A Day To Remember: {Wedding Planning 101} What Role Does Your Wedding Planner Play?

Friday, October 11, 2013

{Wedding Planning 101} What Role Does Your Wedding Planner Play?

{Photo Credit: DW Photography, Artwork Credit: A Day To Remember via SomeECards.com}

Becoming engaged is still one of the most anticipated moments...the excitement of being a fiance, having a fiance, and knowing that soon you will be married! How exciting! Right?! Your engagement period is a beautiful journey, filled with anticipating of what is to be, making decisions together as a couple for your highly anticipated wedding!

Almost every bride, and some grooms, are excited to start planning and making sound decisions to make their wedding absolutely perfect and memorable...that is...until you really start planning. The journey suddenly takes a turn into stress, a sense of overwhelm and even confusion. What to do? Hire a professional wedding planner, of course! I'm sure you've read plenty of articles and blog posts, about why you should hire a wedding planner. Well, we're not here to repeat what has already been said, but really to bring in some real-life scenarios that actually happened this week with two of our lovely clients!

In one scenario, we had an issue with a professional who, for billing and typo errors on both our ends, created an unfortunate situation for our client. The wedding date was mixed up and this professional was now double booked. After conversations via phone and text throughout the day, we come up with a plan of action to best benefit our mutual client. I have to give amazing kudos to this true professional, who really stepped up to the plate. We are now hoping our client understands and accepts this situation.

{Side Note: This professional was someone we highly recommended, and will continue to recommend.}

As I'm having these conversations with our wedding professional, I'm receiving texts from another of our brides asking to call her immediately, as it is an emergency. I'll be honest, I do receive a number of texts about an emergency, and I take them lightly because I know there is always a simple enough solution. Well, unfortunately for this lovely bride...it really WAS an emergency. A certain venue is no longer available for their wedding two months away! Of course, I immediately call my bride and groom down and assure them we will find a new home for their amazing wedding.

{Side Note: Our client booked us shortly after booking this venue.}

Needless to say, I'm still reeling in the news about my first bride, whose wedding is in 2.5 weeks and we need to make sure she and her fiance will accept our new plan of action. I should go back a bit and state that all this took place this past Monday...my day off. After a long wedding show on Sunday, I was looking forward to taking the day off to relax and re-energize for the week. I will say that both of these phone calls did definitely get me energized with the adrenaline now pumping through my veins as I go into wedding planner mode.

Emails and phone calls were made and meetings scheduled for the next day to find a new venue. After a day of site visits, we found a place that was comparable, if not better, than the original choice. Later that evening, the news to our first bride was delivered to her and she took it like a trooper, and I know mostly because this wedding professional and I ensured we had a resolution to the unfortunate incident.

If this wasn't enough, after resolving one issue with our first bride, another issue with her quickly arises...with another "professional". After numerous times to reach out to this individual, it has been nothing short of headaches. My bride's fiance originally found this person and really wanted this person for their wedding. Now mind you, ultimately, we will always go with our clients wishes, but not without a fight! When I met with this person, I didn't feel 100% confident, and I feel my bride didn't either, but wanted to appease her fiance. Unfortunately, my bride and I were right about this person and with two weeks out, needing to find a replacement. Fortunately, I was seeing this situation unfold and had already found a wonderful replacement and had made arrangements, so we were able to fire said individual knowing an amazing replacement was lined up.

As a wedding planner, it is my job to anticipate, to be prepared for the unexpected. Being a member of industry organizations, such as NACE {National Association of Catering and Events} and ABC {Association of Bridal Consultants} has allowed me to better myself, strengthen and elevate my company to higher standards for the benefit of our clients. Through education and networking, I have the best of the best resources at my fingertips.

Now, I'm not saying that my clients wouldn't have been able to resolve this situation on their own, had they not hired me, or a wedding planner at all. I'm sure they would have resolved their situations, because, let's face it, when push comes to shove...well, you're going to make things happen. But, would they have managed to take care of the situations in the short period of time and not lose time from work, not to mention spending hours on the phone, while still in complete shock of what is unfolding before them? Probably not.

Both my brides kept saying how they didn't know how they could have done this without me...I was even titled "Ms. Godsent" by one of them! Now, that to me is the highest form of flattery! In the end, I've received hugs with tears of happiness because we were able to put out the fires. This is why I LOVE what I do. The rewards are inmeasurable in my book. Knowing I've made someone amazingly happy, really truly is the biggest payoff for me!