Noozhawk’s 2nd annual Santa Barbara Wedding Bliss: The Complete Guide is officially here! Planning a wedding is an exciting yet daunting task, filled with countless decisions that will shape one of the most memorable days of your life. This comprehensive wedding guide is designed to help you navigate the planning process with ease and confidence.
To provide a closer look at the wedding industry in Santa Barbara County, Noozhawk has conducted a series of interviews with representatives of local businesses for this year’s Wedding Guide.
In this interview Noozhawk spoke with Lindsay Dugwyler, Executive Assistant at Jump on the School Bus to learn more about their transportation services.
Jump On the School Bus
Question: What year was your business established?
Answer: 2011.
Q: What do you specialize in?
A: Wedding transportation is our specialty.
Wine tours and beer tours are our passion.
We love coordinating team building, sightseeing and adventure tours!
Q: What is your mission?
A: To provide “Fun ~ Best in Class” transportation services, solutions and logistics from the first point of our client’s customized transportation consultation to the very end of their transportation-event. The Team at JOTSB strives to maintain a safe, efficient and personalized transportation experience, while never forgetting everything we do is always in the name of fun. When we say “For a Good Time Call!,” we mean it sincerely!
Q: What attracted you to the wedding industry?
A: And so the story goes… while basking in the sun Sierra turned to Darin and casually said, “Hey baby, what if we buy a School Bus and do wine learning tours. We’ll keep it yellow. We’ll need a gimmick. I will dress up like a rocky horror picture show type character, maybe a dominatrix principal type. I’ll carry a ruler and a whip. You can dress up like a nutty/hot professor and we’ll offer wine learning tours and I’ll give them a report card at the end.”
Darin replied, “That is absolutely the DUMBEST idea I have ever heard!”
Sierra’s response, “If it doesn’t work, we’ll live in it!”
It’s been over 12 years since conception and using their wedding day to launch their first “roving wedding” bus on 11-11-11 in Santa Barbara. Now the entire JOTSB team and drivers specialize in wedding transportation. On average since 2017, we serve over 200 weddings per year.
We were hired by a wedding coordinator pretty early on when we had just two buses. She shared with us (as well as many other planners since then), that the worst vendor to deal with in the wedding industry is the transportation providers.
Finding that out made us strive to be the very best, which we have achieved.
A lot of wedding planners tell their clients to only work with us because we are the best at what we do, time and time again.
Q: Can you share any testimonials from past clients that you have worked with?
A: For more than 12 years we have been the highest rated transportation company in our trade area on Yelp, Wedding Wire, The Knott and Google. We enjoy a stellar reputation within the tight knit wedding industry and community of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura County wedding vendors and planners.
Follow the links below for the most up to date reviews.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/jump-on-the-school-bus-santa-barbara
https://www.weddingwire.com/biz/jump-on-the-school-bus-carpinteria/c0deb22dc8647507.html
https://www.theknot.com/marketplace/jump-on-the-school-bus-santa-barbara-ca-803889
Q: What is your payment structure and cancellation policy? Do you charge any travel or overtime fees?
A: We take everything into account and give a personalized quote to each client. We charge an hourly rate with some wiggle room for overage so that we don’t nickel and dime if the event goes a little over their contract hours.
https://www.jumpontheschoolbus.com/request-a-quote
Q: Do you have liability insurance?
A: Yes.
Q: What size weddings do you typically work with?
A: The largest wedding we’ve done required 10+ buses with multiple runs and pickup locations.
We pride ourselves on being culturally diverse and love doing LGBTQ weddings.
We are required by the Public Utilities Commission to carry 5 million general liability insurance as well as workers compensation. We provide additional insured certificates to wedding planners, their clients and venues upon request.
Q: Do you require a minimum number of hours for a booking?
A: Every wedding is unique, therefore we take an extremely personalized look at each wedding and circumstance and are flexible in working out the logistics.
Q: Do you provide your own equipment or work with other vendors?
A: Yes, we own all of our buses and have several full time mechanics who maintain the buses as required by the California Public Utilities Commission and CHP who require each bus to undergo 45 day periodic inspections.
Q: How far in advance do you recommend clients book with you?
A: 6-12 months in advance as we typically sell out.
Q: What makes you different from your competitors?
A: We pride ourselves on clear communication and transparency with not only our clients but our amazing employees. We have an amazing team with over 75 employees consisting of 35+ commercially endorsed drivers, several mechanics, lots of bus cleaners, an amazing General Manager – Danny and his wife/assistant Charleen, an extraordinary Executive Assistant & Master of Logistics – Lindsay, a Marketing Director – Sienna, and Sales Manager – Kevin. We offer our full time employees health insurance and contribute to their 401k.
We pay the best in our industry therefore we have little to no turnover.
All of our drivers are seasoned and know how to #WeBringTheParty
Q: What is your average cost?
A: $1,500.00 – $20,000.00.
Q: Do you provide a trial run before the wedding day?
Yes, we pride ourselves on visiting every new venue and/or pick up location if we have not already provided transportation to that venue previously. Our General Manager will go out to the property to assess any potential issues and create a solid plan to execute the pick up and drop off safely for your guests. We do this for FREE.
A lot of our competitors, specifically, out of town transportation providers coming in from LA will not do this unless they are paid for their time or won’t do a site visit at all ending up in a big mess, if they show up at all.
Q: Can you describe a memorable experience you’ve had working in this industry?
A: Every wedding is memorable but probably the most memorable weddings are the ones we have to sign an NDA for.
Here are links to some of our most memorable weddings:
https://www.jumpontheschoolbus.com/featured-in-martha-stewart-weddings
https://www.jumpontheschoolbus.com/featured-in-brides-for-diana-rosss-sons-wedding
https://www.jumpontheschoolbus.com/featured-in-vogue-1
Q: Is there anything you would like to tell our readers that was not mentioned above?
A: Before you hire a company the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) recommends:
- Search the list of passenger carriers to determine whether the company has an operating permit with the PUC and whether it is insured, the headquarters of the company, and more!
- Review the PUC 10 Tips On Renting Transportation and their Useful Information about Passenger Transportation fact sheet.
- Read about investigations and citations of transportation companies.
We recommend that you also:
- Ask to visit the bus terminal and see the bus(es) and overall operation.
- Ask to see proof of CURRENT insurance and registration for the specific bus(es) you will be renting.
- Ask to review the”Annual CHP Inspection Reports” listing the bus(es) in satisfactory condition and all (if any) violations have been repaired and signed back into service by the CHP.
- Ask to review the companies “periodic mechanical inspection reports” which are legally due every 45 days (we do our inspections every 30 days.)
- Ask to review the companies maintenance and repair reports for the specific bus(es) you are renting.
- Ask for an an “Additional Insured Certificate” naming you and your venue (if applicable) as additional insured for the day(s) of the event.
- Check out YELP, The Knott, Wedding Wire and Google reviews.
To learn more about Jump On The School Bus, click HERE!