Getting married is one of the happiest, most romantic, joyous moments of your life.
Organising a wedding can be one of the most stressful, frustrating and painful experiences if you are not careful. When else in your life do you have to co-ordinate a large number of people, catering, music, dresses, cars, flowers etc etc? (If you are an event planner this blog post does not apply to you as you obviously do such things every day of your working life :))
Trying to get all your service providers on the same page as you and your partner is tricky, especially when they may have set ideas and ways as to how they run their business.
Just remember, of all the people pulling you in every which way, you are the one who calls the shots.
The first thing is to know who you are hiring, and how they operate, before you hire them! Look around, attend expos, google, facebook stalk [or facestalk as I call it] talk through your vision and see if they share or want to accommodate your requests.
Communicate, often and honestly. If you are not happy, say so immediately and respectfully. There’s no need to get nasty but just explain in clear details what you want. [It doesn’t mean that you are a bad person, or that the person you are dealing with is going to get angry at you -at least I hope not!]
Don’t be afraid to walk. If its really not working out, chalk it up to a bad experience and find someone else. That goes for businesses and bridesmaids. Better to put yourself under some minimal stress to find someone else then to suffer through the whole wedding day through gritted teeth.
If you have delegated, or paid, someone else to run things for you make it known to everyone that they are your proxy and what they say goes.
Don’t be bullied. Again this can be from family, friends or providers. Be firm, be strong, be calm and again state exactly what you want. [Get a pump up from your partner first if need be]
Remember, your service providers may actually have some great advice. Take what you want from what they offer and then politely decline anything you don’t. [eg. “I really love the roses, and its great that it comes in purple but I would much prefer we go with the traditional red buds thanks.“]
Hopefully, you have people around you and you’ve hired the best businesses that want the best for you, but you are the one getting married, so you have final say. Full stop.
