Why Use A Wedding Planner?

Contrary to popular belief, wedding planners are not simply for the rich and famous. In fact there are a whole host of reasons why you should use a professional wedding planner when planning your wedding.

To Minimise Stress

Pure and simply, planning your own wedding is an extremely tough job to do. It will be a roller coaster ride from the moment you say Yes! There will be highs and lows, together with unexpected twists and turns. You will also encounter moments of immense exhilaration followed by periods of overwhelming stress and worry. An engagement is a unique and very special time for every couple and it should be treated as such. And employing a professional wedding planner to design, plan and project manage your wedding is the best way to minimise stress.

Save You Money

Wedding planners can often attain substantial discounts for their clients from venues, services and suppliers. This can amount to several thousand pounds, thereby off-setting the wedding planners fee and ensuring you get your wedding planned for free!

Typically the largest saving a wedding planner can make is via an 8-12% discount on venue and catering costs. Significant discounts can also be secured on accommodation. All other services such as photographers and florists will also offer discounts or throw in complimentary extras too, just for a referral from a wedding planner!

Save You Time

You will often hear that it takes approximately 250 hours to plan an average scale wedding. At first this might sound like an exaggerated claim to scare couples. Naturally some weddings will take 50-100 hours. But we have worked on weddings that have required more than 400 hours! In truth, the 250 hour figure is pretty accurate, and more so for a bride without any knowledge or experience. In other words, with a 9 months engagement you will need to allocate 1 hour per day to planning your wedding. It is time than can and should be better spent.

It is a Job for Professionals

“Anyone can plan a wedding…” In much the same as anyone can cut hair; or build a wall; or cut down a large tree; or lay a driveway; or sell a house.

Without knowledge or experience, would you do any of these other tasks yourself? Obviously not. So why would you want to take on such an important task of planning your own wedding? Just because your sister/friend/mother/aunty did?

Moreover, aside from the daily administrative and organisational chores very few weddings are planned without encountering any problems whatsoever. And should something go wrong, do you really want to deal with it?

The following is an example of such an instance. A bride came to us desperate for some last minute help. Six months previously she had spent three full weekends sourcing, short-listing and meeting with photographers before finally finding the right one, or so she thought. Unfortunately, one month before her wedding the photographer emailed her to say he no longer wanted to do the wedding. In fact he thought it was going to be too demanding for him! He’d truly dropped her in it and left her with little time to find a decent replacement since all the others she had shortlisted were now booked.

Or how about the one about a disagreement over costs between a couple and the venue that escalated to the point where the groom threatened to sue and the venue threatened to cancel their booking with only three months to go!

Thankfully we managed to resolve both instances, although the latter took countless hours of mediation. Yet without the planner the two sides would have been in court and the wedding might not have taken place.

An engagement is a happy and joyful time that should not be spoilt by the stresses, trials and tribulations of planning your own wedding. If you want it done properly it’s a job for professionals.

It’s All About The Finer Details

The professional knowledge and creativity that an experienced and professional wedding planner brings to the table is often unsurpassed. And it’s their understanding of the importance of the finer details that make the difference between a good wedding and a truly great wedding.

Enhanced Venue, Service & Performance

When a wedding planner is involved in a wedding, you tend to find that venues and suppliers will perform to the best of their abilities, often going above and beyond what is expected of them. After all, with a wedding planner on board the venue and suppliers have a chance to impress in the hope of future referrals and repeat business through the planner. It is a great motivator!

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