Do I NEED a “Wedding Planner?”

This entry is from our Expert Guest series where wedding and honeymoon professionals share their best tips on creating memories that last a lifetime.

The short answer: no, you don’t NEED a wedding planner. You NEED food, water, and air. But you will survive without hiring a wedding planner. Should you have a wedding planner? That’s a totally different question.

Every bride asks herself the question “Do I need a wedding planner?” at one point or another. Maybe you just got engaged and realize you don’t even know where to begin; or maybe you are three month’s out and are up to your eyeballs in invitations, seating charts, and table numbers. At whatever point the question strikes you in planning a dream wedding, there are a lot of factors involved in determining the answer.

What Is The Point of a Wedding Planner Anyway?

A wedding planner is the secret ninja best friend behind the scenes making all of the little pieces of your wedding come to life exactly the way you want them to without any stress or worry on your part. A wedding planner can, for example:

• Help you design your wedding with a creative eye, crafting a unique vision that represents you as a couple
• Help you stay within budget, keep track of your planning timeline, and retain your sanity.
• Make sure your wedding party knows where they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to be doing at all times.
• Put out any unlikely but potential fires at your wedding, such as fixing the broken bustle on your dress, trouble-shooting the A/V issue with the wireless microphones, and keeping your divorced parents on the opposite sides of the room from each other.
• Make sure the day of your wedding is a flawless, forward-moving train that dazzles your guests and changes your life.

But, Really, Do I Need One?

I will never tell someone he/she “needs” a wedding planner. Why? Because I didn’t have one, and I survived. Granted, I was raised around weddings and had more knowledge on the topic than the typical person prior to my engagement. Also, my wedding-planner grandmother acted as a pseudo-consultant during the occasional phone call. But even without that background, today’s tools (books, blogs, apps, etc.) would have gotten me through. Think you are savvy all on your own? Maybe you have looked into:

• TheKnot.com or WeddingWire.com (user-friendly planning platforms that help you find vendors, track your budget, store guest information, and design seating charts)
• Pinterest.com (an endless array of potentially unattainable but seemingly perfect inspirational photos of real weddings that aren’t going to be anything like yours)
• Any number of binders, bride guides, planning binders, etc. that make you feel organized but that you will likely open a total of three times before realizing that the internet is a lot easier to carry around with you.

The only problem is that these things will not be able to tell you to stay calm, will not be able to remove the stain from your bodice, will not be able to ensure that your personalized napkins complement the design of your gold foil invitations, and will not be able to make sure all of your gifts are collected and safely placed in your getaway vehicle at the end of the night.

Why You Absolutely SHOULD HAVE a Wedding Planner

I WILL tell people they “should have” a wedding planner if the following factors apply:

1. You want to have a quality and personalized event, but you just don’t have the time to dedicate to planning it between work, school, kids, a social life, family, exercising, eating, drinking enough water¦

2. You want to avoid making mistakes and actually get off on the right foot immediately. You can dedicate the time, but you’ll be dedicating more than you have to without taking all of the necessary secret steps that will make your life easier.

3. You are so stressed out over planning this large crazy event and you feel the pressure from your family and friends to make it perfect, and you just CAN’T EVEN handle it anymore. You: Grandma Susie insists that all 16 of her closest second cousins HAVE TO attend but none of them can sit near each other? That’s cool, I’ll go cry into my nachos now.

4. You straight up just don’t want to do what it takes to pull it off and would much rather someone else do most of the work. This is not a crime (and it’s certainly not laziness)! If I were a normal person, I wouldn’t want to do it all either.

5. You think you have planned the perfect event but you don’t want to have to worry about anything on your actual wedding day. You would rather have a secret wedding warrior in place to make sure everything is perfect while you relax (maybe have champagne) and have fun and not freak out on people.

So You Decide

One or more of the above situations may apply to you!

• Fact: wedding planning can be stressful.
• Fact: weddings are uniquely complicated and involved events, especially in this day and age.
• Fact: your wedding should be the best day of your life and the perfect beginning to a new life with your partner.

But in the end, it is your choice as to whether or not you “should have” a wedding planner.  And when you decide, give me a call!

Help finance your wedding plans with a Honeyfund honeymoon registry or gift card.

About the Author: Carina Inganamort, founder and owner of The Wedding Therapist LLC, is a wedding planner and board-certified music therapist in Phoenix, Arizona. From international destination weddings in Greece to local weddings in Arizona, Carina has a passion for making dreams come to life. With a variety of stress-free, customizable wedding packages, she also offers music therapy for engaged couples focusing on stress reduction, bonding, and preparing the musical elements of your wedding day. In her spare time, Carina enjoys traveling with her husband and family, hiking, playing a variety of musical instruments, and designing wedding paper goods on Etsy.com. Interested in chatting? Let’s talk weddings. www.weddingtherapistaz.com

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