How to Choose a Wedding Planner

It's your big day: you're about marry the person you're planning to spend the rest of your life with, and you don't want to mess it up from the get-go. While it's understandable that you'd prefer to do everything yourself (with the help of your Mom, sisters, and grandmothers, of course), sometimes that just isn't an option. You've got to deal with everything from finding that perfect wedding dress for yourself to hunting up some matching ugly dresses for your bridesmaids (to set off your lovely dress), not to mention things like ordering the wedding cake, signing and sending off the wedding invitations, borrowing something blue, and all the other thousands of little things that come with getting married. Studies have shown that the average wedding takes a full 250 hours of planning. If it's all a bit much and you can afford the cost, consider hiring a wedding planner instead. While they're expensive, you just might find that their services are the best thing you've ever purchased.

A wedding planner is a professional who will happily plan your wedding for a fee --usually a large one, varying from 7-20% of your total wedding budget. A good wedding planner does everything except perform the ceremony. Though their most important task is coordinating the large groups of people you can expect at your wedding, no task is too small or large for the wedding planner and his or her staff: in fact, finding the right cuff-links for the groom or scouting a location for the wedding itself are par for the course. They keep track, too, of everything from your DJ music to how many dinner courses the caterer is planning to serve. Because the wedding planning industry is a growing one, you should have your fill of options when it comes to choosing a planner. In a way, that's good, since you'll have a wide variety to choose from; but of course, you're presented with yet another choice, requiring significant homework. We're here to make that choice easier.

Your first step in finding a decent wedding planner should be asking around among your friends and coworkers, to see if they've got anyone they can recommend -- or any wedding planner horror stories to tell, so you know who to avoid. That will help you compile your list of potential wedding planners to interview. Important pre-qualifications you should look for in a professional wedding planner are experience and verifiable references (and make sure you verify them, too!). When it comes down to the actual interviews, there are a number of things you should keep in mind. First of all, ask what kinds of payments the planner accepts. You don't want to be caught up short by offering to pay with a credit card when she doesn't accept them; some wedding planners work exclusively on a cash basis. It's up to you to ask, even though a good wedding planner wouldn't sign you up without making this clear. Consider, too, the fact that a busy wedding planner may have deals with various vendors to provide services at discounts, since they use those vendors so often. If this is the case, that particular planner might be able to help you save some money on various goods and services, and may even be able to get you a great deal on something you previously thought you couldn't afford.

You'll also want to assess the personalities of your wedding planner candidates. Most important is your need to find someone you think can get along well with, since you'll be dealing with them quite a bit between the day you hire them and your wedding. You'll also need a wedding planner who is an assertive, take-charge kind of person. This is the individual who will be organizing all the major aspects of your wedding, so they need to be your representative in negotiations with vendors, limousine services, facilities owners, and all the other third-party entities involved in pulling the wedding together. You don't need a shrinking violet who always comes to you with excuses as to why they couldn't get certain things done. Finally, make sure you get everything in writing, so that you have legal recourse if the wedding planner or any of the third-party vendors fail to uphold their end of the bargain.

Above all, communication is the key! You should maintain regular contact with your wedding planner, to make sure that everything is going swimmingly. It's best to have access to at least two ways to contact them, especially in the last few days before the wedding, so that you can check on the progress of the event planning. Always remember that you have the power to nix anything that you don't like. It may be difficult to tell a person with a strong personality that you don't like the band she's chosen or that you think chrysanthemums are a bad idea, but after all, you're the client, and the decision is yours to make. You also have the right to change your mind, at least within reason. The wedding planner might be irritated with the changes, but if they're a true professional they'll take it in stride and move on. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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