Since there are so many different elements to wedding planning, we value input from professionals in all areas who interact with the bride-and-groom to-be. We asked Anna from Something New to provide us with the skinny on wedding planning services. You can tell this super-friendly gal and her partner know their stuff. Check out this helpful synopsis below to determine if hiring a wedding planner is the right avenue for you.
I wouldn’t feel right sitting here and telling you that your wedding won’t succeed without a professional planner. There are plenty of weddings that go on without a planner every year and they don’t all fall apart at the seams. On the other hand, the couples who choose to forgo having a wedding planner go through more hassle than those with the extra help. Here are my Top 10 reasons that you should hire a wedding planner.
A wedding planner…
1. …saves you money. When planning a wedding on a budget, it may seem impractical to drop a good chunk of money on a planner. You may think to yourself, why don’t I take that money and spend it on more décor, etc.? Yeah, I may work harder, but I’ll get more out of it. For some couples, that may be true. Through careful research, you may be able to find the absolute cheapest vendors and décor.
However, there’s much to be said for having great vendors at a reasonable price, instead of the cheapest vendors. A wedding planner can help you negotiate contracts and get you the best vendors for you a couple.
It’s not just those vendor connections that will have your planner saving you the big bucks. You know the wedding section in book stores – the one with every book from The Groom’s Guide to a DIY Wedding to Bridal Bargains 101? Well, we have read them all… twice. Save yourself the $15 cover price and ask us how to create $15 centerpieces instead.
2. …connects you to the best vendors. We can’t knock big name wedding websites for finding the best vendors in the area. However, it’s a hassle to call all 28 DJs listed in Philadelphia to find out their prices. The “$-$$$$” mean different things to every vendor. Wedding planners pride themselves on the connections they are able to make with vendors in their areas, saving you the time and weeding out those DJs who think that the Macerena is still the best song since sliced bread. Tell your planner a price point and they’ll be able to give you a few great vendors, their prices, and be able to give you advice on which person will have the right vibe for you as a couple.
3. …helps you Do It Yourself. You want to make your own paper flowers? Great. Finding vases at thrift stores and keeping the collection in your basement? Awesome. Making old frames into blackboards and writing your buffet choices on them? Very cool. We love DIY couples and all of their incredible ideas. But what happens when you realize you have 8 boxes of stuff to bring to the venue and no one to set them up? Once again, it’s your wedding planner to the rescue.
We are not above physical labor. We don’t run around in high heels a la Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner. We are often on our hands and knees perfectly arranging a handmade aisle runner, up on ladder hanging carefully stitched swags, or arranging kitschy household items into funky centerpieces. Even if you have done all the work yourselves, you will need someone to pull it all together on the actual day.
4. …helps you avoid the tedious side of wedding planning. So, you’ve found a florist that sounds awesome. You two look at some pictures of her past events, she seems to fit your style, and you decide to hire her. Unfortunately, she’s only known you for about an hour and she probably can’t come up with your dream centerpieces and just show up with them… especially within your budget. Instead, the two of you will have to go over what flowers are in season, what flowers fit your budget, how you can make a small space look larger or a large space look smaller, why Kate Middleton’s bouquet cost so much and how you can try to get the same look for a quarter of the cost… and on and on…
Wedding planners are used to all of these questions and can usually answer them for you. If they don’t know the answers themselves, wedding planners know all the right questions to ask the caterer, photographer, florist, etc. They know the red flags, as well. Plus, a wedding planner is often your saving grace. There is a lot of up selling in the wedding industry. Vendors will often try to convince you that you need an additional charge here and there and sometimes you don’t notice until the contract comes. Instead of sitting down with a contract and a cup of coffee and re-reading over and over to figure out where something is amiss, your wedding planner can usually just scan one and find out where something went wrong.
5. …can be a therapist. Not all planners are lucky enough to have a psychology major on their staff, but all wedding planners have real life experience in being a therapist. They are able to help you through all kinds of tough situations with family and friends, they know that almost all brides have a slight mental breakdown a month before their wedding, and they are there to calm your bridezilla tendencies. If you have a good planner, they are available to you all the time – even if just through text messages. It’s always awesome to have an impartial person to let you know that what you’re doing and feeling is perfectly normal.
6. …curbs any of those nitpicky concerns your parents have. There’s always a member of the family (or two or three) who believe this is just as much their wedding as yours. We have had parents who worried about everything from older guests getting to their cars to some guests not speaking English to bartenders stealing liquor at the end of the night. If there is a concern that your parents have, a wedding planner has probably heard it and knows how to handle it. The phrase “the wedding planner will handle it” will become a very welcome and very common phrase to leave your lips.
There is nothing worse than being bogged down with questions on your big day. Even though your wedding is about you and your partner celebrating your love, it’s also about seeing all of those family members you don’t see very often. All of those family members have the best intentions, but they often come with a lot of questions and concerns… it’s because they want the best for you, but the concerns often come at the worst time… like when you’re getting your makeup done and trying to relax. With a planner, you can relax and they will take care of it.
7. …is there for you when your “friendors” aren’t. Yes, your friend Sally may have taken a flower arranging class once and has graciously offered to make your centerpieces. Your friend Lucy always has the most adorable bathroom baskets and promises to show up with her best ones ever for your wedding. Oh, and don’t forget Tom, who just bought a new chocolate fountain and would love to try it out on your big day.
So, this all sounds great… free bathroom baskets, chocolate strawberries, and centerpieces at cost. But what happens when, a week before your wedding, Sally realizes that she needed to have ordered those Birds of Paradise a week ago to avoid being charged a $125 rush delivery fee? The day before your wedding, Tom’s chocolate fountain breaks down during a test run and doesn’t think to tell you because he doesn’t realize it was going to be the highlight of your dessert table. On the day of the wedding, Lucy arrives, sans baskets, because, well, getting beautiful was more important than tediously picking out tiny toiletries. This is when you need a planner.
Sure, you could scrape together bathroom baskets at the last minute (who doesn’t love a CVS run in a wedding dress?), you could rearrange the dessert table and you could suck it up and pay the rush fee on the flowers. But… what if you didn’t have to? A wedding planner can call up flower shops and get you a great deal on the flowers you truly wanted, can find a quick rental on chocolate fountains, and can take that trip to buy bathroom baskets without you ever knowing they weren’t there to start with.
8. …makes sure you never know what actually went wrong. Do you really want to know that your cake topper has a tiny crack in it or that your linens were late or that one of the kids ran around and ate some people’s favors? No. This is where we say “ignorance is bliss.” You want to enjoy your day and not worry until those linens finally arrive. That’s what your wedding planners are there for. We’re constantly stocked with tide pens, super glue, hair pins, etc. etc. That’s one thing that we do have in common with the aforementioned movie. Unless knowing about the mishap will make / save you money (i.e. we once had to borrow linens from the hotel after the florist didn’t bring them – allowing the couple to get back the money they had paid the florist) you will never know.
9. …makes sure you are a guest at your own wedding. This is really the best thing about having a planner. All of the above mentioned reasons fall into this category as well. As I’ve said a million times here, you don’t want to worry about a thing. Your wedding planner takes care of all of the little details, keeps the rest of the vendors on track, and caters to you like no one else will.
10. …lets you leave the wedding without a care in the world. The end of a wedding night includes cleaning, paying vendors, and collecting all of your personal items. We had a bride tell us once that she had been to a wedding where she saw the bride running around in her dress gathering up centerpieces. That stuck with us and it’s something that has stuck with most planners. At the end of the night, you want to leave / go home / go to a hotel / go to an after party… and you want your family and friends to do the same. You don’t want people to be forced (much less YOU don’t want to be forced) to make sure you leave the place spotless. A wedding planner is the last one to leave and will make sure that you are able to leave your big day with a smile on your face and no worries whatsoever.