By the time you’re planning your wedding, you’ve most likely been a guest at a few weddings yourself. You probably know a thing or two about what you should and shouldn’t do as a guest, and you probably have some ideas about what you want to do based on what you and your partner have loved (or not). You probably even know a thing or two about how to make sure your guests all have a good time.
But what about how to behave as the person who is planning the wedding? It’s probably something you haven’t given much thought to—planning an event is pretty straightforward right?
Well hold onto your bouquet, because there are a few tips and tricks that can turn you into a client vendors will sing praises about, or at the very least, not complain about to their therapist. Here are some nuggets of wisdom for navigating the wedding planning process with style and grace:
We get it. Picking a wedding date is like choosing your favourite flavour of ice cream at an all-you-can-eat sundae buffet – potentially overwhelming and hard to narrow down your final decision. But let’s not confuse your vendors in the process. Don’t just shoot off a request or email asking “what’s your availability in 2024?” Be a little more decisive than that. Maybe pick a month – that way vendors can at least respond with something more than existential crisis-inducing confusion.
You may have ghosted potential partners in your quest for love, but it’s time to leave that behaviour at the digital door when planning your wedding. If you’ve reached out to a handful of florists, celebrants, photographers, or any other wedding vendors and you’ve finally found ‘the one’, it’s time to communicate like a mature, responsible adult. A simple, “thanks for your time, but we’ve decided to go in a different direction,” is all it takes. If you’ve enquired with a vendor, it’s likely that they tentatively placed your booking in their calendars until they hear back from you. And it’s never been easier to contact people, whether it’s a quick email or text message. Times are hard enough for small businesses—so unshackle those poor vendors from the great unknown and wondering what you’re doing.
We’re in the age of the internet, where knowledge is just a click away. So, before you hit send on enquiries and embark on a vendor-querying frenzy, do a bit of research first. If you’re planning a chilled-out beach wedding, maybe don’t reach out to the photographer whose portfolio is chock-full of rigidly posed studio shots. It’ll save you a lot of time and energy to narrow down what you want before you reach out.
Sure, your love is a whirlwind romance, but your wedding planning doesn’t need to be. Resist the urge to send out a hundred enquiries in a single night. Quality over quantity, folks! Take a breath, sip some chamomile tea, and thoughtfully select the vendors you think will bring your vision to life. It’s like crafting your dream team, not throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.
Have you ever been caught snooping around someone else’s wedding, trying to catch all the sneaky little details for your Pinterest board? Well, turns out, that’s research, and it’s totally acceptable. Keep an eagle eye when you attend weddings. What works? What doesn’t? You’ll gather a treasure trove of ideas, preferences, and a definite list of things to avoid.
So, future wedding planners extraordinaires, as you embark on the adventure of wedding planning, keep in mind that just as you expect the best from your vendors, they hope for the same from you too. You’re about to create a day that will be remembered for a lifetime – might as well make the process a memorable one too, but for all the right reasons. Happy planning!
