Tips for Choosing the Perfect Wedding Planner!!!

Preparing for your wedding is one of the most exciting times you will share together as a couple. Unfortunately, it is also one of the more stressful times in a young couples life together.

Planning for the ceremony, inviting guests, choosing a best man, picking ushers and brides maids etc! The list of things to do seems never ending. In addition to all of the personal decisions to be made, you need to select a venue, hire a caterer, hire a florist, decorate! it’s another seemingly endless list. But with the help of a professional wedding planner, you can eliminate much of the stress that accompanies planning a wedding.

But how do you know the wedding planner you choose will be able to fully meet your expectations?

The following tips will help make choosing the right wedding planner a little easier, and will help ensure that you find the wedding coordinator that can offer the best service.

Weddings Begin With Choices of course all weddings bring a flurry of choices, and certain decisions have to be made early. When considering a professional wedding planner, the first choice is what type of service you need. Full service wedding planners are ready to handle every detail of your wedding and reception, including hiring a venue, decorating, contracting with florists and caterers, and generally looking after every detail of your big day.

Many wedding planners also offer partial services, or day of coordination. These services are designed to help couples find an appropriate venue, and contract with the various vendors that will be needed for the wedding. Partial services can save couples a little money, but by their nature still leave most of the heavy work to the bride and groom. In the long run, a full service wedding planner can save both time and money, and can certainly lessen the stress load.

Interviewing Your Wedding Planner:
Before choosing any wedding coordinator, you’ll want to set up some interviews. Not all wedding planners are created equal, so give yourself some time to speak with a few different coordinators and compare costs and services. The first question to ask any prospective wedding planner, is where they were trained in the profession. Not all wedding planners have had professional training, and you want to be sure you choose someone who is well trained and experienced in their field. You will also want to ask how long they have been working in the industry, and what types of weddings they have organized in the past.
A good wedding planner should be able to provide a work history that gives you confidence in their skills, and should also be able to provide recommendations from past satisfied clients.

As you interview potential wedding planners, be sure to ask what level of service they provide. A good wedding planner should be able to handle all of the details of your wedding, from venue to décor, to catering etc.
Successful wedding planners should be able to take your initial ideas, and enhance them with concepts of their own. They should be quick with suggestions to make your wedding more beautiful, more personal, and all that you both dreamed it could be.

Total Cost and Your Budget:
While consulting with your wedding planner, be sure they understand all of your budgetary restrictions. Being able to work within a set budget is an important part of being a wedding planner, and they should be able to make suggestions that can save you money while providing first class service on the day. A good wedding coordinator will have contacts with a variety of vendors and caterers so that they can provide the best service at the best price for all of their clients.

Finally, ask about what will be covered in the total cost. Will the vendor’s and caterer’s fees be included in the total cost, or will they be paid separately. This applies to any support staff required prior to, and on the day of the wedding as well. Confirm when payment is due, and what forms of payment will be accepted.

Hiring a wedding planner can help to take much of the stress out of planning your wedding. When choosing a wedding planner, look for someone that understands what you want on your wedding day. Choose someone you are comfortable with, who will work closely with you and who is committed to bringing your dream wedding to life.

What To Do When Event Disaster Strikes!

What To Do When Event Disaster Strikes!

When event disaster strikes - and it does to everyone in this industry at some time or other, it helps to have a game plan. There are two possible general scenarios from which you will need to recover. One occurs when the event itself is in jeopardy and something must be done to make it continue successfully. The other occurs when you have to save a client and your reputation. These situations assume that you have already taken every precaution for controlling risk and have completed proper risk assessments before the event has even begun.

Saving an Event

When you are called upon to “save” an event, it usually means you must add, delete, substitute, reconfigure, or accommodate something in order to make the save possible! In almost all cases, the “save” is necessary because of unforeseen and unimaginable circumstances.
The following key rules are offered for handling those eleventh hour challenges, whatever their size and scope

*Keep a cool head and a professional demeanour; Your client depends on you to know the answers and also rely on you to fix the problems. If you go ballistic when faced with a challenge, you both lose! Find a non-public place to discuss the problem with team players. Always be the expert, always remain in control of your emotions and your temper, and always be a leader.

*Pull your core team together and determine what options exist; Questions to ask include, What are the key elements of this event that must happen? What is the most important thing to client? What are the physical and logistical limitations? What resources do we have to make changes – financial, human and technical? What are our options?

*Divide and conquer; As a group, determine the best one option and put all of your resources to work to make it happen. Once you have decided on the solution, make sure to clearly define individual responsibilities. During this crunch time, it’s important for everyone to be working parallel ahead toward the same goal.

*Don’t rule out help from your competitors; Make sure the new plan is clearly articulated to the client and approved. Also, be sure to communicate the plan to the entire event team, including all support vendors who may or may not have been contracted by you. Learn from the challenge.
What lessons were learned from this challenge that can be applied to future events to prevent similar situations from developing?

Saving a Client – and Your Reputation

Sometimes no matter how much you anticipate, how much you plan, how many times you double-check details, or how hard you try to make the “save,” Murphy’s Law strikes and a situation develops that has the potential to do serious damage to your reputation and your relationship with your client.
Every event planner experiences this at some point in their career.

*When an event goes wrong or something unrecoverable happens, the key points to consider are; If the event is still ongoing, minimize any adverse effects on your client, the guests and the venue. It may be possible to minimize effects if the people on your team react quickly and competently, as outlined in the first section. For example, in the case of technical problems such as microphone or audio difficulties, computer glitches and such, if backup equipment and software are available, a minor problem will remain just that and may not require any compromises. However, if they are not and the problem is not resolved swiftly, it quickly becomes a big problem and a major interruption in an event’s flow, which will probably require some settlement with the client. Preparation and anticipation are the key words here.

*Communicate to your client exactly what has happened and why it has happened, as soon as possible and as honestly as possible; When a problem is obvious to guests or an audience, and to your client – and obvious is the key word - the worst thing you can do is to remain silent. Your client wants to be kept “in the loop” and must know what is happening literally from moment to moment. This communication is ultimately what will probably save your reputation and your client. Without it, the client can feel as if you are trying to hide something. Even if the problem is due to someone’s incompetence, admit it up front and take immediate steps to solve the problem. Don’t hide.

*Formulate a methodology to appease and keep your client; Now comes decision time, If in your assessment - or by way of client comments - the event was compromised by a problem, then after the event a continuing dialogue with the client is very important. Explain to him/her you are concerned that the event was not up to the standards you promised and are known for.

Learn from the problem, As in the case of saving an event, what lessons were learned from this problem that can be applied to future events to prevent similar situations from developing.