Start Your Wedding Planning with a Great Wedding Planner

Happy is the bride who has a great wedding planner on her team! Undoubtedly, a wonderful wedding can be planned without one – brides do it all the time. But generally, we see the difference between the brides who have wedding planners and the brides who don’t. We see it in the amount of time they spend finding the right vendors, in the value they get for their money with each of their vendors, how educated they are about vendors’ services, in how well they stay on budget and on a timeline, in how stressed or frustrated they are, and in how they feel at the end about the experience of planning a wedding.

Your wedding day is one of the most important days of your life. It is also probably one of the most expensive. All of your relatives and close friends will always remember your wedding. And you only have one chance to do it right – there are no wedding do-overs. So why wouldn’t you want an experienced professional helping you make the right decisions and then working to make sure your wishes turn into the wedding you dreamed of?

What does a good wedding planner do for you?

First, they meet with you to go over your vision for your wedding and your priorities. They help you establish a budget and allocate it so that you are spending money where it counts most for you.

They listen to you, and from seeing what style you like and knowing your budget, they can pick a few vendors in each category that will be the right ones for you. No setting aside a valuable half day to meet with a florist who does not have the right style or a photographer who is way outside your budget. As you meet with vendors in each category, they prepare you for the meeting – what questions to ask, what options and services you want to add to the contract, what information you need to have with you. If you are having any problems with a vendor, they jump in and help you work it out.

As you choose your vendors, the wedding planner takes over keeping them on track, moving forward and coordinated with each other. I am going to venture a guess that a wedding planner will make at least 250 contacts – calls, emails, written communication - with vendors about your wedding and solve many issues and questions without your involvement in each one.

They review all your vendor contracts before signing them and they can make valuable suggestions about changes, additions and deletions that help you spend your budget more wisely. Because they coordinate 10-50 weddings a year, they can “see” your wedding – they can imagine how your design and plans will work in any location, how traffic flow will work, how your timeline will unfold. They know the personalities and quirks of all your vendors and how to get the best job possible from each one.

In the week or two before the wedding, they are following up on every detail, often running some of the last-minute errands for you – picking up placecards and wedding programs, delivering hotel welcome baskets, helping to assemble favors, and so many other things that have to be done – so that you have more time to enjoy your family and friends and get yourself ready for the festivities.

On your wedding day, all the attention to detail and prep work will pay off. Instead of having a group of vendors trying to coordinate with each other for the first time, the wedding planner is the captain of a team that is well-prepped and prepared.

Not to worry, but the truth is that most weddings are not flawless. Little things happen, big things happen, and some things are unexpected and out of your control. Wedding planners have encountered every problem that can occur and they know what to do – they can become a psychologist, seamstress, plumber, rigger, driver, or negotiator on a moment’s notice – and we know one who could even fill in to officiate if the minister doesn’t show up. Chances are, you’ll never know something was going on behind the scenes.

Some brides wait until way into the planning process to hire a planner, or they just want a planner to do “day-of” service. Both of these provide valuable help, but most of the mistakes made in wedding planning happen back when vendors are chosen and contracts are signed. When someone comes on board in the last couple weeks before the wedding, they can’t undo mistakes that you’ve made months ago.

So we hope we have you thinking seriously about engaging the services of a wedding planner from the beginning of the wedding planning process – before you select all your vendors and sign contracts. And that it helps you become one of the happy, confident, stress-free brides we love to work with in the store.