Wedding Planners- From Heaven? From Hell or From Mars?

Summer is here! Weddings are already booked for each weekends, I suppose! Everyone is excited and wedding planners are about to put their game face on.

Now this post is tailored towards that game face and as one who has had friends get married almost every other weekend for the past few weeks, something is beginning to form a trend and I have carried the work on my head to write a post on it.

Having had conversations with the brides-to-be (as of then), myself getting involved in some part of the planning, or just being a sound board for them to release all their tension, most(not all) of the times what and who they are lamenting about is their wedding planner. *shocked face*  *not so shocked face*.

I decided to write some insight on how brides-to-be feel in certain situations (it is not as exhaustive but they do have a common point), and if there is any wedding planner out there (new or veteran), who finds this insightful, that is awesome and if you feel the bride-to-be is just being sensitive or dramatic, then I think that might just be where the source of all our your problems come from.

Insight:

Planning a wedding is no joke at all. From getting engaged, to introduction, to traditional wedding and white wedding, an average bride wants each of this occasion to be the best of her taste (whether elaborate or private). Regardless of it been a wedding, it is an event, that needs adequate planning, working with various people and organizations, putting your trust in them to meet up to your expectation and hoping everything goes on as planned. Hence, a wedding planner. Brides have planned their own wedding and some have either recruited some family member or hired someone else to plan their wedding.

1) A wedding planner is ‘supposed’ to come and make sense of ‘chaos’  (this depends on what level of responsibility is given to the planner and the degree of chaos varies, depending on if the bride-to-be is already on top of her game). However, irrespective of the multiple variables behind the confusion at that point in time, dear wedding planner, it is still not your wedding! Harsh as that might sound, but really, it has to be said again-  it is not your wedding! So the idea of you coming up with an idea and running with it even when you have been told by the bride she doesn't want or need that, is strength-sapping! I have seen wedding planners come up with ideas and do not feel the need to inform the bride (now to me this is the worst case scenario and has no iota of professionalism at all and can only be understood if the bride-to-be, told you not to inform her). The bride-to-be says she wants lilies and you decide to enforce orchids because you ‘feel’ it is best suited; the mindset of the bride is on overdrive and she might actually appreciate ideas (I know a lot do), but where the line is, is when the wedding planner begins to sulk because her idea is not been used! Or worse still, she orders the orchids behind the bride’s back! (Faints!)

I do not know how more to re-enforce this but sensitivity is key. Trust is paramount. Do not go against the one who has the most to lose or gain at her own biggest day of her life. Do not collect things, she doesn't want collected  or ignore all that she requested for and go on your own jolly-ride because personally, I feel that it is wrong and border-line evil. There are many other events you can play with, not someone else’s wedding. Moving on…

     2)   I think this second point is very important and it is about Trust. Certain brides-to-be have told me they often felt their wedding planners did not have their best interest at heart. I asked why they thought so, and they reply saying ‘often times when they as brides suggest vendors they want to use, it is being pushed aside

 by planners. They often do not mind this, as they want to believe the wedding planner is a specialist and would know who and what in the industry is best suited but instead the planners bring vendors that they have a personal relationship with.’ I ask ‘isn't it through a relationship, you can decipher good and bad vendors? What if their vendors do a great job and they are confident they would deliver as they have been in the business for a while?’ And the reply I get is ‘yes, you might be right but why do these vendors have to be somewhat related to them?” *sigh*

Wedding planners of life, the moment the bride beings to nurse the idea that maybe, just maybe, it is your own best interest you have instead of hers, she begins to unconsciously shut you out and you would struggle to get anything pass her, for though she hears you, she won’t listen to you.  Yes, I understand the fact we all want to help promote our own and maybe your cousin is most definitely a better MC than the one she is about to throw thousands of currency for, however wisdom is profitable to direct; An example is, you can talk about your cousin, show her some of his/her work, let them meet, keep it strictly professional and not have a sour yogurt attitude just because your pitch/cousin was declined.

3) Now number two leads me to number three. So your vendor was not selected by the bride, whose wedding day everyone is planning towards, and you feel the next step is to have a sour attitude or worse still be zoned out of the whole planning process? Haba (aka C’mon!) how productive can this be? What positive outcome can come from you folding your mind and not been helpful? You made a commitment to plan a wedding and in the middle of the planning, you unconsciously quit? (Definition of unconscious quitting is when you give up and all your present effort seem to be forced).

I have heard of a wedding planner who unconsciously quit because the bride-to-be started concluding on vendors, making final arrangements on major loose ends because the wedding planner just kept passing the bulk to her; so she picked it up and started making decisions, yet in all this, she still kept the wedding planner in the loop, but for some odd reason, the wedding planner felt she needed to have a final say in the conclusion of the wedding vendors that would be responsible in certain duties during the bride’s biggest day. Now watch this, the wedding planner stopped getting involved in the planning, in fact the bride had to approach her and ask her if everything was all right. Though the planner said yes all was going great, there was no denying the fact, the wedding planner was passive in response and duties and was present but absent in true sense of the word.

I cannot imagine the pressure, tension and million things going through the bride-to-be’s mind and I do not blame her for her next course of action, which is relieving the planner of her duties and hiring someone more efficient and the wedding was a huge success.

There is a limit to wish I can explain the way a bride-to-be feels during different stages of planning her wedding. I believe it is better felt than written, because then it makes a whole lot of sense. She desires to have solid friends around her, who would support her, understand her vision and not do as they please, put their individual differences aside and not plan a coup days before her wedding. She is a bit vulnerable then, so she might need solid sounding board and ideas. Depending on the kind of person she is, she might accept the fact she doesn't know all, or declare she knows all but one thing is constant, she needs her wedding day to be beautiful, classy, amazing and all her positive imagination coming to pass.

Regarding wedding planning and planners, I have met some outstanding ones and even some who are not wedding planners pick the ball and run with it, that guests are asking for their business cards because they assumed they were the wedding planners (do not ask me where the ‘Real’ planner was).

However I would like to conclude by saying, be professional enough to separate your sentiments from your work. If you give excuses about how, your personality is what’s causing the loggerheads between yourself and the bride; you might need to consider other activities.

A bride wants to trust her wedding planner, at that moment; you can even become her best friend because she sees you as the powerful one about to make her dreams come true. You should be competent enough to build that trust and make it better. Acting like it’s your way or no way at all, should not be found in your manual.

If you are a bride-to be or a bride and have had some ‘deep’ experiences in the course of planning your wedding, feel free to comment below!

If you are a wedding planner and you feel that I might have missed a point, comment below! It is no fun hearing just from the brides’ side of the story.

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