Planning your wedding can be harsh, especially if you know absolutely nothing about it and have no experience in organizing weddings. But we all want our wedding to be perfect, don’t we? So, either you do very, very serious research and spend a ton of time and effort to plan your wedding, or you can hire a professional wedding planner. Both options are fine, you just have to decide which of them suits your situation better. But if you choose to hire a wedding planner, he or she better be good and worth the money, which means you need to choose a professional planner very carefully. This material will help you make the right choice.
Here’s what you need to know about wedding planning in general and a certain specialist before hiring anybody.
What does wedding planner do? Service packages
Wedding planning includes plenty of issues and the depth of involvement in the process of planning influences the price. So, there are different services and packages the wedding planners offer, and only you decide what exactly you need them to do and how much you can afford to pay. So, before signing a contract, talk about the details – don’t worry, a professional planner will help you find out what exactly you might need. But it’s crucial you know what services you get and what responsibilities are on your own shoulders. You can even delegate all of the work, but it will cost you a small fortune, so usually, people choose something in the middle and take on part of the work or ask their friends and family to help.
Here are just a few services a wedding planner can offer you:
- consulting – the cheapest option. They give you detailed advice as to how to do the planning and you do it by yourself. It can save you a lot of time, will help avoid mistakes, but the work is on your shoulders;
- setting the wedding budget – professional wedding planner knows everything about the money a wedding requires, they will help you plan your budget optimally;
- making the wedding timeline – this is also very important because inexperienced people can make a lot of mistakes regarding the wedding schedule, and it influences a wedding greatly;
- assisting with booking a wedding venue and vendors – wedding planners have many useful contacts and even might have discounts, which will help you save on your wedding;
- paperwork assistance – they will read the contracts with vendors and help you get the best offer and best price;
- coordination the work of wedding vendors – this is a huge piece of work. You need to organize your cooperation with every vendor, do the tastings and trials, control their progress, and so on;
- wedding day coordination – the planner comes to your wedding and organizes everyone and everything involved.
It’s up to you what services you want the wedding planner to do and what pieces of work you want to delegate. So, before hiring a planner, decide on the tasks you set and the amount of money you can afford to pay.
Wedding planning budget
We’ve just talked about different service packages offered by wedding planners. Of course, their price varies. So, it’s good if you understand how much you can afford to spend on a planner before even contacting them. Or you can adjust the contract so that it was perfect for you (many packages are flexible – for instance, you can cut the hours or exclude certain services). It’s important that you don’t overpay for the wedding planning because it will leave you with a smaller wedding budget. If you can’t decide on your own what services you have to include in your contract, consult with the planner, they can help you find the optimal package for your money. It’s totally fine if you only pay for consultations and do all of the work organizing the wedding by yourself or if you delegate the work completely.
Check feedback before hiring wedding planner
It’s important to check the reviews about a potential wedding planner before hiring them. Search for this info online, contact the previous clients and ask for their feedback, etc. If this particular planner or company has a lot of critical comments and reviews, consider looking for another professional. Also, if there are no reviews or very few, it might mean that the planner is new to this business and inexperienced, which is not a very good thing as well. Clients’ reviews might also help you choose the optimal service package.
Experience of wedding planner
Find out how experienced your potential wedding planner is. In this business, this is an important factor. At the same time, it’s a subjective concept. You can ask for how long the person is doing wedding planning and how many events have they already organized. Because some planners have been working for decades and others for only months, but really, the number of successfully held weddings is what truly matters. There are wedding planners that are in business for only a couple of years but they organized 20-30 weddings a year – that’s totally enough to gain the experience.
Wedding planner and vendors
Many wedding planners already have a list of vendors they usually work with. Often, they have discounts and other useful things. Ask your potential planner whether they prefer to work with their usual vendors. Maybe you have some other vendor in mind and want to work with them. You have to make sure your planner will be able to offer you the best vendors for your wedding.
Communication with wedding planner. When? How? Will they charge extra?
When signing a contract with your wedding planner (or better before that), ask them about your communication. How can you contact them (phone calls, e-mails, chats, etc) if you have questions? How soon do they usually answer (1 or 3-5 business days, etc)? Can you contact them on weekends if you need to? Do they charge extra for such consulting via phone or chat? Ask these questions and see if you can work on their terms.
Do wedding planner’s personal style and taste match yours?
That’s not an obligatory thing, but think about it – this person will be responsible for your wedding, will he or she make the right choices? Would you make the same choice? What if you don’t like the designs your wedding planner chooses for you? Because a lot of decisions will be made by this person. Your wedding planner might be a great lovely person, but his or her taste might differ from yours. If so, pick another planner. You have to be on the same page, your planner must understand your tastes and be able to fit the wedding to your personality. Otherwise, it won’t be your perfect wedding.
