I get a lot of inquiries about my wedding planning services, and an underlying theme in most of those calls is “why do I need a wedding planner?”
The first, and most obvious reason, is that I plan weddings on a regular basis. For the average bride, this is her first walk down the aisle, and she doesn’t know where to begin. If you were going to build a house, would you go out and do it yourself, or would you hire a professional? It’s the same concept. I know the vendors, prices and reputations of wedding vendors in the area and can tailor the choices to meet your needs and/or budget.
Secondly, a wedding planner takes the stress off of you, your family and your friends. It typically takes a year to plan a wedding. If you are stressing about finding a photographer or DJ for 12 months, don’t you think that would begin to wear on your family? And the stress only gets worse as the wedding day approaches. Having a wedding planner there to help set-up, clean-up and facilitate the wedding day is a HUGE stress relief for the bride (and her family).
But what if you are trying to plan a wedding in under 12 months……especially under 6 months. You really want to invest in a wedding planner. A photographer can only shoot one wedding a day, so if your engagement is under 6 months, you need to have someone who can navigate the wedding vendors quickly to find vendors that are reputable and available on your wedding date. Remember, those other brides have been planning for at least 6 months and have already booked 90% of their vendors when you are just starting.
The one question that is never asked, but you can tell that brides and their moms really want to know, “Why are you so expensive?”
Let’s put the expense into perspective, shall we. A wedding planner doesn’t just work the day of your wedding. There are countless hours spent working on your behalf to locate and meet with vendors to get a quote for your wedding. And any decent wedding planner isn’t going to give you just one option, but find you two or three vendors in each category to choose from. Take all those hours of work, add it to the time that will be spent on the wedding weekend for your rehearsal, ceremony and reception and the per hour cost of a wedding planner is significantly LESS than the per hour cost of your DJ or Photographer.
As you start to plan your wedding, start thinking about what you value, and call and talk to a wedding planner to see if that is a resource you want to invest in for your wedding.
Susan Keough is a wedding planner/coordinator in the College Station, TX area.
A Moment In Time, LLC 