Hiring a wedding planner can make organising your wedding a lot easier, but they can’t plan the best wedding without input from you. Every wedding in a very personal experience, tailored to your tastes, preferred styles and budget. All in the name of creating a memorable day, for all the right reasons.
If you’re thinking about hiring a wedding planner or are just beginning your journey with them, here are a few things you should prepare to make everything go smoothly.
The basics
Before you get into anything more specific, your wedding planner is going to need to know all the basics about your wedding. If you have already picked out a date, time, and location, let them know immediately. Otherwise, it will be difficult for them to plan the wedding you desire.
Above all these things, you need to tell your planner your budget. Some wedding planners, such as London-based wedding planners Snapdragon, will work with you on high-budget luxury weddings. On the other hand, services like WeddingPlanner can put you in touch with budget coordinators to plan something a little more affordable.
Being upfront about your budget to your wedding planner is essential, or you may start your marriage in a muddle of debt. So make sure you do this right away.
Your preferred vendors
If you have any vendors in mind for your wedding, your planner needs to know this. Do you have a certain band, caterer, DJ or minister in mind for your big day? Tell your wedding planner. Remember, they are will do whatever they can to please you, but if they don’t know what you want from them they may not succeed.
Some planners may come to you with vendors of their own choosing in mind. If this is the case, it is possible that they may be getting paid a referral fee by these vendors, and you should check them out yourself before taking your planner’s word. Other wedding coordinators may be able to get you discounts on certain venues, which is especially useful if you already had one of these venues in mind.
How involved you want to be
Do you want to be hands off or hands on in the planning process? Wedding planners often offer several different packages, each one involving a different level of service. Let your planner know whether you want them to handle your wedding fully from start to finish, or simply to coordinate the day alone.
You should also let them know if anyone other than the planner and yourself is going to be involved in the planning process. You may have a family member who wants to help with the planning process. Perhaps you may be enlisting the help of the groom. Make sure your planner knows who you they are consulting on every decision. And of course, tell them who has the final say. (We’re assuming it’s you.)
What are your priorities
Every wedding should be magical, but sometimes planning takes compromise. If there are certain things that are essential to your enjoyment of the wedding, your wedding planner needs to know what they are. Don’t want to get married without an open bar? Let them know or you could be in for a sobering shock.
If your wedding planner has all this information, and knows the things that are most important to your special day, that should be all they need to plan the wedding of your dreams.
