Kick back and enjoy more of your wedding by hiring an experienced, professional, well-connected wedding planner! It is a priceless purchase you can’t afford to not do if you are doing anything more than a basic or small (tiny) wedding.
1. They understand how to deal with legal contracts.
Have you heard of wedding insurance? Do you know where to get it? Did you know there are waivers and contracts for venues? Do you know if you are financially responsible/liable for tent spikes in the lawn? Do you know what should or should not be in any of these legal documents or what they really mean? Are they too far reaching? Are they pro forma?
A wedding planner is much more informed and familiar and has seen some real-life cause and effect, so they are a solid judge of what is reasonable and legally binding more than the average person.
2. They know what plan B and C look like.
When it rains, it pours, and they know how to move an outdoor wedding inside in a jiffy. They also can spot an inadequate tent that won’t stand up to wind gusts. They know to check and see if the electric cords for lighting and sound are safely taped down or out of the way. When it gets hot, it’s a heat wave, and they know where and how to set up fans to keep venues and guests from overheating. They not only have a check list for things when they go right, they know what plan to put in action when they go wrong.
3. They know where to tighten your budget in a pinch.
They’ve done enough weddings to understand how many lilies will stifle a small church and how many bagpipers you really need for a wedding. They also know when a signature cocktail will put you over budget when a champagne rental will do just fine. They also understand that deals can be had when it comes to supplies and when it is just too much to ask for ice sculptures.
4. They will strive for your vision, not anyone else’s.
They are beholden to you, not your mother-in-law or opinionated sister, so you will be the one they will listen to and take direction from. This eliminates unnecessary stress and confrontation. While they may have to keep the wedding down to one bagpiper (seriously, how many does a wedding ever need, I ask???) they will make sure that the family tartan is the only tartan on display. You wouldn’t want a clash of tartans.
5. They ensure better prices, go for discounts, and stand for quality.
If you hire someone yourself, they may never see you again. And if you trash them in a bad review, they can ignore you, because really, who are you in their world? But if a wedding planner has a bad experience with them, they may lose your business and all future business that wedding planner could have potentially thrown their way. If they don’t want to be quietly networked out, they will not only do it for a good price, but if they mess up, they will make it up to you. Lighting guy will bring extra lighting. Cake guy will replace cake or give you a huge cut in a discount (or free deserts???). Flower guy will run around and make sure you dang well got the dusty pink roses and not those baby pink carnations. They will deliver or they will go the extra mile to make it up.
6. They coordinate everyone.
If you do the wedding yourself, you are finding a cake maker, the clergy, the venue for wedding, the venue for reception, the rental equipment, the florist, the hairstylist, the cosmetologist, the musician or DJ, the limo company, and all on your lonesome. Or if you are real lucky, you can have a few friends or relatives to drive crazy trying to coordinate all of it. That would be thrilling. Best of all, you’ll get their judgement on who to hire, so if Aunt Kay says the country club is great, can you really trust that her memory of the golf club is what it is today in 2017, or is she remembering it from 1981? Your planner will know if someplace has been renovated or is out-of-date to the max so you won’t be wasting time with bad recommendations.
You’ll be making solid choices from a selection of valid vendors and venues.
7. They know what to look for in a vendor.
If you haven’t hired a band before, or if you think all florists are alike, you will find out the hard way that not every florist or every band is appropriate for your wedding. If a vendor is hugely impersonal and doesn’t know a venue, they could send just about anyone to drop off your flowers, put then in front of weak vents blocking air or in sweltering hallways to wilt and give off that wonderful overpowering ready-to-rot fragrance; and instead of fixing things, they may just flake out on you because hey, who cares. Do you want the band that knows how to deal with equipment problems or venue inadequacies? or do you want some group of gals showing up, shrugging their shoulders, and blasting sound from a corner nearest your special table?
A wedding planner ensures quality control and oversight, and knows what vendors are lacking in both.
A do-it-yourself wedding can be great, but unless you have experience with your wedding being rather on the small side, say the size of a birthday party or shower, maybe you should go investigate the possibility of hiring a wedding planner.
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Oh, and here is something a wedding planner might know that you might not: A layer in a cake is not a specific height – so when you contact cake makers for how much a 3 layer cake is, you want to know how high it stands in actual inches. This might seem obvious, but if you are coordinating and planning dozens of aspects for your wedding, and you are not an expert or professional, chances are you are missing out on important details.
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So hire a wedding planner for their professionalism, their expertise, and their savvy connections.
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