Wedding Coordinators

Bridal Consultants:  Keeping The Devil Out Of The Details Of Your Special Day
Compliments of Rhonda Bassat-Rivera, Bride Ideas, LLC

Thousands of weddings occur each year without the benefit of a bridal consultant; yet, ask any couple who planned every last detail of their wedding whether they would have appreciated some assistance from a professional consultant, and the answer would be a resounding "yes!" So why didn't these couples seek out help? In a word ­ money. Most couples feel that their precious resources are "better spent" elsewhere than on a bridal consultant's fee. So why do these newlyweds admit that in retrospect they should have hired a wedding coordinator? Consider these real life situations and the answer is obvious.

Sandra cleverly thought of the ideal way to creatively combine table placecards and reception favors: picture frames. After spending hours comparing the various frames on the market, she ordered them months in advance and then spent many painstaking hours personalizing them for each of her guests. Unbeknownst to Sandra, she paid about $0.25 more per frame than a bridal consultant would have been able to purchase them personalized, not to mention the time she spent shopping for just the right item. A week before her wedding, Sandra carefully packed the frames into a box and gave them to her cousin, whose sole responsibility for Sandra's wedding was to bring the box to the reception hall. The night before her big day, Sandra made sure that her cousin had the box ready for the reception, and was assured that everything was fine. After her ceremony, when Sandra arrived at the reception hall, she learned that her cousin's son suddenly came down with chicken pox and that she did not make it to the reception ­ and neither did Sandra's placecards/favors!

After scouting around all of the available reception sites, Karen selected a beautiful hall that supplied its own on-site coordinator, who told her that he could take care of all the details on the wedding day. Karen busily spent the next year selecting the church, florist, photographer, videographer, transportation, and gown. A couple of weeks before her wedding, Karen double-checked with everyone to make sure her selections were clear. The only hiccup was her florist, who mistakenly had written down wildflowers for Karen's bouquet rather than calla lilies! Happy that she had warded off a potential problem, Karen finished the rest of her preparations, including meeting with her on-site coordinator to finalize all of the details. On the day of her wedding, when Karen and her bridesmaids arrived at the church, Karen was reduced to tears to see her bouquet overflowing with wildflowers.

Gwen is the only daughter of a family of five. Her fiancé, Donald, has three sisters. Both Gwen and Donald were the first in their families to get married, and their families had strong opinions about how a wedding was "supposed" to be. At every step of the planning, Gwen and Donald were confronted by at least a dozen different voices with disparate ideas. Whenever Gwen and Donald made a decision, be it about the colors, theme or location, several family members felt hurt or disappointed; and they loudly expressed their displeasure. Gwen and Donald were so upset by their families' feuding that they abandoned their dream of a big wedding, and eloped.

Sandra, Karen and Gwen and Donald could have had dramatically different experiences had they been working with bridal consultants. Sandra's gifts would have cost less both in terms of price and time spent shopping for and personalizing them had she used a consultant, and they would have been delivered to the reception hall on time; Karen's consultant would have sent the florist back to the shop for the proper bouquet before Karen even left her house for the church; and Gwen and Donald's planning woes would have been smoothed over by the expertise of their consultant, preventing the family fallout that occurred.

It's true that bridal consultants do charge a fee for their services. But that fee more than pays for itself when you consider the discounts on services and products that are available only to the consultants through the professionals they use often. And then there's the peace of mind you get from being able to use the consultant's network of reliable vendors. In addition, you are relieved of much of the stress associated with the time required to plan a wedding and you obtain a built-in intermediary to help mediate conflicting points of view presented by well-meaning family members. As opposed to on-site coordinators who are hired by the reception hall to oversee their own workers, a bridal consultant is the bride and groom's advocate with every wedding professional, meaning that the consultant ensures that every detail of their vision for their special day is planned for and carried out.

Bridal consultants offer different levels of service to their clients, depending upon their needs. Technically, there are three different types of services: wedding coordinating, wedding day directing and bridal consulting. Wedding coordinators help the engaged couple coordinate and plan every aspect of the rehearsal, wedding, reception and honeymoon. Wedding day directors are hired for the rehearsal, wedding, and reception only to ensure that the couple's pre-made plans are carried out. Both wedding coordinators and wedding day directors usually charge a flat fee. By contrast, bridal consultants advise engaged couples of all the details and logistics that need to be addressed (including the associated timeline) and recommend wedding professionals, usually on an hourly basis. For example, Sandra's dilemmas could have been solved by a wedding coordinator; Karen could have benefited from a wedding day director; and Gwen and Donald could have used a bridal consultant to mediate their families' tensions. Most bridal consultants use these terms interchangeably and offer all three services, at different price-points, so that the couple can choose the level of assistance they want. For these reasons, bridal consultants are not just for celebrities and the super-rich, but are available to help ensure that every bride and groom's wedding is a wonderful experience, from engagement through honeymoon, and every step in-between.

If you are interested in further exploring how a bridal consultant can assist you with your wedding, you should talk with your friends about their experiences, as word-of-mouth referrals are a good source for locating skilled consultants. Another excellent place to look for qualified wedding consultants is through the Association of Bridal Consultants (www.bridalassn.org). The ABC is an international organization that ensures the professionalism of its over 3,500 members through coursework, seminars and conferences. In addition, websites such as www.njwedding.com provide you with a listing and description of wedding planners, with links to their companies' websites.

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