By: Crystal and Jason Melendez
Maybe you and your family don’t have the time to plan, manage, and coordinate an entire wedding. Maybe you don’t want to. Or, maybe you just prefer (and can afford) to have some professional assistance. A wedding consultant can save you stress and do some or all of the dirty work—depending on how much you want him or her involved—by setting up a realistic budget, recommending vendors, negotiating contracts, managing all the sticky details, and hopefully saving you money in the process.
What Can a Consultant Do for You?
Wedding consultants eat and breathe weddings. They’re active in the industry, so they know people who know people, and they use those connections to put you in contact with good vendors and to save you money. They’ll answer your questions, provide recommendations, and offer tips on the latest trends. Depending on how long they’ve been
in the game, they have probably seen it all once or even twice, so they know how to handle last-minute emergencies and other situations that would cause the average bride and groom to sprout a few grey hairs. A wedding coordinator will draw up a timeline for you, and they’ll help you stick to it. They’ll create a wedding binder for you that includes your vision details, budget, and vendor paperwork. For the wedding day, they can coordinate all the minute-by-minute events and keep everyone communicating, working together properly and on schedule.
A wedding consultant can be hired to work with you full time (from determining your overall vision to booking your honeymoon), part-time (getting your planning started and then handing it off to you), or they can simply be hired to coordinate the wedding day itself.
Full-Time Consultant: From Starting Vision to Honeymoon
For the “full-service package”, your wedding consultant will pretty much do everything we show you how to do for yourself in this book. She’ll meet with you to lay out your preferences and overall wedding vision. Using this information, she’ll help you create a realistic budget to capture your vision, and will put you in contact with
appropriate vendors. She’ll help you negotiate contracts and tie up all the loose ends to make sure everything’s a go for the big day. On the wedding day of itself, she’ll help you create a timeline and coordinate with all your vendors to take the burden and stress off of your shoulders.
Expect to shell out 10% to 15% of your overall wedding budget for this service. For example, if your overall budget is $20,000, then $2,000 would be a fair price to pay.
Part-Time: Set It Up and Hand It Off to You
In this case, your consultant will do all the prep work: she’ll meet with you at the beginning of your planning, answer questions, and provide recommendations. She’ll help you identify your overall vision, set up your budget, create your wedding binder, lay out a wedding day timeline, and draw up lists of recommended vendors. Then, she’ll hand the whole thing over to you to take over from there.
“Day Of” Coordination
You’ll meet with a wedding coordinator a couple times before the big day so that she’ll have ample time to prepare. On the day of your wedding, she’ll direct events and coordinate your vendors to make sure that everything happens at the appropriate time and that everyone is doing their job. If emergencies arise, she’ll take care of them, as well as handle anything else to ensure that your day comes off without a hitch.
Looking for a Consultant
Start off with referrals from those you trust, as always. You can also check for consultants in your area by contacting the Association of Bridal Consultants (860-355-0464, www.bridalassn.com), the Association of Certified Professional Wedding Consultants (www.acpwc.com), and the Association for Wedding Professionals International (www.afwpi.com).
It’s important that you have a good chemistry with the person you select, so chat with them on the phone first. If you’re not comfortable talking to them on the phone, don’t waste time with an appointment. Do make appointments with as many consultants as you have time for; you want to shop around as much as possible. We give you a list of questions and discussion points to bring up with each one below.
Check everyone’s credentials and select one that you feel the most comfortable with, someone who shares your tastes and preferences. Also, make sure to keep in mind that you’re hiring someone to realize your wedding vision, not theirs, if they won’t listen or= keep pushing their own ideas of what and ideal wedding is, don’t hire them.
Questions to Ask Wedding Consultants
- How long have you been in business?
- Are you a registered business?
- Do you do wedding consulting full time or do you have another job? (It’s okay if they have another job, but if they’re full time they may be easier to contact and better able to talk to vendors during business hours)
- What consulting course did you take? Do you have a certificate/diploma?
- Do you charge a percentage of total wedding cost, by hour, or a flat fee?
- What is your cost estimate for the services we need? What deposit do you require?
- How often will we meet? How long will the meetings be?
- Can you help us choose vendors and go over our contracts with them?
- If there’s an emergency and you can’t be there at our wedding, do you have a backup?
- Will you be with us during our rehearsal? Will there be an extra charge for this?
- We have a venue in mind. Have you worked there before?
- We have some vendors in mind. Have you worked with them before?
- Do you have a preferred vendors list?
- On our wedding day, at what times will you arrive and leave?
- Will you handle payments to our vendors if we provide the funds to you?
Get It in Writing: The Consultant Contract
Make sure the following is in ink: How the consultant charges and what the cost will be for the service she’s providing you, along with a description of what that service is. Your contract should also contain a cancellation policy and a no-show policy that outlines what happens if the consultant can’t make it to your even in the case of an emergency. Make sure your wedding date is given, and that both you and the consultant sign the contract.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Crystal and Jason Melendez are the authors of e-Plan Your Wedding:
How to Save Time and Money with Today’s Best Online Resources.
For more information, please visit http://www.eplanyourwedding.com
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