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Congratulations! You’re engaged to be married to the person of your dreams. As you begin thinking about the wedding plans though, it can be shocking to discover how much preparation is involved. The location, ceremony and reception site, the caterer, florist, entertainment, ceremony musicians, photographer, baker, officiate, just for starters. Couples are faced with so many decisions they often find they may need experienced professional help.

A wedding planner can be the answer to helping you as your personal guide through the hundreds of decisions that accompany every wedding. Creating a memorable day requires time, effort and organization. A wedding planner can help by removing the added stress to you by dealing with the time consuming details of planning and implementing each segment of your wedding. For example, you can eliminate the time it takes to qualify people who provide wedding services by using those vendors already pre-qualified by your wedding planner. Having direct access to vendors who have proven to be ethical, dependable and affordable often offsets a planner’s fees. Hiring a planner will allow you, your family and friends and guests to enjoy the day by not having any duties besides just “showing up”

 How do you know you have the right planner? Trust is important in this relationship. Are you comfortable with your planner? Is she or he listening? Will she work on your behalf to get the best services, quality, and prices? Do you “click?”

Does she have a good track record working with clients as well as other vendors?

 These are some of the obvious reason brides hire a coordinator and are thankful that they did. What a planner does behind the scenes is equally important. You may need your planner to be the detached diplomat and problem solver with family situations or emotional decisions. And you’ll want your planner to anticipate potential problems before they arise and solve them, many times without you or the groom ever knowing about them. These “saves” run the range from the big to the small. I remember a big save at our local ski resort when the bride’s friends pulled up in their van, with a sheepish look and said, very apologetically, “We are so sorry but we had to slam on the brakes coming up the mountain and every table center piece went flying off the seats”. There they were, beautiful little cactus plants set in what once might have been small stones and potting soil, on the floorboards, the stones and soil in every crevice of the van. With not much time left before the wedding, we quickly gathered up the pieces and put the arrangements back together. All went well no one noticed a thing, and the bride never knew of the near disaster.

Or a small save can be as simple as being an extra set of hands that can run a last minute errand, find the forgotten guest book or be there to pick up the place cards that were scattered by the wind. There are unexpected situations that can present themselves and having a coordinator on your team to be your advocate is invaluable. A professional planner is prepared for most anything on your wedding day.

So let your planner act as your guide and collaborator and troubleshooter to compensate for any errors. It’s your day, enjoy it!!

 Best Advice: Let your day be the representation of your love for each other and how happy you feel in this moment. Savor every moment, it goes by so fast. This is the perfect wedding day!

Perfect Planning by Van Damme Weddings

Photos by Cameron Clark