As a woman who is dreaming of someday in the foreseeable future getting married…..and as a Maine wedding photographer who goes to 35 weddings a year…..Take it from me hiring a wedding planner is worth every penny! The picture below is the man of my dreams who I hope to someday marry 🙂
I myself cannot imagine my own wedding or my stylized wedding shoots without a planner. They are amazing. So many of them have been planning huge events and weddings for years. Experience is huge! They plan at least ten weddings a year….which means they have a process that works, an order to things, they know what to do. If it is your first wedding—its hard not to make mistakes everyone’s first time at new things they learn a lot! That’s why working with a planner is amazing—you still have control and influence and learn a lot but you have an experienced coach to show you the ropes and direct you through.
A planner is not just someone who shows up on the wedding day, a planner is the woman who makes your dreams come true. They work to make your visions a reality in a cohesive manor as close to your price range as can reasonably be done. They see the big picture and then they execute it so you don’t have to worry about it on your wedding weekend.
In Maine many of the weddings are destination weddings. Most of the brides I work with I will speak with on the phone but not meet until the engagement session or wedding day. Having a planner who knows the whole area you are planning your wedding in and is connected to the vendors is going to give you great piece of mind and save lots of time. Then you can focus on enjoying each step of being engaged and stay stress free.
There are tons of details to be looked after in planning a wedding…..champagne glasses in the bridal preparation room, working with the photographer and band to create a wedding timeline, making sure the timeline goes as planned on the wedding day, double checking with all of the vendors before the wedding, being sure that aunt Jane who is a vegan gets her special meal, making sure all the gear, linens, equipment, florals etc gets on location and set up where you two discussed. These are all things the planner works on, thinks of ahead of time, and sees too on the wedding day.
Did I mention that your friends and family wont be running around the day of, wont be stressed out, or put to work? I think that alone is worth the planner—you want your bridal party, and family to have a wonderful time be talking about the party of the decade not how they remember how crazy it was or how hard they worked.
Or as Heidi of Seacoast Harbor events says “If you get help from friends and family there are a lot of opinions coming your way all the time on how to do things—which often creates too many cooks in the kitchen.” Heidi also says “Nowadays weddings are unique each customized to you and when investing 25,000-60,000$ for a wedding you want a professional to oversee that just like you would invest with a professional on the stock market or at a bank.”