After your engagement or as your big day nears, you may be deciding whether or not hiring a wedding planner is right for you.
Characteristics of a Wedding Planner:
NOTE: Many locations have in-house coordinators, or a venue coordinator, but make sure you’re clear on exactly what level of service they provide. Venue coordinators usually just handle day-of issues and offer a list of their preferred vendors, so having your own planner may still be a great help.
Even though hiring a planner is an added cost, they often end up saving you money in the long run. And no doubt about it—the right wedding planner can definitely save you time and stress (priceless!).
We took a moment to ask some of our past brides some questions you might be pondering over yourself in deciding whether or not you’d like to hire a Wedding Planner for your big day:
The most beneficial thing about having a day-of coordinator is not having to worry about the logistics of the day. There’s lots of other things a Bride (or otherwise indicated person getting married) has to worry about the day of their wedding, they shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not their cake arrived too! – Danielle Riley-Everson
Oh, hmm. I’m going to have to say trying to balance the needs of my husband’s divorced parents tied with trying to keep track of all the vendors once we got closer to the wedding. My husband ended up dealing with his parents (mostly because near the end, I had absolutely zero patience. It all worked out though- everyone was on their best behavior the day of!!). Once we were about 3 months out, some vendors started asking me for timelines, which made me panic because I honestly hadn’t thought about timelines at that point! I was so happy once Tiffany started working with us- she hit the ground running and didn’t look back! – Meg Faden
That is a definitive NO! I was super relaxed, which is completely out of the norm for me given that I am extremely Type A. Our wedding guests kept coming up to me to tell me how relaxed I was! Tiffany handled absolutely everything and if something went wrong, we had NO idea. I still have no idea if things went wrong because to my husband and I, our wedding was exactly how we dreamed it! Thanks to Tiffany, our wedding day was perfection. – Meaghan Dofflemeyer
Tiffany was that cool-headed, super supportive friend you always want in your corner on your biggest, most stressful, most important days. Because I’m super hands-on and very particular about how I see things being done, my husband and I had done most of the prep work ourselves. But Tiffany was able to jump right in and execute almost exactly to our vision. – Jamilyah Smith-Kanze
I would have reached out to Tiff sooner! There were so many things that she helped with in the last few weeks, that probably could have been taken care of sooner. I would have also let go a little bit more! I can be a bit of a control freak and was so worried about everything being perfect, that I don’t think I let Tiff completely own her job. – Jacqui Beitia
Tiffany Rivera is a Wedding Planner & Event Planner serving DC, Maryland, Virginia and beyond!