10 Tips For Hiring The Wedding Planner
On your wedding day, you can either be the bride or the wedding planner – it’s very difficult to be both. Our advice: save yourself the trouble & hire a professional! The following 10 tips will help you find the (almost) perfect wedding planner!
1. Go by the experience:
Remember the days when you used to go for job interviews and everybody asked what kind of experience you had? Choosing a wedding planner starts the same way. Eventually, you’ll begin shortlisting potential candidates based on the kinds of weddings they have done, types of families they have handled and wedding venues they have decorated.
2. Ask for recommendations:
No one can guide you better than your friends and family members. Ask around to see who hired a wedding planner for their big event. Once you have chosen a few candidates, ask for a list of recommendations that way you can get the real scoop from previous brides.
3. Set your budget:
Know how much you’re willing to put forth for a planner, then manage your budget from thereafter. Keep in mind a professional may have relationships with vendors and be able to obtain discounts to help stretch your dollar even further.
4. Choose a theme:
Wedding planners like to work around a certain theme. Have some ideas for themes, then let the wedding planner do the rest. For theme ideas, check out Today’s Bride Real Weddings, Styled Shoots, and our Pinterest page!
5. Discuss openly:
Your wedding planner must know your dreams and expectations in order to give you your fairy tale wedding, so be honest. Also, remember that a consultant should have plenty of questions for you too, in an effort to determine your wishes, needs, level of maintenance, budget, scope of imagination and more.
6. Rates:
Keep in mind that some wedding planners charge by the hour and others have a fixed or a flat fee service rate.
7. Packaged deal:
There are some wedding venues that cover the fee of a wedding consultant and charge a flat rate for every wedding that happens on the premises.
8. Signing the contract:
Once you have selected the wedding planner and negotiated the terms, do not forget to put it all in writing. Signing a written contract will safeguard your interests and hold the consultant responsible if something does not go according to the plan.
9. Consult your partner:
Hiring a wedding planner is as big as the wedding itself, so making sure to consult your partner in the process of selection and budgeting is very important.
10. Family introductions:
Introduce the wedding planner to your family as he or she will be working closely with them to ensure your wedding goes off without a hitch. You will be busy either in the ceremony or with guests; the near and dear ones automatically become the first point of contact for the planner.
On the day of your wedding, time is of the essence and no one knows that better than a wedding planner. So start interviewing because there’s a wedding planner out there ready to create your dream wedding!
7 Comments
I really like that you mentioned introducing the wedding planner to family members. My fiance and I are swamped preparing for our wedding, so having a wedding planner has been a huge plus! INvolving our family and allowing them to work with the planner and shoulder some responsibility has been fantastic as well!
Wonderful article. Thanks for the advice and ideas that you shared with us. This is very helpful tips about hiring a wedding planner.
It is an excellent blog. Especially the last point but there are some wedding planners that have a specific forte like a barn wedding, hotels, country clubs and many more. This can help you in finding the right venue and time for your wedding. So a person needs to find out if the planner has a specific specialty.
Informative post! You are sharing wonderful ideas. I appreciate your advice and guide. Your ideas are definitely very helpful. I am so inspired and found some great ideas. Thanks a lot for sharing an informative post.
Informative post! You are sharing wonderful ideas. I appreciate your advice and guide. Your ideas are definitely very helpful. I am so inspired and found some great ideas. Thanks a lot for sharing an informative post.
Thanks for listing some tips on how to hire a planner for a wedding ceremony. My sister has been stressing about planning the wedding, which is why I’ve decided to help her find someone who can manage. With that said, I shall then follow your advice to shortlist potential candidates online and ask for their previous experience on the weddings they have done and then consult it with my sister.
You made a good point that having a theme right away can help in having a nice guide to follow when hiring a wedding planner. My sister is thinking about having fairy tale-themed wedding soon and would like to have it outdoors at night. I can already imagine how some strategically placed neon lights could make the place look very magical.