pronounced Shelly) is a long time member of the ESE Team. She assists the team on multiple items throughout planning including hotel management and securing permits. She also oversees many of the day-to-day operations in the office and makes sure that our teams are prepared on site for each event. Chelle is super crafty and makes umbrellas, cake pulls, etc for many ESE clients.
Chelle is also an accomplished vocalist and has performed with many bands throughout the city in the last 20 years. She loves the city of New Orleans and its traditions, food and music. One of her fondest memories is reigning as Empress XVI of the Krewe of Caesar in 1995.
Likes: Dislikes:
Chocolate Oysters
Wedding Cake Cleaning House
Saints Football Snakes
Cooking
My cats
Chelle Maxwell, Head of Operations/Asst. Wedding Planner
"Emily and her team are bananas. The very concept of how they approach weddings is unbelievable. From the decor to having everything on time, it's remarkable how these people are still with their heads on straight. A fantastic team to work with that only produces high quality!"
- Jorge (Cinematographer)
"Emily is absolutely AMAZING! I feel like there is nothing she can't do! She makes you feel like you're the only bride she's working with and always makes herself available if you need her. She knows what she's doing and she will be 100% honest with you about it all. She definitely becomes more than a planner to you and makes you feel extremely comfortable to go to her with just about anything. I really could not say anything negative about my experience with Emily and if weddings were a regular thing, I would most definitely be working with her for all them!"
-Rachel (Bride) Sept. 2018
"As a business owner it is such a pleasure to work with Emily Sullivan Events. Emily and her team understand that as coordinators you have to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people. They do an incredible job of being what people need at the appropriate time. Inevitably something is bound to go wrong, but Emily and her team always finds a way to not only solve the problem but make it look like there was never anything wrong in the first place. She takes a common sense approach to events where everything that’s planned or coordinated “makes sense” in a way that leaves you wondering why people do things any other way. I can’t stress enough how this takes the pressure off of both vendor partners as well as the clients themselves. ESE is truly one of the best of the business hands down."
- James (Musician)