How To Choose The Right Wedding Planner

By Author: Divya Solanki
Total Articles: 1
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A wedding is one of the biggest personal events of your life and you surely want the special day to be remembered by you and your loved one, along with those who are a part of your wedding. Whether your wedding is big, medium or small, there are a lot of details that go into planning it. Planning a wedding requires great effort as so many different things have to be taken into consideration. The venue, the decor, the food and the ambience, all just have to be perfect. While you are all caught up in the excitement of the thought of making a new beginning with a life partner, you might want to outsource the wedding preparations to a professional event planner or a wedding planning company. A event planner can help with a lot of things that are overwhelming to newly engaged couples. By recommending professional and trustworthy vendors, wedding planners can surely make life easier for you and your fiancee. However, before you finalise your decision, you must keep certain things in mind on how to choose the right event planner. Here we outline how you should go about hiring the right wedding ...
... planner.

Before you begin researching for the wedding planner, you must freeze on the budget that you can allocate for your dream wedding. Also, finalising the venue and guest list before hand will help you incorporate that in the budget. Every venue, every cuisine and every ambience comes with its own price, so having a budget in mind will help you to connect with the right wedding planners who can give you a fabulous experience within your budget. Once you’ve locked the budget, you should reach out to your personal and professional network for references of wedding planners they may know or have worked with. When you approach a professional event planner with a reference, it increases the trust level several notches above. If you’ve finalised only the budget and nothing else, you should ask the wedding planners what best arrangements they can do for your big day in the given budget. It makes sense to let them share options as they have abundant experience. Who knows, one of their options may instantly appeal to you and lead the way to a truly grand wedding, even that which you hadn’t thought of in the budget you’ve worked out.

Searching for wedding planners online is the next thing you should do, as in today’s digital age almost every wedding planner has a website or social media presence. From the comfort of your home, you can surf their digital presence and know of the different wedding projects they have executed. You can also go through testimonials of the couples who have availed their services.

Once you’ve shortlisted a couple of wedding planners, you must call them individually for a personal meeting. Before you conduct any meeting with them, it is important that you are ready with your list of questions. These should be like “have you conducted a wedding within my budget”, “have you done a wedding at my chosen venue”, “what is the team strength”, “can you give me contact details of past clients for cross-referencing”, “what are your back-up plans in case things don’t go the way they should, as in a contingency plan for bad weather in case it’s an outdoor venue”, “how many people will be deployed to take care of different aspects of the wedding”, “will there be a rehearsal before the actual wedding”, “can I pay your vendors directly or do I need to pay you the entire amount”, etc. You must also ask for a detailed presentation from every wedding planner you’ve shortlisted, on all the wedding events they have conducted which match the scale and budget of your wedding plans. Finally, in case you decide to postpone your wedding due to unforeseen circumstances, there should be an understanding in place either to claim a refund of the advance amount paid by you, or adjusting the same for a future date.

Finally, when you’re convinced that the event planner you’ve chosen is the best for managing your biggest day, it’s time to sign on the dotted line and work out a detailed step-by-step process statement of how they will be interacting with you for smooth decision making and ensuring that things go ahead as they are planned. Remember, you’re hiring them for ensuring that you and your bride are stress-free throughout the wedding day and can fully enjoy all the magical experiences the day has to offer.