Your
complete wedding guide to finding services and products for your
wedding.
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Wedding consultants
Nowadays
many people hire a wedding planner to help organize their wedding. A wedding
planner is also called a wedding coordinator or a wedding consultant. These
people have already done all the research for planning a wedding. They know
what services are available in your area and where the best deals are. Wedding
planners can steer you to the people who have experience and who best suit your
needs. A wedding planner can save you a lot of time in planning a wedding and
prevent a great deal of frustration. If you have less than a year to organize
your wedding, you may want to hire a planner because they will be able to help
make all the arrangements in a short amount of time. This may be the best
option if both the bride and groom have careers and don't have a lot of time to
plan their wedding.
Talk to your
friends and family who have used wedding planners to get recommendations. Once
you find a few wedding planners you like, call them to set up a meeting to make
sure they suit your needs. It is a great idea to ask potential wedding
consultants for references and actually call to check their references. Make
sure they have had experience planning weddings similar to your own. Be sure to
clearly state your expectations and needs, so that you and your wedding planner
are on the same page. The wedding planner should not take over your wedding,
but help you create your ideal wedding. Before you commit to a wedding planner,
find out if they are paid a flat rate, by the hour, or by a percentage of the
total wedding cost. It is more affordable if the wedding planner is paid by the
hour or a flat rate. If they are paid a percentage of the total wedding cost,
they may want you to have a more expensive wedding because that means they will
get paid more money. Some reception halls offer their wedding planners for
free. But reception halls usually only have one planner working for them,
leaving you with no choice if you dislike him/her.
The wedding planner is there to help you
and make suggestions. They can help with the design and theme of the wedding,
answer etiquette questions, and help book a florist, caterer, and reception
site. They are a liaison between you and your vendors. Wedding planners also
know where to find the deals. Sometimes hotels use their restaurant for
catering, and this may be a cheaper option than booking another similar hotel
and caterer.
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How long
does it take to plan a wedding? Medium (50 guests) to large (100 guests) size
weddings take about a year to plan. The larger churches, synagogues, popular
reception sites, and caterers usually need to be booked a year in advance. The
first step to planning a wedding is to tell both sets of parents and start
spreading the news to the rest of your family, friends, neighbors and
co-workers. The first decisions you and your fiancé should decide on are
a wedding date, formality of the wedding, number of guests, and location for
the ceremony and reception. It is also important to decide whom the wedding
attendants will be (maid of honor, bridesmaids, best man, and ushers) since
they will have an active role in helping to plan the wedding. Somewhere along
the way you should have an engagement photo taken and send it into local
newspapers to publicly announce your engagement.
Some important
decisions that need to be made are the following:
• Formality of the
wedding: formal/semiformal/informal wedding
• Setting: inside/outside
for the ceremony and reception
• Rural/suburban/urban setting
• Date and time
• Location – ceremony and reception
• Guests – how many and who
• Music – live
performers or DJ
• Caterer
• Florist
• Photographer
and videographer
• Invitations
• Dress
• Honeymoon-
location, date and duration Get the terms of every service or sales agreement
in writing! You will be able to refer to them later if you have a question on
what was decided on. You will also be able to hold the services
accountable. |
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