wedding 2022 | PROPER PRIOR PLANNING

Professional Wedding Pros Reduce a Lot of Stress

by Anne Pyburn Craig

date posted: March 16, 2022

Getting married ought to be fun. For some people, party planning is also great fun. But even for those people, planning a wedding can become overwhelming. A wedding of any size has a lot of moving parts that need fitting together, and unless you have a gift for planning and lots of time to invest—not just one or the other—it’s worth considering some level of help. Good planners have a passion and a gift for bringing your concept to vivid life and helping you make memories that will last forever.

Many of today’s planners offer various choices beyond the basic full-service and day-of options—you can choose to hire a venue scout to find a place that checks your boxes or a stylist to coordinate your decor, find a budget-friendly virtual planning process, or go all in and bring a planner on board as soon as you have your theme in mind and get help with everything from budgeting to clean-up.

Depending on your lives and personalities, a full-service planner may be money well spent. Here’s what to look for in a good one:

You’re hiring someone with a gift for listening, keeping cool, delegating, collaborating, and leadership who will dispassionately dispense with logistical snags that would cause you major agita if you were stuck facing them yourself.

You’re hiring someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of local places, people, and things that you’ll need—everything from flowers and videography to rentals. Someone who knows how to build a team of responsive, talented vendors and coordinate their work will save you many hours of emailing and phone calls.

A planner may know ways to actually save you money on other budget lines by putting the right packages together or just by being an industry insider. It’s always nice to have a connection in the business. That’s your planner.

A wedding of any size has a lot of moving parts that need fitting together, and unless you have a gift for planning and lots of time to invest, it’s worth considering some level of help.

Look for a planner with a comprehensive portfolio who can handle questions of food service, timelines, flow, logistics, and guest experience, while making sure your needs are met—including your need to make your own choices on the resonant things, while they build in the underlying structure.