My inspiration for my FIRST blog comes from a conversation Mike and Myself had after watching BBC 2 Rhod Gilbert Work Experience. I know your thinking what does Rhod Gilbert the comedian and weddings have in common? A man who publicly declared hates weddings, well whether he likes them or not in this episode he was a Wedding Planner, and as funny as it was, it made us ask do you need one? We are getting married in 14 months time and due to the expense we began planning and paying the beginning of this year.
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| Courtesy of BBC |
I became my own Wedding Planner! Who could plan our wedding better than me? Right? The best part I have done it for free, with simple tips as in, attend a free Bridal Fayre you get a free Bridal Magazine (usually £3.99) which had budget information in it and there is loads of websites that offer this for free, especially www.confetti.co.uk! Add the power of the internet, a phone and Excel Spreadsheet you can handle your own budget and keep an eye on it, even alter it if you need to! For the majority of the wedding we looked at online before visiting. For example nearly all receptions have online brochures in pdf files to look at. Also depending where you book you get a Wedding Planner for the day! So do you need to pay for 2?
But something Rhod said really got me thinking; "Blokes don't dream of their weddings from five years old. Blokes don't give a t***." My Fiancee is quite involved in our wedding but the bigger picture is me and my mum, especially with the little details.
Now i'm not declaring war on Wedding Planners, but are they a wedding staple for everyone? But for us our budget is everything! With the average wedding costing £15,000 were lucky we have £12,000, but a Wedding Planner is extra cost! Can you afford the extra cost? Are you organised enough with plenty of time to do it yourself?
Smaller companies generally charge between 11-15% with bigger companies hitting 20%. Putting it in context, if we did have one we would loose £1,800 (15%) or £2,400 (20%) out of our budget. The company Rhod used 'Oh So Perfect Weddings' charge from £1,200, but offer a variety of services at different cost.
I guess if I was someone like Angelina Jolie, a Wedding Planner would be a must, but wedding companies would be offering her their services for advertisements and royalties.and I guess budget wouldn't be a topic" But I am a mere girl from Stoke who is finding reasonable costs!
As for Rhod: "I definitely 100% do not think I had a knack for Wedding Planning, so I don't know about the future if Give A S*** Weddings." But my question is how much did he and the BBC get for free?
But what do you think? To have a Wedding Planner or not?
Definitely no need for a wedding planner. I planned our entire wedding myself, with help from my (now) husband and members of our families. Sure, a wedding planner would have been nice, it would have taken some of the stress away, but it was definitely an expense we could not afford. Added to that, I really ENJOYED planning our wedding. My husband and I were the only ones with the vision for how it would turn out, and I'm not sure I could have been able to entrust that to anyone else anyway! I loved getting involved with all the little details, making my own decorations, favours, bouquet, garter... Our wedding was not big or fancy, but it was perfect for us. It was everything I wanted it to be - pretty, traditional, vintage, a little off the wall in places. Seeing all our friends and family pitch in in the last few days to pull it all together was wonderful and I will always be grateful for everything they contributed. In short, it's more important to create the day that you want, rather than worrying about having that mythical 'perfect' wedding that a wedding planner could provide.
ReplyDeleteI would like to share this comment I received last night, after I sent a link to this blog to Rhod Gilbert on his Facebook Page. Naturally very excited by it.
ReplyDeleteRHOD GILBERT hi, interesting. glad it sparked debate at least. the programme was not really meant to promote the wedding planning industry. I wouldn't have a wedding planner myself, as I would prefer to do it 'in house' as it were, but it's personal. Some people find them useful, want them and can afford them, or at least, are prepared to spend some of their budget on one, others don't or can't or won't etc. I don't suggest you get a wedding planner any more than I suggest you go on a coach trip in the tour guide episode, become a scout leader in that one, or hire a hand model to promote your garden centre in the final programme of the series. I'm just taking a hopefully entertaining look at a 'job'.
hope this helps the debate?
rhod