Do you really need a wedding planner? What exactly is a wedding planner going to do for you? Could you just do it yourself? These and many more questions are what people wonder when they are planning their wedding day. We hope you enjoy our take on wedding planners and what you should look for.
A good wedding planner is worth their weight in gold, a bad wedding planner however is not only worth nothing, they could actually end up doing more harm to your day than good. So how do you tell the difference? For most couples, it’s their first time being married and have no idea how to pick a good wedding planner from a terrible one.
First, let’s just say that you can definitely do it all yourself (and many couples do). However, some people like that extra sense of security knowing they have someone else to bounce ideas off and to get some great ideas from as well. There is even a course you can do online for $29 that will give you a certificate as a wedding planner. Really? How good do you think someone could be after doing an online course only and no actual experience?
Many venues will include a wedding planner as part of their package. This is sometimes great, sometimes not. As wedding industry experts that have been doing this for well over a decade now, we have seen some great venue planners and some that are completely useless and inflexible.
One great question to ask is how long the planner you have been appointed has been with the venue and secondly how long they have been in the wedding planning industry. We have seen venues change wedding planners at an incredible rate. It’s not surprising to find a venue go through 3 or 4 changes of planner in a single year!
This means that the person you felt comfortable with when you booked your venue might not be the person you end up dealing with on your wedding day. This is often a little nerve-wracking as you are now dealing with yet another new person for your day of your dreams that you never approved.
Asking how long they have worked as a wedding planner (even elsewhere) is a good question to ask to find out how much they actually have experienced weddings. It’s not unheard of for some venues to hire someone that has just finished high school to be their “wedding planner”. It’s great to see venues hiring young staff, but to put them into a position they have no experience in is not going to give great results.
So What Does A Wedding Planner Do Anyway?
A good wedding planner will work with you on suggested times for each element of your day. These elements need to flow and make sense. They need to also allow “buffer time” for things that may go slightly longer than expected. A good planner will also be able to help suggest quality suppliers for many aspects of your day. (However, be careful here they are not just doing so because they are getting their “palms crossed” to suggest suppliers. Yes, this happens!)
A good planner will have progress meetings with you and your partner and will most certainly be there on the big day to help bring everything together. A good planner will also contact all your suppliers to ensure they have everything they need to know and answer any questions for them.
What If I Don’t Have A Wedding Planner?
Well, the good news is, if you are our client, we do a lot of the planning with you. Whilst we don’t consider ourselves as “wedding planners” we have frequently been told by our couples that we should be because we have done more to plan their wedding than their actual wedding planners!
Our couples enjoy progress planning sessions with us where we go over all the timings for the day, make suggestions to help enhance your day and answer any questions you might have. We feel that any good wedding entertainment provider should have an intimate understanding not only of your vision for your day, but also the running of the day and should play an important role in taking ownership of the success of the wedding.
What We See Differently …
Because we approach a wedding from an entertainment point of view, we often pick up on important elements that a traditional wedding planner will miss. Whilst the traditional planner is more concentrated on if the table runners are straight and the chair cover bows are tied the right way, we are more concerned about the elements that people will actually remember.
Nobody has ever left a wedding saying that the chair covers made the night amazing, it’s always the entertainment and the flow of the night that is remembered. We can advise on entertainment options (even when not us) that will work. For example, between the ceremony and the reception, what is there to keep guests entertained?
We also approach the event from more of a directors view. We help to look at the things that go missed. For example, is that really the best placement for the cake cutting? What about that fire extinguisher just off to the left that will be in the shot? (Yes, this has happened and we have suggested moving the cake which the venue, couple and photographer didn’t notice).
What If I Am Not Your Client But Want Help?
If you are reading this, and you are not our client, we still welcome you to contact us as we can still provide you with our planning service. We can do an in depth consultation with you over a cup of coffee to go over every element of your day and make suggestions and flag any potential problems we see to be resolved.
It might be worth the small investment to spend time with us to ensure your wedding day is going to run smoothly as possible. If we find that everything is in order, that is great you can head into your day knowing that another set of eyes have gone over it and you can sleep easy. If we find things to fix, then that is great too because you don’t get the chance of a do-over for your wedding day.
We received an email from a couple saying we were the single best thing she did for her wedding day, and she didn’t hire any of our services! It was the planning session that they had that gave them so much insight into their day.
Feel free to contact us and enquire about our planning offer and the unique perspective we bring to it.
