Chapter 3: Hire a Wedding Planner
Once you’ve worked out the wedding budget, the very first thing you need to do, before you lock down a venue, other vendors or a date, is hire a wedding planner.
Today, Carole and I are going to show you how investing in a wedding planner for the long haul, not the day of your wedding, can actually help save you more money in the long run than if you did the work yourself.
Many professional wedding planners will offer various services such as complete wedding planning to the cheaper, “day of”, which most brides tend to choose.
That’s a bad idea, picking the lowest service possible.
Wedding planners, experienced ones anyway, tend to be the best at saving money in the wedding industry than any other vendor because they’re like a navigator of sorts for your wedding day and they’re going to look out for your best interest.
Let me explain a bit.
I want you to first think of wedding planners as like a football team or soccer team, they are out on the field blocking bad vendors, steering you in the right direction based on your budget and they are much like coaches giving you play-by-play instructions on how best to do things.
Much the same way like that football team, planners are vested in you. Spending $1,000-$2,000 on one can save you more in the long run.
They Negotiate Better Than You Do
I’m going to tell you something bad, you suck at wedding planning.
It’s nothing personal, but you’re not an expert in the wedding business.
I know, sorry to come across harsh, but you’re just not. You are not in the industry day in, day out, year after year.
Just like I suck at plumbing, the last time I tried to fix a plumbing issue in my basement, I wound up flooding it about 2 minutes after I was done with it. (I tried to install a water filter on the water line, it did NOT turn out well).
Anyway, I use a professional plumber now if I need work done because I don’t know what I’m doing.
Yes, hiring a planner for the long haul will cost you, but they are going to be able to talk to vendors like me and many times get a cheaper rate than if you connected with me.
That’s because they’re going to bring me more business time and time again.
So as a vendor, I’m happy to give 5% or 10% off to a planner that I know is going to give me repeat business, so it’s worth giving a small discount.
If that same bride came knocking on my doorstep, I’m most likely not going to give them a discount, I mean hey, they’re giving me one-time business here.
While 5-10% is not much, it adds up when you start hiring other vendors. In the example chart from earlier, you can see that a planner has saved a couple $1,350 just with these four vendors.
One of the other benefits that planners bring is vendor contracts and seeing any red flags that might appear before you.
Signing a contract with a red flag could cost you more money in the long run or it could mean that you’re not getting the services you thought you were in the first place.
I remember a wedding vendor a few years ago would offer their wedding cake services for a rate the couple would agree too but in the fine print, there was a huge destination charge on top of the fee the couple paid.
Well, the baker got a lot of online grief from this, adding another $100 on top of the cost to deliver, locally!
Couples also need to be aware of companies that simply don’t have contracts, those that offer bad services and of course those to stay away from too. In my 21 years in the wedding business, I’ve seen a handful of companies that were less than stellar when it came to being “good” at what they do.
Sadly today, there are some fly-by-night people offering wedding services, but they don’t offer good products or services and they’re in the business for themselves and not you and your best interest.
A wedding planner is going to know who to turn too and whom to stay away from when it comes time to check something off the wedding list.
Planners are going to be able to help you with figuring out who is who and what is what.
What if We Don’t Hire A Wedding Planner
The truth is that if you’re having a very lavish wedding, you might not care about saving a few hundred bucks here and there, hey I completely get it.
In fact, roughly 47% of couples only hire a wedding planner just for the day of the wedding while 9% hired a wedding planner for the entire process.
The renaming 44% of couples didn’t have one at all. Those 44% that skipped a wedding planner, roughly 77% of them regret not having hired one rom the start.
If you look on any wedding forums, you’ll find a mix bag when it comes to hiring planners.
As a vendor, I love working with couples that have a planner.
Nothing better is having a planner that literally can put everything together in a professional manner for people like my wife Carole and I.
Getting a timeline thats extremely detailed is far more helpful than having with with little info or not getting one at all.
Most couples can agree that having a day-of-wedding planner or coordinator is very beneficial just for the logistics of everything.
However, most couples in America are on a much tighter budget and need to save their pennies as much as possible and investing in a good planner makes sense.
Whats funny, is that I’m not a planner or coordinator, I’m a vendor and I see the importance and value of having one.
The best advice we can give you is to meet with them in person and do an interview of sorts.
Ask questions about them, how they go about things and see if you “click” with them. You don’t have to be best friends, but you want enough of a relationship where you know they’re going to take care of you and the process.
A few good key question to ask your possible planner include:
Do you have our wedding date open? If so, do you anticipate any issues with the date such as weather, travel for our guests, difficulty booking a venue, etc.?
What made you want to be a wedding planner?
Describe the most challenging wedding you planned and how you handled the problems that came up.
How would you rate your problem-solving skills?
How would you rate your communication skills?
Are you a certified wedding planner? If so, where did you get certified? What is your educational background?
Are you a member of any wedding association(s)? If so, does your association require you to satisfy yearly education requirements?
How long have you been in business? Do you have a business license?
How many full-scale weddings have you planned? When was your last one?
How many wedding clients do you take on in a year? How many do you expect to have during the month of our wedding?
Is wedding planning your full-time job? If it's part-time, what is your other job?
If you do plan on hiring a wedding planner or manager, we recommend spending roughly 4% for the ‘day-of’ and about 8%-10% for the fuller service.
Next, we’re talking wedding venues, how to best save money and choosing the right one for you!