Planning Your Wedding

         With A Wedding Planner 

                    By Leslie Gibbon

Your Wedding day is supposed to be the most special day of your life and so, if you can afford it, it can make a great deal of sense to get a professional wedding planner to take care of the arrangements and leave you to enjoy the big day. There is so much pressure and stress involved with coordinating all of the details of a wedding, that I am always amazed, how not only the bride and her family, but the engagement itself survives the process!

It is very, very important that your wedding planner not only be well qualified, be very experienced, and have verifiable references (and that you do verify them), but you also will want to ensure that he or she has the type of personality that you can get along well with. Communication is the best way to ensure that your wedding planer delivers your plans the way that you envisaged also don’t be afraid to ask questions to make sure that things are the way you want them to be.

Don’t leave getting to know your wedding planner till the last minute. It may be a good idea to invest the time to meet with potential wedding planners as many as two or three times, and note the dynamics between your two personalities. You should also call them a few times to see how easy it is to reach them, and how they react to you when you are calling without an appointment to do so. The better you know them the easier it will be to talk to them and discuss how you want things arranged.

The main thing to consider before hiring, is how to choose a wedding planner that is suitable for you. When you interview wedding planners you want to be sure this person or group has the right degree of assertiveness. You want them to 'take charge' in negotiations on your behalf and to be able to compel vendors and other 3rd parties to give you what you need. So make sure that they can deliver what you want from them. Although it is obviously best to keep the relationship on a friendly basis, this is your wedding and you need to make sure that it is the wedding you want and not the one the wedding planner thinks is best for you.

That said it is always a good idea to listen to someone who has a great deal of experience but ultimately the decision is yours. This means, for instance, that (within reason) you reserve the right to change your mind on any issue that has not been written in stone, e.g., reservations, or fees paid. You can always ask the wedding planner what research they have done and ask to see the different quotes before deciding

This also means that you can disagree with their assessment of a particular 3rd party vendor, venue, design, or whatever, and they will cordially defer to your wishes. But it is always a good idea to keep things on a friendly basis. If you want to disagree then do so in a friendly manner, but still make sure that you are happy.

The most important thing of all is to make sure that you maintain a regular communication with your wedding planner. This does not just mean they have a cell phone, which can have answering services, but they should have a pager, as well; maybe even a couple of different ways for you to reach them, during normal business hours, at a moment's notice (this can be critical in the last few days before the wedding). You do not want your wedding to be spoiled by worries that can easily be allied by a simple message.

You also need to have a good contract with your wedding planner that details what you want and expect and what they will receive in remuneration. All of these issues should be agreed to in writing, before you sign any contracts with your wedding planner. As well, you want to be sure your wedding planner understands that you require that all agreements made on your behalf be legally binding. Documentation should allow clauses that include what legal recourse you would have if either the wedding planner, or any of the 3rd parties that they contract on your behalf, do not perform to agreed specifications.

The best way to ensure that things go smoothly with your wedding planner is to make sure that everything is clear from the outset, that way you should be able to look forward to a happy and stress free wedding.