Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day family! Enjoy

TIME OUT

In case you have forgotten, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.  That means time out from wedding planning and time for romance!! One of the biggest mistakes couples make is neglecting their relationship while planning the wedding.  Don’t let planning take the romance out of your relationship. Trust me, after the wedding, there will be plenty of obstacles to romance, namely kids, work, time. Don’t get off to a bad start.  Buy some flowers, champagne and chocolate. Celebrate your engagment!

The Benefits of Hiring A Wedding Planner

Once considering luxuries, wedding planners are becoming more and more mainstream as more brides realize the value of having a planner. In a recent study conducted by SuperWeddings.com and the International Institute of Weddings, more than 62% of brides reported using a wedding consultant. Further, of the brides that did not hire a planner, 72% reported that if they could do it all over again, they would hire a planner, if only for day of management.

Time

The average bride spends 250 hours planning her wedding day. That is nearly 6 full weeks. In today’s busy world, you may not have the time, or frankly the desire, to make this time commitment. It takes a considerable amount of time to effectively manage all of the logistics, budget, details and contracts involved in a wedding. A wedding planner can be a vital time saving resource especially in the final few weeks before the wedding, when your stress level is likely to be very high. Unfortunately, many brides do not realize this until it is too late and often seek out a planner after disaster has already ensued. Many brides and grooms run themselves ragged in the weeks leading up to the wedding. Equal numbers of couples tell tales of a wedding day that went by in a blur because there was still so much for them to attend to and worry about that they had little time to relax and enjoy the moment. A wedding planner can help alleviate these situations by being on hand to take care of time consuming tasks and to trouble shoot for you when required, making it all so much easier and more enjoyable for you.

Budget

Wedding coordinators provide a wide range of services which can save the bride time and stress, but what many brides do not realize is that a good wedding consultant can often save them money as well. Because wedding consultants are very well connected with vendors and suppliers within the wedding industry, and because they do ‘volume’ business, wedding consultants are often able to secure discounts for their clients on the products and services they desire, or to negotiate much better prices or ‘deals’ than the average person off the street. This can result in substantial savings to the bride and groom, often enabling them to have “more wedding” for their money than they dared to dream possible.

A professional wedding planner can also assist with drawing up budgets (and adhering to them!) and with developing important time-lines and schedules, in order to ensure that everything that needs to be done is taking place, and at the appropriate time, minimizing the probability of unwelcome surprises. A consultant helps to ensure that no details are overlooked thereby helping to avoid the wedding disaster stories that so frequently strike the most unsuspecting bride and groom. She also serves as an advocate for the bride and groom, ensuring that the couple’s best interests with vendors are being protected so that they receive all they are entitled to, and are not taken advantage of. Planning a wedding is an overwhelming and emotionally charged experience, and some less than scrupulous vendors will capitalize on that when doing business with the happy couple – a wedding consultant knows what is or is not exepcted of vendors, and what is or is not fair and standard practice.

Wedding Day Management

Wedding coordinators can also be hired to supervise and coordinate just the actual wedding day, almost acting as the director of a theatrical production. She ensures that all the players – vendors, guests, bridal party, and the bride and groom – are in their places, that they know what to do and when, so that the show unfolds as planned. Should a crisis or emergency break out along the way as can so often happen at an event like a wedding, a good wedding consultant is generally able to take care of it so that the bride and groom never even know there was a crisis. The result: a stress-free and relaxed bride and groom who are free to celebrate and enjoy this day they have waited so long for.

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.