Summer Weddings What To Expect From A Wedding Planner

By Hillary Knipstein

One of the best parts of a wedding is gathering loved ones to celebrate a new beginning. However, wedding planning can turn into a complicated web of high expectations, big personalities, and many moving parts. What’s one way for a bride to ensure she gets the wedding day of her dreams with a minimal amount of stress? Hire a wedding planner.

As a 20-year veteran of the wedding industry, and the owner of The Charles Fort Wayne Event Center and Marry Me In Fort Wayne, Christine Leto recognizes the value that wedding planners bring to the table, especially for brides. One of the most obvious advantages of hiring a planner is being able to delegate last-minute tasks to a reliable person so that the couple and their family can be fully present for their wedding day.

“Wedding days have their own set of emotional highs and lows. Having a checklist to complete exacerbates an already high-emotion day,” said Leto.

Wedding planners aren’t just a luxury item for high-end weddings. Most planners offer various packages to address a range of needs and budgets. On one end of the spectrum is generally a full-service, full planning package, where the couple provides the planner with their vision, and the planner handles everything. At the other end is a day-of coordinator package, where a planner ensures that wedding day vendors, schedules and even members of the wedding party are where they’re supposed to be.

After hiring a planner, Leto said a couple should expect to sit down with the planner and answer many questions about their vision for the event, what they expect of the planner, and their budget. While giving point-bypoint instructions about a big event can seem overwhelming for a couple, “a good planner knows the right questions to ask to discern the scope of the event,” said Leto. Additionally, couples should expect to communicate often—and frankly—with their planner.

Trusting a planner with the details of such an important event can be hard. Leto has tips for deciding on a planner. First (and most important), a planner should have credible references from past clients and vendors. For brides wanting full-service planning, Leto suggested reviewing photos of the planner’s previous events. Additionally, Leto stressed that a potential planner’s demonstrated organizational skills and attention to detail are critical.

“If the Planner is habitually late to meetings, doesn’t follow through on promises, or is perpetually frazzled, those are clear warning signs to keep looking,” she advised.

Above all, Leto sees a couple’s decision to hire a wedding planner as an opportunity look past all of the wedding-related tasks and to-do’s and focus on what’s important about their big day: each other.

According to Leto, “For the most part, our couples have been completely understanding and flexible.”

She said the majority have done the following:

•For those whose weddings were to take place during the quarantine, 99% simply rescheduled.

•We were able to maintain our planning meetings (usually done in person) via Zoom or Face Time for those couples whose weddings and receptions would fall during the re-opening phases.

•Most couples have chosen a back up date in case the pandemic interferes with their chosen date- some are later this year; many are next spring.

•There has been a marked increase in email communication in lieu of coming in for face-to-face meetings, as well.

•For those who requested a Food Tasting and our usual

Decor Mock Ups, all have been incredibly understanding in postponing until we received the all clear to have limited number of clients in the building. a

photos: shutterstock.com