Access Your Inner Wedding Planner

From LoveToKnow Weddings

What Do I Do If I Can’t Afford A Professional Wedding Planner?

A wedding planner can spend years building the necessary experience and contacts to achieve excellence in her profession. Acquiring the services of a professional wedding coordinator on your own special day can be a definite advantage. However, not everyone can afford to hire a full time wedding professional.

Weddings take time, effort and patience to coordinate properly. Some couples seem to sail through the planning process without mishap, while others seem to have a little more difficulty. The good news is that if you possess basic organizational skills, you can effectively plan your own wedding. Follow this simple four-part mantra to access your own Inner Wedding Planner:

Set Goals
Research
Budget
Prioritize
Delegate

Effective Wedding Planners Set Goals

If you think of your wedding in the same terms as a complex project, the prospect of planning the most important day of your life can seem a little less overwhelming. A complex project is nothing more than a collection of tasks that lead to the end goal. Each task requires a firm completion date for you to be able to move on to next part of the project.

To get into wedding planner mode, sit down and create a comprehensive list of all of the tasks that will need to be accomplished up until the wedding day. Next, divide those tasks into categories and assign a completion date to each. Some common categories might include the following:

Invitations
Wedding Gown and Bridal Party Attire
Catering
DJ
Flowers
Table Assignments

It doesn’t matter if you house your list in an Excel spreadsheet, a notebook or post it note on your refrigerator. The point is to create the list as a master guide for you to plan your wedding celebration.

Effective Wedding Planners Research

A thorough wedding planner will research numerous wedding vendors to provide their client with a number of options. A good rule of thumb is to look at a minimum of three proposals for each service provider. Even if you like what you see on the first meeting, comparing various florists, DJs and caterers can give you a good idea of the market value of these services.

Budget

Professional wedding planners know that budget can make or break an affair. Determining how much money you can realistically devote to your wedding is a definitely a priority. Knowing what you want to spend will direct your research and keep you from wasting time considering costlier options.

Prioritize

While not everyone has the funds to realize their dream wedding, most couples will want to get as close as possible to this ideal. Once you’ve set your budget, be prepared to be flexible with the allocation of funds. For example, if you are torn between Dom Perignon at your cocktail reception and exotic floral arrangements, you need to decide what is more important to you. If you can’t live without the flowers, you can compromise by choosing a less costly brand of champagne or vice versa. If you have a budget to keep, accept the fact that negotiating compromise is part of your job as a wedding coordinator.

In addition, be sure to evaluate the feasibility of any wedding project based on the amount of time it will take. For example, if you love the idea of personalized engraved invitations, but don’t see yourself taking the time to stencil 250 cards, either scrap the idea or delegate it to someone else.

Effective Wedding Planners Delegate

Even the best and most efficient planners can’t do it all by themselves. From time to time, an assistant will step in when the administrative load becomes too heavy.

Take advantage of friends and family to help you with the coordination process. Be sure that your “assistants” understand how much time and effort will be involved in each project and assign tasks accordingly.