Run by Grace Barbosa-Chin, Express Yourself specializes in planning amazing weddings and special occasions to match what you have in mind and your style. Understanding the importance of a professionally arranged and gorgeous personalised event, Express Yourself works on those tiny details to guarantee that your vision is met every step of the planning process. Grace is also proud to offer floral services for weddings & events, making Express Yourself Weddings & Events a one stop shop for all your needs.
Experience
Ever since she was a young girl, everyone could count on Grace every time there was a special event nearby. In fact, after years of working in the financial services business, she knew that she had failed to pursue her passion and, once she got engaged in 2015 and after conducting her full wedding planning, she completed her WPIC certification and started focusing on her wedding management career. Shortly thereafter, Grace took classes at both Toronto Flower School & Bloom School to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to add floral services to her list of services offered.
Services offered
Express Yourself Weddings & Events specializes in all stages of wedding and event planning, as well as full floral services. Services offered include the following:
Grace was an absolute dream to work with. When we were looking for a planner, we set up a few meet & greet meetings, and Grace's friendly easy-going vibe suited us well. She was always really easy to get in contact with, meet in person, and most importantly she was very, very, helpful! Throughout the planning process, Grace was able to direct me to different venues and vendors to consider. In our meetings, we would run through all the different aspects to consider our wedding day and she kept us on track! Whatever idea's we had she helped us incorporate them. Grace also did our florals and we had an idea to do gold hoops on a wall of the venue and she found a way to make it happen. She was also able to supply us with candles and other décor items. For our rehearsal at the venue, she took charge and made sure everyone knew what they were doing. On our wedding day, she only came up to me with a question when we had a guest show up who wasn’t on the list that we had come as a last-minute substitution! We forgot to give Grace pens to sign our guestbook and she figured it out and we didn’t even realize until the next day. All of our guests loved the floral arrangements she did and told us they lasted a long time! She also took a bunch of our décor home on our wedding night and held on to it until after our honeymoon. Highly recommend Grace – she will help you get to you big day and make sure it goes off just as you both planned!
Sent on 05/07/2019
Stephanie Sferrazza
· Married on 07/10/2018
5.0
Quality of service:
5.0
Responsiveness:
5.0
Value:
5.0
Flexibility:
5.0
Professionalism:
5.0
Amazing Month of Coordinator!
If any couples are in the market for a month of coordinator, I highly recommend Grace. My biggest regret was not hiring her for full coordination! She is simply amazing. We got married in October 2018 at Whistle Bear Golf Club in Cambridge. While the venue and staff are very organized, we felt we needed someone to help us out mostly with decor/placement and some last minute items to keep us sane during the weeks leading up to the wedding. I am so happy we went with Grace. She truly went above and beyond for my husband and I. She was responsive, very easy to deal with, and amazing at staying calm under pressure. Grace helped us enormously when faced with a bit of a challenge between our venue and florist, I can not thank her enough for taking that extra bit of stress out of our lives (only 2 weeks before the wedding!).
Grace and her assistant were there on the day of to handle any last minute stresses (luckily nothing major came up) and they set up our room beautifully.
Grace also does florals and full coordination which I would recommend looking into - you will not be disappointed!!
Sent on 29/10/2018
Jessica Off
· Married on 21/07/2018
5.0
Quality of service:
5.0
Responsiveness:
5.0
Value:
5.0
Flexibility:
5.0
Professionalism:
5.0
Grace needs to be part of your special day!
I originally didn't think I needed a month-of coordinator...boy was I wrong. From the initial phone call, where Grace brought up things I hadn't even thought of...to the multiple last-minute phone calls, emails etc...she went above and beyond. She connected with all my vendors individually, answered ALL my emails/calls/text promptly and professionally, and provided tons of insight on how the day should be run efficiently. Unfortunately there was a number of catering/venue issues (outside of Grace's control)- and Grace assisted with this even after her 'month of' service was finished.
TIP- Ask her about her floral design! Everyone was SO impressed with the florals/decor.
Sent on 09/07/2019
Adriana Bullock
· Married on 29/09/2017
5.0
Quality of service:
5.0
Responsiveness:
5.0
Value:
5.0
Flexibility:
5.0
Professionalism:
5.0
Where do I even begin? Grace was a GODSEND to me while planning my September 2017 wedding. I felt like my Fiance and I had things pretty well done up until the last month and a half when I started to get overwhelmed by all the little, final details of the day. I didn't know where to focus my energy and it was becoming harder to keep track of everything I needed to get done (and this is considering I had a very organized and very involved Fiance planning this wedding with me!) We were both starting to feel the pressure of our demanding jobs and the wedding. Enter Grace. She met with us and instantly her calm and gentle nature put us at ease, we knew we were in good hands. She took account of everything we had done and what was left to do and then formulated a plan with us to execute the final details. With a plan in motion and some of the responsibilities taken off my plate, I felt immediate ease, things became a lot more manageable. We worked with her to create the timeline of the day, and she took care of communicating with the venue to ensure everyone was on the same page. Grace handled the communication with all our other vendors, picked up rental items, the flowers and even attended our rehearsal dinner the night before to review the plan and make sure we were feeling good. I should also mention she was always responsive to all of our emails/texts and provided updates on all conversations with vendors/venue in a way that kept us informed, but not overwhelmed. She genuinely wanted to make sure everyone was happy and stress-free. Our wedding day came and I can honestly say it was the best day of our lives. Literally everything went exactly how we wanted, or better. Everything Grace had handled for us was perfect and she was even there until the bitter end to help take down the venue and ensure everything got picked up. I can't imagine that our wedding would have gone as smoothly without Grace, my expectations were completely surpassed by her professionalism and talent. Grace, thank you so much for everything you did for us - you are amazing.
Sent on 09/11/2017
Kim Barrera
· Married on 17/07/2016
5.0
Quality of service:
5.0
Responsiveness:
5.0
Value:
5.0
Flexibility:
5.0
Professionalism:
5.0
Grace is such a great event planner! Everything was Parisian themed with lots of pink and rose gold. So beautiful! Everything was planned out so perfectly. She thought of every detail from the decor down to the menu. Such great memories :) Thank youuu!!!! ♥
