Wedding planners are also called wedding coordinators. They provide a full range of services from simple consultation to the arrangement of every detail of your wedding. What a wedding coordinator does is work with all your vendors to execute your wedding day flawlessly and exactly as you would like. They are there from the start of the planning process or several months prior until the sweet end of your wedding day. They work with every aspect of your wedding day not just the location. There are different types of planners that offer different services that you can hire.
There is the full service planner that offers beginning to end service. This kind of planner will get to know you and your partner personally. She will want to get to know your needs and your tastes and will help you to create a budget and a time plan. She will have contacts for many vendors and will help you find the ones that suit your needs and budget. A full service wedding planner will also make recommendations for flowers, decorations, food and drinks. She will also organize the theme, colours and other smaller details you choose. A full service wedding planner is the most expensive type of planner you can choose and if you have the budget for it, is worth it as it will take so much stress of you and your partner.
A partial wedding planner comes in to the scene usually at rehearsals and the wedding day to make sure everything runs smoothly. This type of planner usually charges an hourly rate or a flat-fee that includes a set number of hours.
You can use a wedding planner for a one-off consultation. At this consultation the she will help you with your budget and time plan. She will also give you tips for working with and using the services of wedding vendors and might refer vendors working in the area. For this service they will usually charge an hourly rate.
A wedding planner’s job is to make sure that you get the best deals from other wedding vendors so that you can have the wedding of your dreams while staying within your budget. But you have to bear in mind that even though the wedding planner will refer vendors to you as free service, a lot of wedding vendors pay a commission fee to wedding coordinators to be on their referral list. So this commission fee is paid by you on the vendor’s bill.
Planning weddings was never an easy job and when it comes to your wedding, you want absolutely the best. In order for this to happen, you must make sure to hire a good wedding planner. Merely glowing testimonials and recommendations by others is not enough. You need to see for yourself whether the wedding planner in question will suit your needs.
It’s quite a well-known fact that what worked for your second cousin might not work for you!
Of course, the small matter of verifying whether the wedding planning business does exist must come before asking any questions. Here are five questions that you absolutely must ask your wedding designer.
1. Do I get value for my money? You need to know exactly what you’re setting yourself up for. This helps to ensure that no “surprise” costs crop up out of the blue after you’ve already hired your wedding designer and there’s only a month left for the wedding! Does the wedding planning fee also include the fee of the assistants on D-day? If not, how many assistants will be required and how much will they charge?
2. Will you stick to my budget and not push me to go (too much) further? Sticking to the wedding budget is a big part of the wedding planners’ job. But sometimes, your wedding budget seems to increase by a whole lot. It’s not hard to make a wedding go over-budget at all! So make sure you hire a wedding planner who makes the budget a top priority.
3. Are you familiar with the Venue and Vendors? You may have hired the best wedding planners but they might not be familiar with the vendors you want! Also, you need to ask whether your wedding planner is getting a referral fee from the vendors in question, if one company is being pushed at you from all directions, then you know it’s just a backend financial agreement which is driving this entire transaction. So you need to be cautious about that!
I’m sure that, by now you have understood that you can’t rest in peace after handing over the responsibility of arranging the wedding to wedding planners, so don’t forget to get out that old yoga mat you have and de-stress at times!
Most florists place their largest orders of wholesale cut flowers in anticipation of the Valentine’s Day, followed closely by Mother’s Day. On these days the shops get more walk-in customers than ever. Yet two high-selling days a year are not enough to sustain and grow a floral business. It is possible to have sales volume and revenue akin to these holidays every day of the year. However, in order to do so, the main business of the florist must come from wedding planners and other special event organizers. In order to secure repeat business and referrals from these professionals, a florist must look at her own business through the eyes of these high-volume clients. When looking for flower vendors, event planners and coordinators search for the following things:
Quality of available flowers – Are the flowers fresh, with vivid colors? How long the flowers stay fresh also referred to as vase life, is determined in large part by how fresh they were when delivered to the floral shop. Using a wholesale flowers supplier that delivers quickly and has proper facilities to maintain freshness and vase life of cut flowers means you will be able to offer longer lasting arrangements to your clients.
Attractiveness of display arrangements – It goes without saying that unattractive arrangements of flowers that are past their prime will be a huge turn-off for anyone. When it comes to event planners, their professional reputation depends in large part on how dazzling an event they can put together. To help you with creating attractive arrangements, choose a wholesale cut flowers [http://www.bloomsxpress.com%20] supplier that offers bouquet assembly and chance to place custom orders.
Trendiness of display arrangements – For many brides wedding planning starts with checking out bridal magazines and websites for the latest trends in gowns and flowers. While red roses are always in demand, if the season’s trend is using Birds of Paradise in bridal bouquets, then one needs to have a wholesale flowers supplier who can meet this need. As many varieties of flowers should be offered by the wholesale cut flowers supplier as possible. A wide variety of colors, from common to exotic ones, are a great asset.
Flexibility and willingness to work with the event planner’s or bride’s ideas and wishes – The event planner is there to make a beautiful event according to theirs and their clients’ vision. They will appreciate suggestions, but they have envisioned their event and want to execute it that way. For a florist it means finding a wholesale flowers supplier that delivers exotic flowers and colors, offers a wide selection of flowers, and has the freshest flowers available even out of season.
In short, a successful wholesale flowers supplier will, after impressing a few event planners, gain the coveted and priceless word of mouth advertising. If you buy quality wholesale cut flowers, you will find that in time the success of your business will be measured by the wedding and event planners you impress.
Planning a wedding is hard work and involves a lot of time and organization. Most brides nowadays have busy lives between work, school, family and extra curricular activities, there isn’t a lot of time left over for calling vendors and searching for the best prices and quality products for your wedding. Because of this a lot of brides end up booking the first vendor they find without really researching whether they are booking the right vendor for what they need.
When newly engaged brides were asked if they would use a wedding planner most of them suggested that the reason they wouldn’t use a wedding planner is because of the price. This is a common misconception and seems to be the opinion of most people. Unfortunately this couldn’t be more further from the truth.
Hiring a planner is a decision that not only can decrease the amount of work on a bride planning a wedding but most wedding planners have a long list of vendors they have used in the past who provide them with discounted pricing. Not only do the bride and groom know they are getting quality vendors who the wedding planner has used before, but they normally save a fair amount of money by booking preferred vendors through the wedding planner.
These discounts can apply to any or all of the following items: chair covers, sashes, table overlays, centerpieces, guest favours, wedding cakes, florists, DJ’s, photographers, commissioners and the list goes on and on.
The planner coordinates all the booking of vendors, coordinates everyone on the day of the wedding as well as ensuring all vendors are paid and all the last minute details are perfect so the bride and groom can enjoy every minute of their special day without having to worry about any of the logistics.
One of the most important things a wedding planner does is to ensure the wedding is staying on track with the budget. This is hard for most couples and everyone has the ability to get swept up in the planning and the “I really want this” mentality. Having a neutral 3rd party facilitating the money and staying on top of every penny spent is a huge relief for most brides and is the main reason why most weddings that have a wedding planner stay within their budget compared to brides who opt to not have a planner involved.
So if you are planning a wedding be sure to weigh out all your options and don’t be too fast to say no to having a wedding planner help make your day a little less stressful.
Besides knowing the difference between Asian wedding favors and garden wedding favors, a good wedding planner should be a wealth of knowledge and should know how to plan every detail of your wedding. Unfortunately, there are only a few ways to tell if your wedding planner really knows his or her stuff until he actually starts planning your wedding. Here are four quick things to look for when interviewing your wedding planners that will tell you more about them without asking the related questions.
If your wedding planner shows up for the interview half an hour late, odds are, they are not as organized as they claim to be. While this particular clue is not a dead giveaway to their capabilities, it is certainly a good step in the wrong direction. If they have a legitimate sounding excuse, it is only fair to continue the interview in earnest but keep that red flag in the back of your mind as you go. Take a moment and think about the excuse that they give you for being late. If they say that they were stuck in traffic at ten in the morning, it is more likely they slept in as the morning rush is usually over by nine, since that is the start time for the majority of the working world. That is unless, of course, everyone in your city was late for work on that day, like your candidate.
Wedding planners are supposed to be well-organized and clear thinking individuals who know how to dress up a wedding. If your wedding planner candidate has a green shirt with blue pants and a green and orange sock on one foot and a black one on the other there are three possibilities. First, they are blind and they left their driving Seeing Eye dog in the car. Second, their second job as a clown starts after the interview. (and the purple tie is in their pocket) or they are not very well coordinated and have no business planning a wedding, especially a themed wedding and especially your wedding. Maybe they could plan one for Ringling Bros.
A great wedding planner will have a laptop computer with photos of their previous jobs and if not, a full notebook with a portfolio and several references to show you. They will have documentation of their previous weddings and may even provide video that shows off their prowess and coordination cunning. If your wedding planning candidate shows up with a 3×5 in. memo book and asks to borrow a pen, he or she is probably not the right wedding planner for you.
There is one way to spot a wedding planner and instantly know the difference between a good wedding planner and a great wedding planner from the moment that you open your door. He or she will have a tangible wave of confidence emanating from them, a big smile on their face, a firm handshake, a laptop under one arm and a planner bulging with references and photos under the other. They will smell good, look better and will be someone with whom you will feel an instant friendship. There will be a twinkle in their eyes and a sparkle when they smile. Knowledge of wedding planning will ooze from them and they will turn to the 42 hopeful brides to be that are following them and tell them they will have to wait their turn. When this person shows up at your door, please, give them my number. My sister just got engaged.