Guess what y'all? It's Thursday and you know what that means. Tomorrow is Friday! And Friday for me means dinner and a movie with my beau. (Whoop.Whoop.) I digress...Recently I stumbled upon this blog entry and it made me smile because this chick read my mind. Rhiannon Nicole, of HeyGorg.com and fellow wedding planner wrote a note to all potential clients. So without further ado, read on sister-friends...
I hope you'll read this. I hope you'll read every little last bit. And I hope it'll make you think.
What's funny is that I didn't run around as a little girl dreaming of the day I'd be a wedding planner. I always adored crafts and was impressively organized from a young age. But it wasn't until my wedding day, that I decided I should be a wedding planner. Actually, scratch that. I decided I needed to be a wedding planner. Running around that day trying to get things styled and arranged, meeting and greeting my own vendors to make sure they were taken care of, trying to delegate things to people when I should have been playing bride. And then discovering I hadn't even remembered to shave my legs on the biggest day of my life; I needed to make sure this didn't happen to anyone else. Wedding planners are like bras. Sometimes you think you don't need one until it's too late. For me it was sort of too late. Because I needed help that day.
I get a lot of emails from potential clients. Newly engaged women. Women who are mere months away from the biggest day of their lives. Women who love pink peonies like I do. Women who have seen my work on Pinterest and can hardly count their lucky stars they've found me. Women who need and want my help. Except they always let me know, before I can even have a chance to reply to them, that "they don't have a big budget." And I always know what that means. It means what I charge (because it's on my website), what I value my services, time and expertise to be worth, is too much money for them. Either that, or they don't truly understand what it is they are paying for. Whatever the reason it can be frustrating.
Wedding planning, coordination, consulting, styling, designing; it can be as confusing as tenth grade algebra (which I failed might I add). Because unlike a photographer who sends you your prints and your disk a few months after your wedding with tangible memories of your big day, I can't possibly send you a boxed up memento of my wedding planning and coordination services. Three weeks, three months, three years and three decades after your big day is over, you can't gaze over to your fireplace mantle and lovingly adore a framed portrait of you and your spouse. Unfortunately, next to that frame there won't be a boxed up Hey Gorgeous Events experience (if there was though, you can bet it would be perfectly wrapped).
But here's what you can do. You can remember sipping mimosas with your sister the morning of your big day. You can think back to how it felt seeing your reception space for the first time, decorated just the way you always dreamed of. You can remember what it felt like to sit back and enjoy each and every minute of the one day in your entire life that will seem to fly by the fastest. You can do all these things and so much more, without having to worry about lifting a finger. Because I can guarantee that the metaphorical boxed up Hey Gorgeous Events experience I mentioned above, whether it's provided by me or someone else, will be the prettiest, most meaningful, non-tangible piece of wedding memorabilia you own.
Brides, please know that $500 price tag, for a skilled wedding planner to orchestrate your big day is a price tag too low. Please know that a wedding planner or even a coordinator is so worth each and every last penny. Please know that as a wedding planner I absolutely want to make your big day as perfect as possible. And I am falttered when you contact me to do the honors. Please also know that trying to negotiate my prices in your very first email, is as awkward for me as it would be for you to go into a steakhouse and tell your server that you are on a budget and can only afford $20.00 of your $60.00 filet; and well, you get my points. Kind of how you'll get what you pay for with me.
I hope you'll read this. I hope you'll read every little last bit of this. And I hope it'll make you think.
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