A Wedding Temptation
Every once in awhile, I’ll be lulled into watching wedding shows on TLC. There’s a couple of wedding planner-esque shows, whose names escape me at the moment. Their basic premise is that they track a couple as they attempt to budget for, plan, and execute a wedding. At the end of the show, they reveal how much their budget was, and by how much they went over. Because of the premise of the show, they obviously have a wedding planner as one of their expenses, which costs them between $1500-2500 as an expense. I’ve never understood how anyone could possibly think that this was a good use of their money – until now.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a lot of details to consider about a wedding. We tried to keep it as simple as possible, but there are complications in keeping it simple. For us, keeping it simple meant not having a catered dinner, it meant having a light lunch on a lawn. But because we’re not in a hall, having it catered, we have to deal with ever tiny decision that needs to be made about the lunch. Questions like, “into what container shall we put the forks into”, and “who will refill the salad bowls”. I understand why people pay for catering – so they don’t have to deal with these questions.
We’re also dealing with questions like, “how long is the ceremony going to take”, “how much time between the ceremony and the reception”, and “what kind of guest book are we going to do”. At this point, we’re tired, we’re stressed, and we just want to be married. It is no longer a question of “what’s best”, it’s more, “what will work”? That’s why people hire wedding planners, so they can just relax and enjoy their own wedding.
Everytime I watch that show they get to the end and they’re like, “Oh, and we hired the wedding planner, which cost $1500, but was totally worth it”. I used to judge them, but now I understand.
For us, we simply can’t afford it. There’s no room in the wedding budget, and our wedding is relatively inexpensive, so it doesn’t make sense to spend 25% of the budget on the planner. But if you have the money, especially if you’re busy with work and life, I can understand the expense. Pay someone else to deal with the crap for you, as long as you have the money. It could be worth it.
Photo by Adam Loewen
Doug
My Own Advisor
Sensei
Shawn
Comments (0 )
As a husband to a wedding photographer, I think a good wedding planner is worth the money. My wife knows that if she’s working with a quality planner that her day will go very smooth. If her day goes well, it usually means the bride & groom’s day is also going well.
Weddings can get hectic in a hurry, and its a shame when the couple is not allowed to enjoy their special day.
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Many of those shows which feature a wedding planner who costs about $2,500 actually provide the wedding planner for free as part of being on the show (i.e. "Rich Bride/Poor Bride"). So given that the bride & groom paid nothing for the planner, of course they are going to say he/she is totally worth it.
I do agree though that if you can afford it, it is nice to have a wedding planner. I good alternative is to just have a day of supervisor, who puts everything together, responds to any problems as they arise, and takes everything down. I have found through my research that they cost anywhere from $250 – $800 for the day.
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