Boys and Girls Marriage Company

How to Find the Right Wedding Planner

August 21, 2008

You have decided you want to hire a wedding planner, but you aren’t sure how to do it. There are a few things you should think about…

What they do

Wedding planners can do as much, or as little, as you want. For example, there are the full planners and the day-of planners. The full planners take care of everything so you dont have to worry about it. The day of planners help make sure that the actual day-of goes well, but usually you’re responsible for doing the planning yourself.

Wedding planners can:

• pick your location
• pick your vendors (florist, caterer, cake design)
• take care of the little details (flower arrangements, linens)
• ensure that things move smoothly on the day of the event (chairs in the right place, namecards in place, people in the right place, etc.)

It all depends on what they usually do and what you are hiring them to do.  If you want to be involved in the location decision, make that very clear when you meet with them. (See below about what to discuss!)

How to find one

My blog on how to choose vendors provides the best guidelines for how to find a wedding planner too.

• Ask friends
• Look online
• Check out ads

After you find them, you should:

• check out reviews online
• contact them to find a price
• meet with them
• ask for references

What to ask

The point of meeting the potential wedding planner is to 1) ensure you like them (and can afford them), 2) establish parameters of what you expect them to do and what they expect of you, and 3) assure that you feel the person is qualified to do everything that you would like them to do (and that they & their plan will fit within your budget). With that in mind, here are some questions to guide you:

• How much experience do you have? How long have you been a wedding planner?
• What is your background? (eg did they used to be an attorney, a party planner, a financial planner? Attorneys are helpful for contracts, party planners are helpful for the planning portions, and financial planners are helpful to ensure that you stay within your budget)
• Are you a member of any professional organizations?
• What do you usually do as a wedding planner?
• How much do you charge?
• What kind of budgets do you usually work with? (This is very important if you have a particularly small or particularly large budget. No matter what your budget is, you dont want your money being wasted because of carelessness!)
• Are you familiar with contracts and traps that might arise in a contract?
• How do you select vendors? location?
• Do you have experience with a certain religious/ethnic/cultural wedding? (if you are having a particular type of wedding)
• Do you do day of work also? (some planners only do the planning, but aren’t available on the day of to ensure things go smoothly)
• Do you have people who help you? How many?
• Explain what you want and expect. How much do your services cost to do that? (though maybe that will be clear if you ask what they charge)
• Can you give me a list of references?

Most important is to make sure that you get along. You have to work together at a very high stress time and it’s important that your personalities mesh so that it’s LESS stressful to have a planner, rather than more.

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How To Pick Vendors for Your Wedding

June 21, 2008

So you’ve picked your venue and your wedding date and NOW you have to figure out the vendors… For what, you ask? Vendors for food, flowers, music, and any other miscellaneous things you might want (like a photobooth!). How do you even begin to pick your vendors?

Step One: Find options

• Ask friends for suggestions.
• The internet makes finding vendors pretty easy. There are tons of websites with suggestions. And most vendors have websites that give you an idea of what they do.
• Look at ads on the web. One of my friends found her photographer through a Facebook ad… which led her to look at his website. And they loved him!

Step Two: Find reviews

• Search any potential vendor on the web. There are so many sites with reviews (like www.yelp.com) that can provide valuable feedback and advice for a particular vendor.

Step Three: Find out their rates

• Contact the vendor to find out what they charge AND whether that cost is within your budget.

Step Four: Find a time to meet

• There’s no replacement for meeting people in person. You’ll have to work with them and the best way to judge that is in person! Find some time to meet and see how it goes.

Step Five: Check references

• Ask the vendor for references and check them out! No harm in finding out what the real deal is.  Of course, you may not need to do this if a friend referred you to the vendor.

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Dividing the Tasks: Who Does What for the Wedding Planning

May 21, 2008

During the wedding planning, my friend’s coworker said to her, “your fiance is helping with the planning?!” He was aghast. He figured that the woman took care of everything. Ohhhh my.

What stuns me even more is that most of the articles and blogs I can find seem to say the same thing — or a variation of that, along the lines of “How to FORCE the groom to help!”  or “Demand your groom helps!” How charming….

I’m going to run on the assumption that people were taught to share and help and be kind to one another.  With that in mind, I encourage dividing tasks.  Everyone divides tasks differently, of course, but it is important for both people to get involved. Partly because both should have a say AND partly because putting the whole burden on one person could be overwhelming.  I think it’s healthier for the couple to work together on the wedding.  It lets you work together and support each other during the whole planning process.

My friend gave me a good outline of how they divided tasks and what they really enjoyed doing together. But keep in mind that you really should divide the list based on things either of you might care about.  My friend’s fiance is a graphic designer (or something like that) and cares about artsy/creative things.  He wanted to do more with that side of the planning; others might prefer to work on music or on food.

Here is my friend’s sample task list divide:

For him

As I mentioned, he’s creative! So he took care of invitations, the wedding website, and the slideshow (that they showed during the wedding).

For her

Flowers, dresses, and anything that required handwriting.

Keeping track of RSVPs — because they were sent to her.

Both

Getting names & addresses for the guest list.

Picking out a song list (which, of course, can be done together — but might be easier if each person goes through their song list and picks out the ones they definitely want)

Together

The big things should be done together and it can be fun! So…  Vendors and locations, cake tasting (!), picking items for registry, seating chart, and photo album.

Perhaps take a dance class for your first dance!

What did you do? How did you divide your tasks?

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