Choosing a Professional Planner

An extremely good friend of mine, Isis Petrie of Posh Events, LLC wrote an article recently that any one hunting for a wedding planner should read and take to heart.  Her battle cry against amateur planners posing as pros is accurate and compelling.  She emphasizes, as I will, that the backlash is not against new planners - we were all new at some point.  It's against inexperienced planners posing as skilled professionals, and doing irreversible harm on and before a bride's wedding day.

You can purchase a website for less than $50.  You can buy business cards for $10.  A business license in James City County starts at $30 per year.  Practically anyone can set up house as a wedding coordinator.

But no one can give back peace of mind on your wedding day.

And few new planners are actually cut out to put up with the kind of phsyical and mental exhaustion we put into our clients' events.  You have to love being on your feet on any terrain for 12 hours at a time, sometimes starving, and sometimes dehydrated.  You have to balance instructions from 6 different sources at a time, and know innately which voice is most important.  You have to smile when all you want to do is grimace and cry.

Unlike some service industry jobs, we have a peculiar burden: a wedding day is sacred.  We don't get to just tell our clients that they are wrong and can't have what they want, and hope they cool down about it later.  We have to demonstrate real finesse and grace under pressure.  We only get to do this once.

Not everyone has it, and even those who do need skill to back it up. 

Please read Isis' article if you are in the process of choosing a wedding planner, and take her good suggestions to heart.  You could save yourself a lot of heart ache by doing so.

Happy (and Cautious) Planning

Shayna Walker

Williamsburg Wedding Design

Comments

[Judy Yublosky]

What a great article!! How true. You hit the nail right on the head. In this day and age there are many people out to make a buck and not really qualified in their field.