Tuesday

THE TOP THREE TIMES YOU SHOULD REALLY TRUST YOUR WEDDING PLANNER




Most couples who hire a Wedding Planner trust their chosen wedding guru to the fullest extent. After all, most couples have never planned a wedding before or their knowledge is limited to what they’ve seen in magazines or at their brother/sister/cousin/friend’s weddings.  And so they hire Wedding Planners to guide them through the intricate process and to help them plan the wedding that they have envisioned or, in some cases, a wedding that exceeds what they had envisioned (in a good way of course).

However some couples hire a Wedding Planner to advise them during the planning process but then are selective as to when they actually trust their chosen Planner’s judgement. Whether it’s regarding their wedding budget, the rules of etiquette, how to handle certain situations or even in terms of style, some couples would rather do things their way instead of listening and, more importantly, trusting the wedding professional’s advice. After all, it’s their day right? What they want is how things should be right?

Nope. If you’re not going to trust/listen to a wedding professional’s advice, what was the point of hiring them in the first place?


Here are the top three things that you may hear from your Wedding Planner for which you need to put the “It’s-My-Day/This-is-What-I-Want-And-You-Have-To-Make-It-Happen-Because-I’m-Paying-You-To-Make-It-Happen” mentality aside and for the love of Gawd, trust your Wedding Planner’s judgement (in addition to all of our other advice of course!)

YOUR BUDGET IS UNREALISTIC


Wedding Planners have worked on countless weddings of different sizes and budgets and so you have to trust that they have a pretty good idea of what things cost. Just by looking at a client’s wish list and their guest count, etc,  they have a really good idea of what a 150-person wedding or a 50-person wedding will cost overall. Because they have likely worked on…oh…about a gazillion of them.  If you present your total budget to your Planner and it’s completely unrealistic or not enough of a budget to have your dream wedding that you just described in detail, a good Wedding Planner will tell you this. 

Rather than get your nose out of joint, insist that your parents say it’s a realistic budget (this isn’t the 1970s anymore people!) or refuse to make sacrifices or increase your budget;  you need to trust your Wedding Planner when they say it’s not enough money.  Your Wedding Planner is not telling you these things because it will benefit them nor will it affect what you are paying them for their service. They’re telling you that your budget is unrealistic because they want you to have that wedding you’ve always dreamed of and they don’t want you to go into debt in order to have it.  

No Wedding Planner can force you to change your budget but if you don’t trust your Planner/refuse to increase your budget/refuse to sacrifice some of your grand vision to make ends meet (NOTE: if you don’t increase your budget you WILL have to sacrifice some things), then you can’t get upset with your Wedding Planner when you’ve gone so far over your original budget that you can’t remember what the initial budget was anymore.


THAT IS NOT SOMETHING YOU NEED/
YOU SHOULD CONSIDER SOMETHING ELSE

As mentioned above, if your Wedding Planner is telling you something it’s for your own good. If, in the interest of keeping you on budget, for example,  they tell you that you don’t need that ice sculpture or those acrobats in your wedding, then you need to trust them. Sure, your Wedding Planner understands that perhaps you want to one-up your cousin’s wedding or that you want a “unique” wedding. But if there are more important things in your wedding that require your funds (especially if you’re on a tight budget!), you need to trust that your Wedding Planner knows what she/he is talking about. A good Wedding Planner will ensure that you’ve got all the necessities covered first and IF you have extra funds, she/he will implement those extras that you don’t need. 

Also, if your heart is set on a particular trend that has been so many times that the only reaction it gets nowadays is an eye roll, you have to trust your Wedding Planner when she/he tells you that it’s overdone and allow her/him to find another “wow” factor for your wedding. They want you to have the best wedding ever and while you may think that following the latest trend is the way to have that, your Wedding Planner knows better and will ensure that you feel that same excitement but with something that hasn't been done a million times over.   


THAT IS SOMETHING YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED/
MUST DO

Further to the above point, if your Wedding Planner is telling you that there is something you need or must do in order for your Wedding Day to run smoothly as planned or to have the look that you desire, LISTEN TO THEM.  This is not your Wedding Planner’s first rodeo. They know from experience what you need in your wedding or what you must do.  If they are telling you that you need that DJ over playing an IPod, they’re telling you this for a reason. If they are telling you that you must have a catering tent in addition to your reception tent, they’re telling you this because they know the proper regulations for tent weddings. If they are telling you that if you allow a handful of guests to bring children to your adult-only wedding then you have to let everyone bring their children, they’re telling you this because they know proper etiquette (not to mention have personally witnessed the fallout of ignoring said advice)!  Whatever the item/etiquette/requirement is, refusing to accept what your Wedding Planner is telling you or worse, thinking that you know better than your Wedding Planner, is a sure-fire way to have challenges come up on your big day.  

When you first met your Wedding Planner, something in your gut told you that this was the gal/guy who was going to give you the most romantic, most fun, most organized and brilliantly planned Wedding of your dreams and you hired them.  Just like you trusted your instinct that day, you need to trust the professional you hired. Trust me (no pun intended),  you'll be pleasantly surprised.