A Bride's Perspective on Wedding Planners

As a bride-to-be I made the mistake of hiring a friend of a friend who said she was a wedding planner. Not until we got into the wedding planning stages did we find out that she had no formal training and just did it for fun. My fiancé and I were her first official paying clients. She had no established vendor relationships. Her "business number" turned out to be her home number and she never got our messages because her kids always answered the phone. We specifically wanted a wedding planner who would help take the stress off of our big day, help us find the types of vendors we were looking for, someone who would be professional and help us make the right the decisions on the best places to spend our money. We had a budget of $18,000. I guess we looked at our wedding planner just like the real estate agent who helped us find our first house. $18,000 is a lot of money and we had never planned anything, much less a wedding.

Good news. We DID find another woman to work with who was a certified and trained wedding planner. She was professional, knew the local market and she actually ended up saving us money. She knew exactly what we were looking for and where to find it. My fiancé liked the fact that he didn't have to think about when we needed to make a deposit or make a decision, she kept us on track and reminded us in advance so we wouldn't miss any important deadlines. My advice for other brides out there, use a wedding planner...just make sure they have the formal education and are certified. It made our engagement and wedding day so enjoyable!

Sarah Z. ~ Bride