How to decide if you need a wedding planner

Whether you already know all of the details you want in your wedding (and have lots of family to help to help execute it), or don’t even know where to start, a wedding planner can help you work out the details.

• A wedding planner is detail oriented and will plan everything—even things you hadn’t thought of.

• He or she can help make the wedding day go smoothly so you can enjoy your own wedding.

• A wedding planner will help you decide on all the details: transportation, what to wear, flowers, invitations, guest list, air conditioning, lighting, wine list as well as keeping an eye on the weather.

LISA: Hi I’m Lisa Birnbach for howdini.com and today we’re going to talk about who should hire a wedding planner. With us is renowned expert Marcy Blum, not only a big event planner here in New York, but also the author—coauthor of Weddings for Dummies. Hi Marcy.

MARCY: Hi.

LISA: If a couple knows more or less what they want—

MARCY: Right.

LISA: And are in agreement, the parents are in agreement, why would you hire a wedding planner?

MARCY: I don’t think anybody who hasn’t been married really understands just how much is involved. From the moment that you get engaged and, uh, need to come up with a guest list or figure out what invitations to send; you spend hours in the post office looking at the right stamps that will match the invitation. You don’t want to put an American flag stamp on this beautifully calligraphed, frou frou invitation. To, uh, what everyone’s going to wear and what the bride and the groom are going to wear, what the ushers are going to wear, and, uh, the air-conditioning and the lighting and the wine list and the transportation, which is my least favorite part, but really, really important. And, uh, somebody to watch the weather for you two weeks in advance.

LISA: So somebody who is totally detail-oriented will think of things that you won’t even think of as the bride.

MARCY: Oh very much so and I have to say, and again, it’s self-serving ‘who should hire a wedding planner,’…’oh I think everyone.’ But the truth is, I have never had anyone say to me after their wedding, uh, I could have done this alone. People are like, ‘oh my god I had no idea this could be really stressful.’ So I mean it’s a lot. It’s a lot, yeah.

LISA: Marcy thanks so much. Great talking to you.

MARCY: Thank you.

LISA: For howdini.com I’m Lisa Birnbach.