Catherine grew up in Sonoma County, California, and loves everything that picturesque Northern California and wine country has to offer.
At the age of fifteen, she moved to San Francisco, and joined ballet students from around the world to study full-time with San Francisco Ballet School. Here, she fell in love with the city, and with events. As a ballet student, and several years later, as a professional ballerina, she attended many celebrations, from intimate and elegant lunches, to San Francisco Ballet’s Gala opening-night and New Year’s Eve celebrations at some of the most fabulous venues the city has to offer. She found event and ballet productions to be similar in design. Both required the same attention to detail to create a perfect setting and aesthetic. Both relied on the perfect combination of colors, scenery, music, lighting, decor and more to create a unique experience for attendees.
When Catherine retired from her career as a ballerina, she began to build her career planning events. She received her degree in Mass Communications from UC Berkeley, and initially began her career as a planner working for arts organizations and dance companies, planning galas and celebrations like the ones she had attended for years. She then moved into the executive-level gathering and corporate event planning space, and then the social planning space, eventually falling in love with planning and designing weddings. She founded Big Day (of) in 2019.
She believes that events must be fabulous, and they must be fun. She is guided by the philosophy that creating an event is really creating a beautiful memory that will stay with the client and guests long after the event has passed.
• • •
Meet
CATHERINE MOORE
FOUNDER OF BIG DAY (OF)
From a young age, Emily always loved art, music, gatherings and love. She is pretty sure that she wanted to be a wedding planner before she even knew that was a profession! Now as an event planner for over 12 years, she is so honored to be able to work with couples on such an important celebration. She is guided by the philosophy that it is a privilege to help bring about the joyful experience of bringing client’s communities together to celebrate their love story and the start of their union.
Emily’s unique combination of incredible focus on details, guest experience, and keen eye for design are her wedding planning super powers. Her goal is to make sure you and your partner fully immerse yourselves in your big day, while everything else happens seamlessly around you - she can’t wait to work with you!
• • •
Meet
EMILY Ufheil-somers
PLANNER AT BIG DAY (OF)
Martina is a Northern California import, who grew up among the rolling hills of Tuscany, Italy, offering her planning talents both in the Bay Area and for destination events in Italy.
Growing up surrounded by beauty and art within the walls of a medieval town, she quickly found herself drawn to beautiful things. Originally trained as a classical pianist, she learned the joys of creating experiences through music. From a very young age, she took part in events of all kinds, even forming her own musical quartet specializing in playing weddings. Martina completed her education in Venice in the performing arts and design world.
Once she moved to the States, she honed her event skills working for institutions like the New York Botanical Garden and the San Francisco Symphony. She married all her learnings by joining Big Day (of) and creating weddings and social gatherings in both the Bay Area and her native Italy.
She believes every experience should be fun, beautiful, and tailored to the unique desires of the bride and groom. Every event has the magical ability to suspend reality and catapult everyone experiencing it into a joy filled, exquisite bubble that exists only for those moments. That is the feeling she chases with every event she signs on to.
When she’s not working, she divides her time between her two home countries. In California, you can find her enjoying the outdoors with her two small children, out at her favorite pizza spot, or returning to her early love of playing the piano.
• • •
Meet
martina connolly
PLANNER AT BIG DAY (OF)
We love a good party. We are event planners, after all.
When an event has come to a close, it is a bittersweet moment for us, because we love working with, and getting to know our amazing clients! You will be sure to still hear from us on occasion over the years!
We believe that love wins.
We love when events reflect a client's unique and individual style.
Odds & Ends
about us
- n + S
"I had the pleasure of working closely with Catherine/Big Day Of for my wedding this past August. We are based in NYC and had our wedding in Napa, so planning a wedding across the country was something I was not going to be able to do on my own…I made the right choice going with Catherine. Catherine is absolutely phenomenal and exactly what I needed to make my wedding dreams come true. She was incredibly detail oriented, a great communicator both with me and with all of our vendors, and was such a helpful sounding board when I was making decisions. I am very type-A, but of course hadn't planned a wedding before, so needed a lot of help keeping all of the to-dos organized and making sure everything was getting done on time and in the 'right' order. Our regular check-ins throughout the process and her meticulous organization were so helpful in keeping me on track along the way. All of this really helped ease the ever-present wedding stress. The week of our wedding, Catherine was there every step of the way and she and her team were so attentive during our wedding weekend. Everything went absolutely perfectly, we did not have even one little hiccup. I can't recommend her enough, I wish I could work with her on every other event I host going forward”
"If I could give more than 5 stars, I would."
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- J + J
"We worked with her as a full service planner for our wedding at Stanly Ranch in Napa. She helped us with everything from venue scouting, to vendor selection/management, to day of coordination. From our welcome party at Peju, to our Sunday brunch, Catherine was there every step of the way to ensure the weekend went smoothly. Her patience & persistence were critical in helping us navigate the uncertainty of getting married at a new venue. She was on top of everything, extremely responsive, and willing to work through any questions/concerns we had. She was great at planning around our busy work schedules, reminding us of upcoming deadlines and streamlining communication through her strong relationships with vendors. Her attention to detail ensured nothing was missed. We were so thrilled with how everything turned out, and received many compliments from our guests. We couldn't have pulled it off without Catherine & team!”
"Catherine was AMAZING!"
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- C + T
"It was honestly the best investment in our wedding and I was able to just trust it would all work out and actually relax! In our meetings leading up to the big day, it was like talking to a friend (a very organized one). I am pretty Type A myself and with our destination wedding I wasn't able to see everything put together before our wedding day. Catherine saw my vision and pulled it off flawlessly! I couldn't imagine the process and day without her!”
"There are not enough words to describe how wonderful Catherine and her team is!"
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- M + J
"I couldn't have gone through the months leading up to the wedding without her! She was so responsive, always able to hop on a call or meet in person, and handled everything! She was AMAZING and our Four Seasons wedding was better than we could have ever imagined or dreamed of! The wedding went on without one issue, and the Four Seasons said it was the nicest wedding they have ever had there. Do yourself a favor and hire Catherine and her team! I wish we could do it all over again just so I could continue to work with her! We love you Catherine, and can't wait to hire you for future events!!"
"catherine is a saint!"
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- O + A
From the moment we first spoke, I knew that her and I would hit it off and she was exactly who I needed as my right hand through the planning process. Her professionalism is top notch. She was always punctual to all meetings (virtual and in person at the venue), over-communicative, very clear and organized. Catherine made sure a detail was never missed and our meetings always seemed to fly by. She always made herself available by email, phone, text, and I felt fully supported going into our big weekend. Not to mention, she is a joy to work with! I could not recommend Catherine and her team enough. If I did it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing about our planning process together. So grateful!!!
"Catherine and her team are simply phenomenal."
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