Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of the Wedding Lounge pod class.
Today we are going to be talking about how to work with a planner.
So first things first, before you book a planner you need to do your research.
Yes, very, very important.
There are so many different planners, so many different styles,
so many different ways that we all work.
Yes, you need to find the right ones for you.
Exactly, you need to do your research.
You need to look on their website, their social media and Google reviews.
Of people who actually work with them, not just the highlights of the penning on Instagram.
Yes, you do need to know, and it sounds really obvious, where they work.
How much they're going to cost roughly.
And what they offer, because there's no point inquiring with our lovely colleague Laura at your wedding your way.
If you want, have a thought plan.
Because she doesn't do full wedding plans, she just does on the day coordination.
So if you're looking for someone to help you from the start and book your suppliers,
who's not the plan for you, she's the plan for you.
If you want someone who specialises in bringing your plans on getting them executed brilliantly.
Much like with both of us.
Yes, if you're looking to get married in a venue, like a London venue, like the Ned, for example,
or the Savoy, neither of us are going to be the right planner for you.
No, we don't do those kind of venues.
London freaks me out.
I mean, I'm capable of getting around London,
but trying to think of the logistics of half an hour unloading slot here and there,
I just know it's a difficult game.
Some tree lane and mud to deal with and much happier and nothing in a field.
Yeah, no running water.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what we want.
So once you've done your research and you know the type of planner you want to speak to,
you've found some that you really like the look of, inquire with a couple of them.
I would start with two or three.
Yes.
No, roughly when you want to get married.
Yeah, roughly what you want to spend and roughly the style.
Yeah.
Well, obviously that's, that's going to help you decide on your planner anyway.
Yeah.
So then you can go to them and say, look, we're aiming to get married September 2026.
Are you available and then you can discuss the availability, have the conversation, speak
to them.
If you click with them.
Yeah.
When you're working with very closely in the lead up to your wedding, yeah, even if it is
wedding day management or full planning, they're with you on the most special day.
You've got to actually like them.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And also liking them means you have that open communication.
Yeah.
And I also would suggest that if you really like them, whether it's your parents are paying
for the day, perhaps have a conversation with your parents as well, maybe once you've
had the initial conversation, planner sent you the proposal, maybe then book a second
call.
Yeah.
Speak to your parents.
Like, if it's someone you really, really want to work with, your parents need to be on
board.
And if it's at their home, if you're married at your parents' home, your parents have got
to be comfortable with the planner you've chosen, you may well just, your parents may just
trust you and know that you know someone who's going to get on with your parents.
If they want to call with them or to catch up, then I think it's a good idea to start that
relationship off on a good set.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And it's quite nice as well for us.
Yeah.
To know who it is that whose home we're going to be coming into and probably making top
to T4 and things like that, it's quite a nice way to say hello.
And I think that's what's different about the sort of weddings that we plan is there are
in people's homes and we've helped other friends with landing weddings in London and they
don't necessarily have that interaction with the parents because the parents are pretty
much like guests.
They just turn up, enjoy the day and leave.
Whereas when it's someone's home, you're there setting up the week off, they might be making
your bacon butty, you're having a cup of tea in their kitchen, you know, it's all very personal
and you want to make sure that you have a planner that you can see fitting in with your family
especially in those circumstances.
So once you've had those initial calls, your planner will typically send you a proposal,
a quotation, an investment, a brochure, some literature for you to then sit and go through
in your own time, discuss, compare as well, make sure that what you want is included within
the offering.
Plan is all offered slightly different variations on the service.
So when you're comparing quotes, for example, if it comes down to that, then look and see
what is included and what isn't, just so that you're making a fair comparison.
Yeah, exactly.
Once you've booked them, it will be different depending on what service you've booked.
If you've booked sort of wedding day coordination, a full plan, partial plan, it will look a bit
different about how your planner helps you.
But we're going to talk about what full plan would include, but as you've already said, Natasha,
it will be set out in your proposal from the planner.
What is and isn't included, how they're going to work.
So it will look different for whatever service, but it should be very clear.
Yeah.
On the whole, most planners will have the same sort of scope of work, essentially, they just
might be a few things that are additional for one planner, aren't for another.
On the whole, your planner will do your project creation and budget management.
Yes.
They will probably keep an eye on when payments are due.
Yes, definitely.
I was always reminding clients, yeah, payments are happening.
They'll help you create mood boards, even if you have an idea of a design in mind, they'll
just help you finesse that and create something that's cohesive and works with exactly what
you want.
And just make sure it flows right for the space where you're choosing to get married as
well.
You get married in a venue that's got blue carpets, but you want red flowers, it might
be some advice.
Yes.
Exactly.
And also your wedding planner will research your suppliers.
We've talked about the little black book before.
If a planner doesn't have a supplier that matches what you want, they will obviously research
and find out someone who is going to suit exactly what you need using their contacts.
They will liaise these suppliers when they will make sure that they support you in booking
them.
We both work in a way where we do not form the contracts between us and the suppliers.
The contracts and the payments are made from our clients directly to the suppliers.
We just do the research, the liaising, set everything up, as you said, remind you of payments,
but we do not form the contracts with that supplier.
So we will, we will the research for you and make sure that you've got the right suppliers
for you.
We'll also attend meetings of the suppliers, tastings with the caterers, yeah, just to make
sure that you're having to make notes on that, we're there, we're asking the right questions,
build a relationship.
So the logistical questions as well.
The questions that you won't need to know the answers to so that you can just sit back
and enjoy the day.
They're the questions that go up behind the scenes exactly, but your suppliers need to
know.
Mm-hmm.
We'll help you with, that's correct, readings, chains, song choices.
Any advice on your wedding day if you're struggling with, we will have an answer
for.
Awesome advice.
Yes, exactly, not telling you exactly what to do, just some options for you.
We will also help track your RSV piece from guests.
Some planners may send out invitations as well.
We've chatted before, had neither of us do that.
No.
A track of the responses for destination and keep an eye on any direct requirements, make
note of those or if there's any additional needs, any of your guests have like wheelchair
access, high chairs, any push chase, yeah, we'll keep an eye on.
And then we create a schedule for you.
So it would be for the entire set up of your wedding.
So if the marquee is first going up on Wednesday, we would have a detailed schedule of what
supplier is in on site when, what they're doing, what they're providing throughout the whole
thing, super detailed on the day.
Mm-hmm.
And then also for the clear down when suppliers are collecting things and taking things down
yet well.
And there will be there for that time.
I don't know about you, but I, even though there's not very much the pros on, I like to
be there the day that the marquee actually goes up.
Yeah.
Good to not answer any questions, then just make sure it goes up, make sure it goes up.
And then we'll be there for all the set up, deliveries, making sure everything arrives
and everything is correct.
Yes, as well.
So checking things, we'll be there on the day, making sure the day runs smoothly, your supplies
arrive on time, sorting out any if-use, logistical or otherwise, helping with guests, helping
with guests, helping with you, or selling if you need it, yeah, grabbing your drink, yeah,
making sure you are relaxing and enjoying your day.
And then we'll be back to help clear down the whole day, yeah, or whenever, whenever clear
down is happening sometimes, people leave it to the Monday day.
We're essentially confident, yes.
And like, a wedding PA is there, I say, what you are, like we are there to be the person
who has the total control over your wedding and knows all those logistical things and
has the answer to the questions that will stress you out essentially.
Yeah.
You just don't need to be asked.
You don't need to be...
Someone doesn't need to come and ask you on the day whether the dessert thought is going
out, start with or whether it's going to be on the dessert table, for example, we will
know the answer to that.
So we can confirm that with the caterers.
You don't need to be worrying about that on the day, yeah.
There are a couple of things that most planners will not get involved with.
The first and the biggest one is wedding insurance.
I mean, if you don't have wedding insurance, you're a very silly person, and I highly recommend
you book wedding insurance now, cause this podcasting bow and sort your wedding insurance
out.
Google.
Yeah.
You can't advise that quick, Google.
No, we can help you.
Put you in touch with insurance brokers, but we cannot offer you advice.
Is it legal?
Yes.
And we're not financially accredited to do that.
Yes.
We can also, we don't get involved with organising the legalities of the marriage, so it's
your responsibility to, in your meeting with the registrar, to book in a meeting with the
thicker, to get your bands read, you know, we cannot be involved with that.
We couldn't advise, but it's your responsibility at the end of the day, again, you can remind
you.
Yes.
Have you had your bands read yet?
One of your bands, but have you given notice, we didn't get you to do that, but you need
to actually do that because it's you that's legally getting married.
It's not us.
Yeah.
Also, it's your table plan.
Now, we've done a whole episode on seating plans, and while we can help with thinking how
to tackle it, and obviously producing them on the day, we don't know your guests like
you do.
We don't know the intricacies of family relationships, family dynamics.
If you have an issue, and you say to us, I've got forced parents, this partner, you know,
what would you recommend?
We can do that, but we can't sit there.
We don't know all 150 of your guests, and whether Sarah wants to sit next to Jessica
or whether that's going to cause fight.
We just don't know that.
You were privy to that information, not us.
Yeah.
It's much better that you handle that.
We can advise on honeymoon, but again, we don't typically get involved in booking them.
No, that was something when I started planning on, because I love travel, I thought, I'll
offer that.
I don't want to.
I don't.
I booked trips for other friends and stuff before, but I just leave that one, leave that one
to the travel agent.
I'll begin your wedding rings.
Yes.
I mean, it's something I feel is very personal to a couple, and the last of my clients, the
grooms traditionally don't wear a wedding ring, so it's only for a woman.
But again, it's not something we typically get involved in.
Yeah, that's a nice personal thing for you to go and choose to.
So as we've said, we advise our clients throughout the process.
At the end of the day, they're your decisions.
I think some people believe if they have a planner that we're just going to tell them,
have this plan up, can have this use that supplier, but it's not a decision.
It's your wedding.
There are.
There are plans out there that will do that.
Yeah.
And again, that's you in doing your research and speaking to those planners.
If you want to have zero involvement in your wedding day, find that planner.
Yeah.
But most planners want to work with you, not for you.
Yeah.
I mean, if the client came to me and they said, we want traditional hens, I really don't
mind which hens.
You know, we would be able to advise and sort that out, but we don't tend to make decisions
for you unless you really want us to, but it just takes out the traditional side of things
really.
Yeah, exactly.
It is your wedding day at the end of the day and we just want to make sure that you have
the best day and the best experience that it does take some involvement from you.
So we're here to take the pressure off, but we're here just to advise you.
So we do have expectations of our clients and we do try and set them out at the beginning
of working with the clients that they know to explain what we expect from our clients
is honesty.
There's no point in telling us that you absolutely love the rat on placemats that we've
suggested just you don't have our feelings if that's not what you want for your wedding.
It could be that you want something different for your wedding table design, but we need you
to be honest about what you like and don't like.
Similarly, honesty around budget.
Yes.
That we need you to be upfront with us and about financials is an awkward topic, but we
are there to support you and to make it work with what you have.
So if finances are such a big conversation, it's really important that you are honest with
us.
Otherwise, it just will create difficulties.
Yes, because if we think you have more money than you do have to spend on the wedding, we'll
be picking suppliers who fit that when we make our budget, we'll be tweaking the percentages
based on something that you just may not be realistic.
It may be that you would spend that, but you have a set amount that you want to spend and
we put a bit more maybe in the contingency, so you might say, "I want to stick to under
100, but I do have £10,000 give all take."
So we could put that in the contingency, couldn't we?
But there's no point saying that you have £150,000 to spend.
And expect honesty from us as well, like we will be honest with you.
If you turn around and you say, "I have £5,000 to spend on flowers.
I want two floral arches, three pedestals, three is going up the middle of the room."
We're going to tell you that's not durable within your budget, so expect the same from us
and what you are receiving essentially.
Yes, honesty as well.
And we've touched upon it with helping you with seating plans.
If there are any guest relationships that are tricky and need a bit more consideration
on our part, then be honest with us, let us know.
We don't want to offend anyone on the day.
I've had weddings.
The people have told me that the stepmom is just not to be involved and normally I would
obviously treat a stepmom like mum in that sense, but I had to make sure that I was obviously
delighted to her, but I knew the bride did not want her influence over things.
It's tricky, but we need to know that, and it is, again, like finance, all could talk about
it.
It's more awkward if you pass it in it.
Yeah, it is.
And it makes it harder as well to back metal if we've said something that's wrong, or as
if we know from the outset, like having those clear conversations and communications just
help us help you in the long run.
Communication is something that's really important.
Like, we are here to guide you and to help you.
We need you to communicate with us.
Obviously, as I mentioned earlier, there are some planners that will just do your wedding
for you, but there are lots of planners that need responses.
Yes.
We need you to decide.
Highly responses.
So we're going out there and researching these suppliers, we're contacting these suppliers,
we're getting quotient these suppliers.
We then need to go back to these suppliers with decisions, even if you said to us, we come
back just in a few months.
We can then go back to, if it's videographers, for example, and you say, "Oh, we're still
not sure if we want a videographer," I can then respond to the videographers and go, "We're
still making decisions about it, we'll come back to in a few months, hopefully you're
still available."
But if not, it's just leaving people hanging, which is quite tricky.
Yeah, it is.
And it's hard because we're kind of in the middle, so we don't want to keep chasing clients
for decisions, but likewise, the suppliers obviously chasing us, not you, that we want to try and
get that balance.
So it's just worth setting aside an hour or a week, we sit down and just go through your
webman with your wedding planner, or for your wedding planner.
It doesn't even need to be that you talk to us.
It's just wiki mail responding to everything that we've discussed.
I tend to, we were just talking like this before we started recording, I tend to try and
send out like an update every week, four nights, during busy times of planning to clients just
so I can go through it.
And so that's a really good email, just to have a look at and then sit down and kind of
tackle anything you need to tackle, come back with any decisions.
And then, as you say, just like spend an hour a week, but if we keep on top of those decisions
every week, even if you say, like you said, "We've got photographer on the list, I'm
not quite sure exactly what style can we come back to this because I just really want
to sort out this element or I've got this don't want to work," then we know and we can
give it to it in a certain time.
But I just think letting us know that you're not coming back to us is also, yes, and then
we can, yeah.
I've had clients this year actually who he very sadly lost his father recently.
So that has, you know, is just and halted all planning, but because they've communicated
with me and we've discussed that, I can then go back to all the suppliers that we're
currently in discussions with.
We can just have, I can have those sympathetic conversations without them needing to be
aware, and they can just be left in peace for a couple of months just to kind of absorb
everything that's happened, that throw in everything off kilter.
But it's that remunication.
Yeah, exactly.
It's just going on in the background and for us, that's really, really crucial.
It just keeps everyone in the loop, doesn't it?
This one's a bit of a tricky one.
We do need our clients to understand that they're not our only clients.
And that's a horrible thing to say because everyone's wedding is super important.
And that's why when you're picking your planner, you pick someone who doesn't do 30 weddings
a year.
You pick someone who takes on a select few, yeah, because you will get that personal experience.
For example, if you're getting married next year, we've sorted your market out, we've got
your caterers, we've sorted your bar, we've possibly got your photographer bit.
We don't need to worry about the cake just yet.
We've got people's weddings this summer where we need to finalise details, actually run
their weddings.
It might be that your planner communicates to you that they're going to just need to take
a step back unless there's anything urgent to it in September, for example, but if this
is explained to you in advance, hopefully everyone will then be aware.
It's just you would expect the same when it's your summer, your wedding, we would obviously
prioritise weddings that need stuff doing, essentially.
And there is a law that is a law in planning.
Yeah, there is.
After you've booked some of the first big things, it is a law before you have to finalise other
suppliers.
Yeah, I tend to, I time block.
So I will handle, I try to do it like twice a week for each client, basically.
So I'll spend who time blocks per week, one at the beginning of the week, one towards the
end of the week, so that I'm covering all communication in timely manners, but each couple.
So it might be that I deal with John and Mary's wedding Monday morning and Matilda and Steve's
wedding Monday afternoon, and then I'll deal with it again on Thursday.
Yeah.
So it's just, and if there's communications going on between them, so say Matilda messages
me on a Tuesday morning, I'll email her back and I'll say, "Oh, I'm next dealing with
your wedding on Thursday, please bear with."
Yeah, I've still gone back to them to say, so it's all about that communication.
Exactly.
Yeah, but yes, just immediate responses aren't always possible.
No, that comes down to boundaries setting as well, like when we on board clients, we set
out clear boundaries of what we expect and what the client can expect.
Each planner should set out boundaries of how they want to be communicated with.
You know, some planners just won't be able to answer the phone, some don't like WhatsApp,
they prefer emails that's all on a thread, they'll be able to work out something that works
for both of you and all the time that they reply to.
So, for example, they might be working within school hours or they might have to work evenings,
but I tend to say that we'll respond within working days, quite often I do my emailing at
night and schedule it to get a sensible time for the next morning, so I'm sort of communicating
every 24 hours, but I do it then because that's just how it fits in with balancing childcare
at the moment.
But it's having those expectations, you know, I'm not just going to pick up a call from
someone at eight o'clock on Friday night, unless their wedding is the next day.
But much like your boundaries as well, if you're working at a busy office, you won't be able
to respond to emails during the day, which is why having those communications and say,
say WhatsApp might not be the best form of communication for you, but WhatsApping you between
the hours of nine and five, you can't then respond until seven, eight o'clock in your
home at night and having dinner and having the chance to catch up with your fiance, you're
then going to be WhatsApping us later in the evening, we'll be responding so email might
be a better way of communicating between you then.
So it's having those conversations, setting those boundaries in place and knowing how you're
going to work moving forward.
Yeah.
And how it works could be you.
Yes.
And it, you know, a planner will be able to tweak how they work, you'll be able to tweak
what you want so that you kind of meet in the middle and find something that suits both
of you.
Exactly.
But if you, let's bust all this at the start, you know where you stand.
Yes.
That's quite important.
You need to have your expectations of what you would like from a planner, do your research,
figure out exactly who it is that you want to be working with or the type of person you
want to be working with, then speak to those people, see how you click with them.
Yeah.
And then you can move forward from there.
Exactly.
Next week.
What are we talking about?
Photography.
Oh, we've got photography guest next week.
We've got a photography guest.
So this week, our top tip is about photography and it's something that I've just always heard
from when I started my training and that is when you're choosing a photographer, make
sure you have a look or ask them for an entire wedding album because obviously we're all
going to part our best work on social media and Instagram, your website, but it's a really
good idea to see an entire album so you know what that photographer covers throughout
a whole day and you know what you're likely to get at the end of your wedding, it's not
just the highlight reel.
You're going to see the detail shots that they take, the guest shots that they might not
put on their Instagram, but you know, all of these small things like just, and it just builds
up a bit better picture and you'll get an idea of exactly what it is you're going to
receive from them at the end of the day.
So top tip, last photographers that you like, not every single photographer you're inquiring
with, just select for you that you're sort of short-list to see if it really works for you.
Top!
Thanks, TV!
See you next week!