Jo Dial has walked down the aisle more times than she can count. She has attended scores of bridal shows and knows all the florists and photographers by name. However, she has worn white only once.
Dial is a professional wedding coordinator and cake designer. She owns The Wedding Solution and Classique Cakes in Springfield, where she works out of her home and bakes all the cakes in her own oven. As a wedding professional, she helps orchestrate “dream come true” weddings for hundreds of blushing brides.
“The thing I like best about being a wedding coordinator is you are always working with happy people,” Dial said. “The bride is always bubbly and everyone is so excited. I don’t think there is another business anywhere that is so upbeat and exciting.”
According to the International Institute of Weddings, more than half of couples hire wedding coordinators. While there are about 10,000 coordinators nationwide, there are only a few in Eugene. Coordinating services are more popular on the East Coast, where wedding traditions and etiquette are more common.
On a rainy Saturday in November, I met Dial at the Bon Marche’s bridal show, where she meets new clients. After the bridal show, we drove to her house to pick up and deliver two wedding cakes.

Although her own wedding to Dean, her husband of 37 years, was an elegant but modest affair, Dial coordinates weddings ranging from extravagant to casual.
“I have planned weddings that were a fairy tale,” she says. “With a string quartet for the ceremony, the bride arrived in a white horse-drawn carriage, and then live doves were released as the officiant announced them man and wife.” She has also coordinated “a very simple, family-only affair with a potluck dinner and kids running everywhere.”
Dial entered the wedding industry more than 10 years ago when her hobby of baking birthday cakes grew into a wedding cake business. As she supplied wedding cakes, she noticed vendors would often forget items, change things or take advantage of the couple. She realized someone needed to be a go-between to “stick up for the bride and groom.” After retiring as a secretary at the Oregon Heart Center, she took an intensive wedding specialist course through Weddings Beautiful, and received her certification three years ago.
She says she specializes in accommodating individual needs and spends numerous hours with each couple getting to know their preferences.
“I talk to them and try to figure out what their dream wedding is, then go from there,” Dial said. Attentive to detail, she said she makes sure everything is what the couple envisions, but also within budget. To give each wedding enough attention, she limits her time to one wedding every other weekend. Sometimes she works with couples every weekend for six months before the wedding.
“Since I put in so many hours with my clients, I get to know them very well,” she said.
Dial said because most brides work, it is difficult for them to find the time necessary to plan a wedding. The immense pressure can sometimes spoil the experience for everyone involved.
“My job is to foresee any disaster before it happens,” she said. “I always have a sewing kit, tool kit and stand-ins if necessary — except for the bride and groom, of course.”
True to her word, as Dial fills her jeep with lusciously frosted wedding cake tiers, she packs a large bag full of various crystal pillars, plastic straws, toothpicks and several mysterious tools. She always arrives early to set up the cake so no one will see her. Like a magical fairy, no one witnesses her labor; they only see the outcome of her efforts.
Although she coordinates all aspects of a wedding, from the initial ideas to clean up at the reception, her specialty and passion is wedding cakes.
Whether they are elegant, fondant-wrapped tiers or octagonal towers covered with fresh flowers, her cakes seem too beautiful to eat, but reward the mouth with sweet luxuries. Dial has created just about everything imaginable, including a two-foot spiral cake that looked like an elegant mini roller coaster ride.
Dial’s calm and collected attitude helps her enjoy the challenges that come with each wedding. After spending the day with her, I see that she thoroughly enjoys her job. She describes it as a personal compliment because she is able to work so closely with the couples and their families.
“I am always at their beck-and-call,” she explains, putting the finishing touches on the last cake. Her confident hands move with tremendous care as she adds swirls of white frosting to the edges.
“I get to know them very well,” she says. “They are like my family.”
Smiling, she tells me most of them remain her friends forever.