NEEP’s first event was planned in 3 weeks and hosted at Smith Farm Gardens in East Haddam CT. The tickets sold out quickly, and validated Sarah and Carla’s ideas that the need for community was there.

Based in Eastern CT, Sarah Brehant has been in the wedding industry since 2017 when she was a bride and realized her insane passion for planning and designing events. After attending college for Interior Design, she knew she wanted to pursue design, and once she had the opportunity to design her own wedding she knew she found a lifelong passion that would soon turn into a full time career. Never in her wildest dreams did she think she could create a career out of a hobby she adored so much.

Sarah has been awarded Top Wedding Planner and Event Planner in Connecticut by the Hartford Courant in 2020-2023.

Her love for design drove her to create Styled Shoots by Sarah Brehant Events which offers curated, intentionally designed events for other creatives to capture and elevate their portfolio. In 2021, Sarah realized the lack of community and missed a sense of belonging in the industry, so she decided she wanted to create a comfortable, inclusive, fun community for Event Pros. The first event, ‘THE Disco Party,’ was thrown in 2022, and less than a year after, she met Carla Ten Eyck for the very first time for a networking lunch, inspired to do more to create a community and together they founded NEEP in 2023 at that very lunch.

Sarah serves discerning, busy professionals who want an intentional wedding that feels like home. Her team specializes in private property, coastal weddings and purposeful, joyful weekend weddings at tented or at historical properties.

Sarah was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Connecticut in 2010 where she currently resides. Her lifelong goal is to live at the beach with her husband Dan and their many rescue animals.

SARAH BREHANT

Based in Hartford, CT, Carla Ten Eyck has been joyfully photographing weddings and events all over the world for the past twenty-two years. After receiving her BFA in Photojournalism from Rochester Institute of Technology, Carla worked at several newspapers and news agencies until her natural segue into weddings and events began.

Her love of weddings and events helped her co-author two books, The White Dress: In Color and The White Dress: Destinations.

A natural teacher, Carla also taught photography workshops from 2008 until 2013. She has spoken multiple times at the Engage! Luxury Wedding and Business Summits, and was a featured speaker at The Knot Pro in Boston.

Carla was a producer + speaker of the Inspire Photography Workshops from 2010 until 2015. Her clear love of community building and connection fuels her passion for NEEP with Sarah Brehant.

As a Queer, Mexican American woman, inclusivity for Carla is personal, and she vows to make everyone feel included and welcome at each NEEP event!

Carla currently lives in her childhood home in Hartford’s West End with her son Jackson, her daughter Georgie and their many crazy cats.