Congratulations, you’re engaged! And what an exciting time.
You’re on Pinterest pinning or maybe revising your wedding board with all your ideas of how you envision your wedding day, looking at wedding dates while considering a dash of unsolicited advice from all your married friends;) and family members.
Slowly you start feeling overwhelmed with how to make this all happen. What you do know though- is that you want to truly enjoy your wedding day without interruption. As you should!
You’re at a pivotal crossroad and before you hit the ground researching, interviewing, requesting pricing, booking etc you need to consider these three things.
BUDGET
It is arguably the toughest and most important conversation to have. Before you can start dreaming and planning, you’ll need a realistic view of what to expect.
How involved do your family members want to be?
Do they have any special requests for the wedding day…
Do they want to be involved in anything specific…
Whom would like to contribute financially to the wedding?
How much woud they like to gift monetarily…
Do they have an expectations on how they would like you to spend that gift, for example towards food and beverage or nice flowers…
How do your family members envision the event leading up to your wedding and how they foresea your wedding day.
This is THE BEST way for you to gauge how your family will react to the decisions you make while you plan your wedding and how to expect how they emotionally react. It also helps you identify where your family would appreciate being involved in a special way without being overly involved. I always advice to assign tasks to family based on these conversations. They have a focus. This could be a cute well executed DIY, a well-planned event menu, the perfect bridal shower you would be happy to allow your mother-in-law to plan etc.
prioritiES
Once you have gathered all the facts, let them sit and simmer for a bit, you’ll be able to establish:
YOUR PRIORITIES AND THE PRIORITIES OF OTHERS
When these two things come together you’ll be able to clearly see and understand how to move forward. Make a list.
For example:
MY PRIORITIES
A fun party with all my family and friends
Stunning bridal fashion; shoes, dress, veil + accessories
No bridal party
Short Timeline so that we can party
Untraditional venue with great ambiance and decor
Champagne tower instead of cake
FAMILY PRIORITIES
Mother in law wants to plan her own bridal shower for all her friends
My mum wants to make a really cute DIY and have our wedding photos in her garden
My sisters and friends want to get ready with me even though I dont have a bridal party
Dad wants open bar
Fiance wants really good steak for dinner
Mom wants a band if possible
See how great of a picture that paints?! Well for a wedding planner- this is all we need to know. From this we can plan your whole wedding expertly. For you, it provides tangible goals- how to get there and where to start is another dilemma which brings me to my final question; Can you do this on your own?
Support
It a question no many brides can answer for themselves, sometimes much latter in the planning process when they realize they’re over their head or feel overwhelmed. Or even in hindsight after the wedding. So many married couples have said how after the fact, now knowing all that was involved and how their wedding day actually happened- they wished they had at the very least hired a planner for the day of.
Now that you have an idea of your wedding it’s time to take stock of how much support, if any you’ll need to pull of the biggest and most expensive party of your dreams while also being able to enjoy every minute of it.
Are you inquisitive?
Be prepared for the steep learning curve knowing that there are is not enough information out there in the blogsphere to properly tell you how to plan a wedding, what to expect cost wise, how to gauge if a vendor is actually great or if they just have a flashy instagram, confidence and a good price? Sure you can ask your friends for recommendations- but they have also only planned their own wedding and yours will likely not be the same. So to be successful in planning your wedding you will need to be forever inquisitive, seeking out information to help make the best decisions.
2. Do you like research?
Never take anything at face value. Pay attention to personal recommendations and continue to inquire as to why that person is recommending them. but keeping in mind- what good for them is not always good for you- you’ll need to do your own vendor research; photographers, musicians, makeup artists, hair stylists, transportation, planners, cake bakers, caterers, stationers, florists, decorators, rental companies, venues etc.
There is a lot out there and if you don’t have a well seasoned planner to listen to your previously made priorities list- then you won’t have the privilege of the planner shortcuts where we give you all the recommendations and advice needed.
You’re researching prices, value, comparing vendors, creeping their instagram, understanding what makes each vendor unique and does it truly line-up with what you're looking for, reviewing contracts, google reviews, vendor affiliates etc- Then re-assessing priorities based on the data your gathering and hopefully coming to a conclusion.
3. Do you procrastinate?
Hate the word and the feeling. But sometimes it a product of being fed too much information, becoming overwhelmed and then stalling not knowing what to do next. Or ignoring, because you have time right?! But you’re wrong. Wedding planning goes by within a blink of an eye and you could be missing out on key opportunities or deadlines unbenounced by you. With a wedding planner you only need to be involved in the fun parts. You have the power at anytime to say- i’m too busy and i’m leaving this in your hands to bring to fruition.
Having planner allows you to enjoy the journey on your own terms and not feel guilty if work commitments take over your work while your trying to plan.
4. Do you have trouble asking questions or are shy when communicating?
Your ultimate happiness depends on your ability to ask questions and not be shy about your own feelings. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know, and if you don’t ask for what you want- you’ll likely never get it. Don’t be fooled, your vendors will not tell you what they ultimately need to do their job until the week before the wedding. Wether is be specific power, space, delivery needs, sign-off etc, rest assured they are focusing on events with a lead-time of week to week. If you wedding is not happening that Saturday- likely you’re not a priority and any email to you will be delayed until the vendor really needs to know. And sometimes they don’t give you the courtesy and simply show up on the wedding day demanding certain things that just aren’t attainable when your in makeup hair having your hair done.
A wedding planner’s job is all about foresight and understand how every vendor does their job, anticipates their needs and has it all organized for them before they need it. And it takes years to learn this art.
5.Strategy
There is no right or wrong way to host or plan a wedding but your success will be in your ability to make order of the chaos. Strategy is what planning is all about. First you establishing your end goal, then list all the things that need to be done…then strategize the order of what needs to be done first; right up until the wedding day. But if you’ve never planned a wedding before, how are you supposed to know what needs to consider in order to formulate this master plan. Even the most organized person can have trouble navigating these waters. Which vendors to book first, which vendors work well together, will building your timeline before booking be important etc etc. The perfect analogy I alway fall back on is cooking. You can have all the best and freshest ingredients, a fairly good cook, but that doesn’t necessarily ensure you’ll have a wonderful meal in the end. Same thing goes for wedding.
You can choose and book all your vendors, but how they all come together as a team is masterfully orchestrated which takes extensive experience for best results.
6. Risk Taker?
Without a planner you are constantly taking a risk with every decision you make. But do you truly understand what that risk is? It can be as simple as finding a chair rental company. How hard can that be? It’s a simple chair right? Let me share a real life situation an associate of mine went through which will help you understand one of the many risks you take without a planner.
REAL LIFE SCENARIO
You really want those trendy black bistro chairs but you’re seeing most companies with the price of $12 per chair with a $300 delivery fee + $150 pick up fee and most companies can’t do a late night pick up which you JUST by chance have been told is a must from your venue. So you decide to find the cheapest company on facebook marketplace and book for $5 a chair. There is a high probability that your chairs will never show up- but you ignore that, because that would never happen to you. The company you found on facebook marketplace dont have a contracts so nothing is signed legally or legitimately confirmed but you send them a small deposit via e-transfer. You haven’t established a proper line of communication and all you have is facebook messages to fall back on so you continue to communicate through messaging apps and have never spoken too anyone in person. But now that you’ve booked the response time seems to lag and your questions are never fully answered. Finalizing details have been tricky when they’re just not getting back to you in a timely manner- which was stressful. It’s three days before your wedding and the company send you a message to confirm when you would like to pick up your 150 chairs…. um what? Delivery was not included? Why didn’t you mention this before???? But unfortunately the reality is that you assumed it was included and the company never brought it up and you’re not about to rent a Uhaul. So you inquire on pricing and the company says $250 for delivery, $250 for set-up, $250 for late-night pick up. (basically the same price as the other companies)…. so now you’re feeling a little sour. the experience of trying to communicate with them has been difficult, they hid information from you which is costing you extra and you no longer trust this company. But you're financially committed at this point. Fine, you trudge along and focus on other wedding planning things that make you happy. Your wedding day comes and it looks like this.
END RESULT
The company arrives late. What was an AM drop of period confirmed by the company in reality ends up being 30 minutes before your cocktails are due to start and their now wheeling in stacks of chairs through your cocktails and into the reception area. And they’re not being very discrete. From the corner of your eye something looks off but your cocktailing with your guests and think it’s too late now anyway. You have your grand entrance and finally sit down. Your chair has no cushion…… and it’s a hard uncomfortable chair. As you look closer you realise the chair is actually plastic…..and to be honest, not well cared for being all scratched up with missing paint. Suddenly you hear a high pitched yelp, a bit of laughter and a kerfuffle in the back of the room. It’s your uncle and his chair just broke. A one off right? No, it seems as though the company shorted you chairs and you can see you guests standing around their table looking confused at to where their chairs might be. It’s like this all night during dinner- you see wait staff bringing in ugly banquet chairs to replace guests chairs because they’re either wobbly or extremely uncomfortable. The next morning at 8am you get a call from your venue. Your chairs are still here- they were supposed to be picked up late last night and we have a function this afternoon…….you agree and explain that you even paid a late night pick up fee. Now you’re really angry. The nerve of this company! You write to complain but no one ever answers and your chairs are left in limbo. -End to story-
I’ve also heard of companies just not showing up and disappearing or substituting the chairs for another without notice…. I mean over the 15 years of being a planner I have seen and heard it all!
7.Time for emails?
Know that when you confirm a detail with one vendor by email you will likely need to confirm it with multiple other vendors and your venue.
It’s like a domino effect. Each vendor is connected and relies on the other to do their job in a timely and effective manner or a chain reaction unbenounced to you will occur.
And when this does, without a planner, once this happens it’s already too late and you’ll just have to come to terms with the end result.
8. Patience
Be prepared to wait for responses when emailing vendors or requests for quotes. You aren’t a number but you are in a lineup of 60+ brides that’s a mile long, also with questions. With a established wedding planner, you get to butt in at the front ;).
Vendors are more apt to working with couples if they have a planner
because they know it will be organized, communication will be packed with all the appropriate information, process is seamless as the planner can guide the client and explain things which alleviates the vendor and its easier to work as a team throughout the whole process since the planner knows what everyone needs.
9. Are you a go-getter? Are you a good communicator?
You gotta be on those vendors!!! Multiple follow ups to make sure you’re at the top of their in-box. Better yet are you a good communicator? Can you speak the vendors language when describing what you want and what your expectations are? Do you know how to organize visuals to get your wants and need across to a vendor? Mood boards, design visuals and descriptive paragraphs, multi- layered floor plans for design, catering, food & beverage selections, seating charts etc? If this overwhelms you- planner. You gotta be a self starter… and motivation when the going gets tough is very real.
10. Can you work under pressure?
How responsive are you to deadlines and effective at gathering the information needed for particular vendors with little notice? It all leads back to being organized and having the know how to have the information handy for when it’s needed. A wedding planner already does this along the way but if you have a hectic work or life schedule and all of a sudden your asked for your final catering numbers, individual meal selections and you forgot to ask on your RSVP exactly what each person is eating…then your left scrambling. It’s a THIS VS THAT.
If you can’t tell the difference… You need a planner.
And lastly,
11. Do you have time?
Planning a wedding is like a second job. On average I send over 1200 emails and send over 500 hours planning a simple wedding. If your planning a tent wedding- double that.
If after reading this article you still feel confident or simply don’t care, you don’t need a planner.
If some of this leaves you feeling overwhelmed but up to the challenge, you would benefit from a partial plan.
If considering your busy life and work commitments that this is just too much and you really want a nice wedding or just dont like planning- you are a perfect candidate for a full plan.
If you love the challenge of everything I mentioned above but want to make sure your plans come to fruition on the day, a day of coordinator is the right decision for you!
And now you’re ready to start planning your wedding.
xo Elise