You’re getting married. Congrats! But now you’ve got to plan the wedding. Where do you start? Read on to learn some of the best secret wedding planning advice from a professional wedding entertainer.
Hire a Wedding Planner!
I’m not a wedding planner and I get nothing out of telling you this.
I am a wedding entertainer - caricaturist to be exact - and I’m telling you unless you are a wedding planner, you should really invest in one.
I didn't and I wish I had.
Full disclosure: I planned my own wedding. I'm an artist and I enjoyed making everything myself. I made all the flowers by hand. The headpieces. The favors. I arranged the venue and all of the vendors and I'll be honest, I kind of enjoyed that part.
What I didn't like so much was the part where I had all kinds of people coming and asking me questions on my wedding day.
Back then there was no such thing as a "Day of Coordinator."
But there is now, and if you cant afford a full-fledged wedding planner, a Day of Coordinator could be exactly what you need.
Make sure you’ve vetted them. There are a whole lot of people on social media trying to break into the business who have no idea what they're doing.
You don’t want someone who’s just going to send you their friends as vendors. Worse, some are outright scam artists.
Read on to learn how to avoid the scenario where you give someone your money and they ghost you and you have no recourse. ( Hint: prevention is worth a pound of cure)
Don’t use friends or family As Vendors
Please do not ask your family to be your photographer, your baker, your decorator, florist, entertainer or even officiant.
Even If they're pros.
Your family and friends don't want to feel obligated to give you a discount, and if they don't do a great job it can ruin your relationship.
I have seen some really horrible things at weddings and almost always it’s because the bride and groom asked their family to do something - like make the cake. EEK!
Stick to professionals. This is particularly true of photographers.
Using an “All in One” company usually isn’t the best idea
How do you think companies like this got their start?
They usually specialized in SOMETHING - wedding planner, DJ, rentals - and then branched out from there.
That means they’re not good at everything they offer. Just one or maybe two things.
The rest they either do a less than fabulous job at, OR
they have to hire out (which costs you more because they add on more to take a cut).
There ARE exceptions to this rule which inlcude luxury wedding planners and collaboration between a few a list vendors. Vet them carefully!
My most controversial Wedding Planning Advice:
Not the Knot!
Wha....? Not the Knot? Tell me more!
SO MANY brides fall for the hype of The Knot. And sometimes it turns out ok. But often, it doesn’t. Do you really want to play Russian Roulette with your Wedding?
The Knot/Wedding Wire is a pay-to-play site. You don’t have to be good at what you do. You just have to be able to pay +$4k a year for their “service”.
If you look them up however you’ll see that the knot does NOT get five stars. Try looking them up on the Better Business Bureau. When I did even I was shocked - and I already knew they were bad.
The Knot Is the only businesses I've ever looked up on the BBB that gets an F.
And they have gobbled up many smaller companies so you might not even realize you are working with the same parent company!
Heres a list of companies owned by the same company as THe Knot:
The Knot Worldwide
WeddingWire
B Bodas
How they asked.com
The Bump
The Bash (I didnt even know this!)
Zankyou Ventures
Simply Eloped