A Good Wedding Planner is Hard to Find

The inspiration for this blog came one afternoon as I was perusing the net and came across a website that advocates firing your wedding planner. As a professional planner for over 6 years, I was appalled at the concept. Not for selfish reasons or because of a bruised ego, but because of the absurd nature of the advice.  Stripped down to its bare parts, the site’s creator is essentially arguing that in order to save money, you should fire your wedding planner.  This is backwards – brides on a tight budget are at the top of the list for brides that should hire a planner. Any wedding planner worth her salt should save you more money than she costs and any difference should be made up by the stress reducing, blunder avoiding advice that she offers.  A good wedding planner should offer advice on how to construct your budget and where you can safely cut the budget in an astute manner.  Perhaps now is a good time for me to define what I view as a good planner.

A GREAT wedding planner should:

Be Experienced 

Admittedly, there is a divide in the wedding planning industry. You have trained, experienced planners who have carefully perfected their craft and invested time and energy in learning the industry. On the other hand, you have well intentioned, untrained “planners” who like weddings but have no clue as to how to successfully execute an event from beginning to end.  You can often tell those in the latter category because they make comments such as “I just love weddings and helped out on my cousin’s wedding last year, ” or are unable to substantively answer questions regarding the wedding industry. A true planner has a minimum of three years experience and a wide range of experience on various types of events.  A true planner should also be a connoisseur of all things wedding related and able to answer your questions with relative ease and should come to the table with a portfolio and references.

Have Contacts

A true wedding planner should have a number of vendor contacts in the region in which she works.  After spending years in the wedding industry, a good planner should have a number of preferred vendors with which she has developed good working relationships. A planner who lacks contacts with vendors is useless and this should raise a huge red flag. While I believe that a planner should have contacts, they should NOT accept kickbacks or referral bonuses of any kind! This is a dishonest practice that puts the planner in league with the vendors and strips her of her objectivity and her ability to be 100% on your side.

Be Compassionate

A good wedding planner is part planner, part designer and part psychologist.  The wedding planning process can be emotionally intense and can bring out the best and yes, the worst in family and friends. The wedding planner is often placed in the middle of feuds or asked for advice on sticky situations – and a good one should handle this with wisdom and compassion.  You should feel completely comfortable with your planner.

Be Firm 

While your wedding planner should be compassionate and friendly with you, the job occasionally calls for her to get firm to reign in wayward vendors and to ensure that all goes according to plan. A shy planner who runs away from confrontation is of no good to a bride in a vendor jam. Direct, firm and effective communication is a necessary component for a good planner.

I could go on and on, but that’s a good start. A good planner should also be available and organized! In my next few posts, I’ll explore the benefits of having a planner and why all brides, even those a tight budget, should consider hiring one.