Most brides will tell you that wedding planning is difficult and complicated. This had always been the case for decades, even when a wedding was just trying simply to get 100 people to attend. Today weddings have become a full professional production which makes planning much more time consuming, expensive and stressful; and not to mention, things are getting more expensive and everyone is so time-poor.
Booking an experienced wedding planner is not cheap unless you're on a package combined with a variety of services that includes planning, in which case it can be very cost effective, and is more cost effective than if you did everything yourself. But also here is how a wedding planner might be helpful for you.
1. Planners Help You Save Hundreds of Hours
Officially, we are told that it takes between 200-500 hours to plan a wedding. Depending on how complicated your wedding is, a wedding planner like us aim to save you between 100-200 hours. Although a wedding planner can't do everything for you: for example, your wedding planner is unlikely to be the one messaging all of your friends about the event; and although high end wedding planners usually would help you mail out all the invitations, but you will be the one who needs to put that guest list together. By the time you put that list together, you would have mailed it out yourself. Your planner will also not be the one arranging the seats for your friends. So there is work to be done.
Now imagine if your car breaks down and no one was there to repair it and you had to do it yourself, you wouldn't even know where to start or what went wrong. Most of the time you spend will not actually be on the repair itself, but finding out what the problem is and how to fix it. Compared to a skilled technician, they will be able to diagnose the problem quickly and go straight into fixing the problem.
In the same way, when hundreds of hours are being spent on planning, most of it is spent on thinking, discussing, planning, researching; in addition, a lot of time goes into time wasted and backtracking where halfway through doing something and then deciding to not do it, or realising that it's not the best way - the actual doing part doesn't take as much time as you think. As wedding planners, our job is to find out what is it that you need, and help you think of the easiest and most suitable way for this to be done. Because of our experience, we can also share what others who had similar situation had done.
2. Planners Help you save money
In many cases, while a wedding planner can cost several thousand dollars, the amount of work they put in and the hours you save is well worth the amount you pay. But more than that, a wedding planner can easily help you save more than what they charge by providing you with money saving tips and expertise from the experience of previous events. From helping you factor in additional costs before booking a venue, to helping you schedule a day that minimise cost, to helping you reduce wastage (such as spirits), wedding planners can save you more than the amount they charge.
Another major source of stress in planning is budgets going out of control and unexpected spending. As wedding planners, we have a bit of an idea about where budgets can go off track, and we would be accounting for these factors in the earlier stages of planning.
3. Planners Help You Minimise Stress
Planning a wedding isn't just about one person, but it involve both partners and in many cases both families. Combined with the stresses of daily life and financial stresses, planning a wedding can put a real strain on relationships and is a source of many arguments. When compared with other industry partners, our clients have have a lower rate of separation before the wedding. The reason is simple: it is because it is less likely that arguments escalate because they would refer questions to the planner. In addition to this, for example in our wedding planning structure, we would assess the likelihood of certain problems such as involvement of family. We try to address potential issues before they happen.
In wedding planning, much of the stress comes from the unknown, not knowing what else you need to do and how to do it. At Event Weddings, we have a 250 point checklist based on the collective experience of 1000 couples that came before you - there is great attention to detail, and everything has been thoroughly considered. It is likely that we have done weddings like yours before and we have planned out a route that you need to take. In addition, half of event management is about dealing with the unexpected. Having a professional at the helm to look after unexpected things can make a big difference to your mental health on the day!
So if the above things are important for you, a wedding planner might be good for you. But wedding planners is not for everybody!
1. You like getting things done by yourself
There are some personality types that are not suited for wedding planners, and they might cause you even more stress. The first is: If you're the strong-minded lone ranger type that is normally efficient and effective and great at getting things done yourself, you might be better off without a wedding planner as it is likely that you will have clashes with them, unless you're able to completly trust them and let go.
Although in saying this, also remember that on the wedding day as much as you plan, things are out of your hands on the wedding day and you can't be the one running around with a clipboard, and shouting out names for people to come and take photos with you. Ultimately you still need to let go one day. What this means is, it is important to find a planner who resonates with you and can work with your personality type.
2. You are prone to changing your mind
Another type of personality that frequently clashes with planners are those who find it challenging to make decisions, and those who are prone to changing their mind. Once a decision is made, work goes into making all of this happen, and one change can often affect many things, and backtracking makes things very complicated for planners.
If you're prone to changing your mind, you may be better off planning the wedding yourself. However, in this case you should leave yourself a lot of time to change ideas and backtrack, and leave more extra budget for the unexpected.
3. You have a lot of helpful friends
Other people who may be better off without wedding planners are those with a close circle of friends and family who is willing to pitch in and help, and you're putting together something not particularly complicated.
In saying this, as wedding planners we have heard countless number of couples who have told us that they want to book a wedding planner because what their friends have put them through! If you're getting friends to help, remember they're friends and not your servants! Adjust your expectations accordingly, keep things simple, and don't ruin friendships to save money.
So is a wedding planner suitable for you? This is a question for you to answer taking into account some of the points raised above. But a great way to see whether this works for you is rather than to theorise, just try it out. This is why we offer a free Wedding Planning Trial service where you get to try what it's like to have a wedding planner for a two hour session, and you can see whether this is right for you.
