The Wedding Planner

The cathedral is bedecked with the most beautiful white tulips and lilies you could ever see on this planet.  They are placed strategically all over the place along with what must seem to be millions of candles giving the warmest yellow glow giving you the feeling of being suspended in some kind of heavenly place.  Everyone who came to the wedding was asked to wear white.

In the background is sweet piano music accompanied by somebody playing the saxophone.  Then the angelic-looking flower girl walks in strewing daisy petals along the aisle.  She is wearing a white gown with pink embroidered flowers paired with a lovely pair of glittery gossamer wings and a crown of tiny daisies on her golden curls.  After her came the Cupid-looking ring bearer and then the maids of honors, all in their resplendent best in their white outfits...looking like magical creatures coming out from fairyland, all wearing wings.

Then, in came the bride...she looked absolutely divine in her floor-length white Italian satin wedding gown that seemed to shimmer with the candles' glow.  The gems appliquéd on her gown seemed to catch every flicker from the candles, yet the smile on her face was the most radiant of all.  On her hair, a single lily and on her hands is the most artfully crafted bouquet made with tulips and lilies of every color, it being the single most colorful thing in the room.  Down the aisle awaits her husband-to-be, turned out magnificently in a white dinner jacket, with a single pink tulip on his buttonhole.  She reaches his side, he offered his arm and she takes take it and together they faced the priest with smiles etched in their happy faces.

When you see such elaborate wedding presentations such as this, the first thing that will come to your mind is admiration and awe and then the question as to who planned it all.  While there could be such weddings that were just planned within the family, most are organized and thought out by wedding planners.

Also known as wedding coordinators or bridal or wedding consultants, wedding planners make their living from overseeing the details of a wedding.  From 7 percent three years ago, the number of couples using the services of wedding planners has increased to 15 percent recently in United States, according to the Association of Bridal Consultants. 

With an estimated 2.5 million weddings set to take place in the country this year, wedding planners could plan very well on being busy and earning more dough than they can handle.  In general, a wedding planner bases her fee on 10 to 15 percent of the wedding costs and most weddings nowadays cost an average of $19,000.  This figure would fetch a wedding planner a fee of $1900 to $2850 per wedding.

But, what is really a wedding planner?  What could the bride or her groom expect from her or him?

Aside from seeing to every detail of the wedding, from the gown to the processional to the opening of gifts, an effective wedding planner is a professional who has been trained to know how to set up the wedding according to the tastes and wants of her clients. 

She should make sure that everything that a couple could want in a wedding has been considered but does not also hesitate to inject her advices and her ideas as to how the wedding should proceed without a hitch.  Because of this, she must be thorough in asking questions during the interview with the couple and delve even into the smallest fancy that the bride may want or even her groom.

She also should know the best choices of wedding vendors, from bridal shops to florists, to photographers to caterers, from the limousine service to the honeymoon venue, among others, that could offer the kind of services that her clients want and could afford. 

She will not offer the list of choices but will also be the one to set up the interviews between the couple and the service providers selected as well as attend them herself.  Aside from this, she should also be ready to look into every contract and offer sound advice on what is best to be done so the couple could make a decision that is well-informed.  In the process of attending to the wedding details, a wedding planner should always keep in touch not only with the bride but also with the wedding vendors to see to the successful delivery of the services.

On the day of the event itself, it is necessary that the wedding planner is taking care of only that wedding for the rest of the day.  This is so she could attend to the most minute detail of the event and even go to that extent of arranging the flowers that had come undone herself, after a precarious boy had toppled it from its pedestal.  She could even go as far as mopping that bit of sludge caused by an ice cream dessert that could ruin the couple's first dance.

In all essence, a wedding planner is the bride's right hand in planning her wedding.  Because not only will she be there to see to it that all the bride's wishes of a fantasy wedding is achieved, but also to see to the time line of the wedding process as well as in the choosing of a wedding venue as well as the place for the reception afterwards.  She will even see to the pre-wedding ceremonies like the wedding and the dinner rehearsals as well as the gown-fittings not only of the bride but of the whole wedding entourage.  The wedding planner also sees to the line-up of activities during the event like when should the speeches start and who are to give them as well as what to wrap up the wedding program, should it be the bouquet toss or the opening of gifts.  A wedding planner who is willing to go the extra mile for a bride is quintessential and makes it her commitment to make sure that every detail of the wedding is perfection in itself.