Now that you are engaged you are probably asking yourself where I begin. Planning your wedding is the biggest event and most expensive event that you will ever plan in a lifetime. Consider when you buy a home; it is always wise to seek out a professional realtor that will guide you through the process. When you are going on vacation, sure it is easy to trust the online search engines, but if you have a question, who are you going to call, if you do not have a travel professional helping you?

It has been stated that a bride will spend 300 plus hours working in their wedding that is over 7 weeks of wedding planning if you never stop. One of the benefits of having a planner is to save you the time. Most couples think that having a wedding planner is for people who have big budgets to spend. Contrary to popular belief, that is not the case. The wedding planner can help the couple set up a realistic budget that will afford them a wedding of their dreams within their means.

Planning a wedding can be very stressful when you have certain dreams and wants and are not sure where to begin. This is where the wedding professional can be your liaison to achieving those dreams. They will give you the unbiased opinion that you are looking for. Besides not having the time to plan your own wedding, there are other reasons to hire a wedding planner. One of them is their wealth of knowledge in etiquette, their expertise in handling last minute changes/emergencies that creep up, even as much as on the day of the wedding.

Some of the questions we get are: I saw on Martha Stewart Weddings that you can do a lot of things yourself from using an Ipod as your wedding and reception music, to buying your flowers through the mail and making your own centerpieces, to having some friends take pictures and placing cameras on the table for the guests to take some too and having friends or family video tape the wedding. This should save me thousands. What our reply to this is this: First of all, not all equipment at all facilities is compatible with your IPod. But besides that, what happens if the person you have in charge is not able to push the buttons at the right timing, or presses the wrong song? What happens if the crowd is just not happy with selection of music and they start to get bored? Ordering fresh flowers through the mail sounds like a neat idea to be creative and make your won centerpieces, By the time you have spent 600 or so on these flowers that are wholesale and have to make yourself it will have cost more in work time and purchasing things to obtain that wow factor that you may be looking for. Fresh floral have to be kept in water until they are ready to be entered in to the centerpiece that has water as well so that they do not die prior to the wedding. Who will do that for you minutes before the wedding? As for the photographer and videographer, what I can say is pictures tell a story, video captures the memory, if the person taking the pictures or video is not professional and does not know when to expect something important, they may totally miss it.

When thinking if I should hire a wedding planner consider asking yourself: Do I have unlimited time to plan my wedding day? Will I be able to negotiate contracts with vendors and drive all over town to meet these vendors? Can I deal with the last minute things on the day of and prior to the wedding?

 When you hire a wedding planner you will know upfront what you will receive and what her fee will be. Most charge a flat rate and can save you their entire fee and more on planning your event, not to mention the stress relief. When deciding which planner is right for you ask yourself? Are they a member of the Association of Bridal Consultants? That is like saying is a Dr Board certified? Will the planner commit to my budget? Does she have a good rapport with other vendors to negotiate discounts on your behalf? Does this planner look like he/she can handle stress on the day of the wedding and keep everyone calm? Does this wedding planner have a business license and liability insurance?

Happy Planning !!