As a Seattle Wedding Photographer with lots of experience photographing and planning weddings all over the Pacific Northwest I have seen a lot of weddings! haha! When I’ve been a photographer for a wedding, I’ve worked with planners and coordinators or I’ve been the planner and coordinator myself! Wedding planners and coordinators are so amazing and they do way more than I think we realize! But we definitely understand that not everyone wants to or can hire a wedding planner. So, I’ve included some tips below for how to you decide if you want to hire a wedding planner or if you want to take it on yourself?!
My first piece of advice is to determine how organized you are. If you’re a person that likes lists and deadlines, then this might be perfect for you. But if you tend to get overwhelmed with either of those things you might want to consider hiring someone else to handle everything. As a Seattle Wedding Planner I am super organized and I love figuring things out and keeping deadlines. If I have a plan, I plow through it no matter what it takes. So, for me, planning the details of my wedding (which I did plan myself) or anyone’s wedding is great! However, my best friend is so much more free and just likes to go with the flow. She’s mentioned several times how grateful she was to have me as her Seattle Wedding Planner so she didn’t have to worry about doing it herself.
The next thing that’s important to think about is your wedding vision and how you’ll bring that to life. I had VERY specific ideas for my wedding and knew exactly what I wanted. But I have had brides that weren’t so clear on the style they wanted and weren’t super worried about the details. A wedding planner can help you define your vision and bring it to life or just execute your vision. Sometimes bringing ideas together or filtering your ideas takes a lot of work and tact. Wedding planners have tons of experience with this and can direct you in the right path to make your dream wedding a reality! And even if you are very clear on what you want, hiring a wedding planner in Seattle or wherever you live can take SO much stress off of you which allows you to enjoy being engaged and definitely enjoy your wedding day!
Which leads us to my last tip for how to decide if you want to hire a wedding planner! And that is stress and time! Planning a wedding can be stressful especially if you have a full time job or are in school full time or have any major life events happening during your engagement! Living your life and focusing on all your normal responsibilities can be tiring in and of itself! And then you throw in all the correspondence with the multiple vendors you’re trying to contact, the quotes, the budget, trying to keep track of contact info, etc. and it can be so overwhelming! Not to mention all the decisions that you have to make and people coming to you for every answer. If you look it up, you’ll find that on average it can take anywhere from 300-500 hours to plan a wedding. That’s anywhere from 12-20 FULL, 24hr days. So, if you think about all of that and weigh the cost that hiring a wedding planner would be, it might make your decision a little easier.
I will admit that wedding planners are not for everyone. If you don’t have it in your budget or you genuinely want to be involved in all the details, then planning your wedding yourself could be the right fit! You can also ask friends and family for help and/or hire a Wedding Coordinator just for your wedding day so you don’t have to worry about the details on your actual wedding day. As a Seattle Wedding Coordinator and Planner, making sure you have the wedding of your dreams and you get to actually enjoy it is my focus! And maybe reading about my top 3 reasons to hire a wedding coordinator along with this post will help clarify in your mind what is right for you and your love for your wedding!
