Weddings

Wedding Planning

Introduction:

This is an article that came to me suddenly, on a Thursday morning. I see all the stress that goes into planning wedding and I wonder why.

I have planned two weddings while working on my 8-5 job and both turned out successfully. Albeit, I had help from two very faithful and experienced partners – my mum and dad.

Three things are of utmost importance in planning your wedding – your budget, timing and ability to optimize your resources.

First things, first

The first thing you need to do is to determine your budget. This will depend on two factors: what type of wedding do you want? A close knit or a family-friends-wide wedding. Here, you have to consider what really matters to you. Are you a business person with lots of contact? Can you use your wedding to enhance your business opportunities? Or are you a salary earner with a few pockets of friends, here and there? All these needs to be considered because ultimately, you will be committing your funds into this and you need to weigh the benefits.

 If I may mention here, the wedding is NOT the marriage, think about this for a minute. I’m sure you will agree with me that it makes no sense at all to expend all your income on a wedding ceremony and then starve for the months following the wedding.

After carrying out the cost-benefit analysis of this ceremony, the next thing to do is to consider your resources. When I say resources, I do not necessarily mean the money you have in the bank or on your pay cheque for the next six months (cos by the way, you need at least 6 months to plan your wedding, if you decide to have one). Your resources include your money, your friends, your family, anything you can put to use to execute ‘project wedding’.

Then you need to trim your budget to align with the resources you have. When I say trim, I don’t mean any major change, just tone down a few things like the cost of your rings, the number of tiers of your cake, the duration of your honeymoon (you have the rest of your lives to plan others). When you are satisfied that all these have been adequately taken care off, you may proceed.

Then…

…Planning. Having concluded on what type of wedding and how much you wish to commit to it, next thing is to start planning.  If there is a wedding fair around you, please make out time to attend, if only for an hour. You can just breeze in and collect all the contacts you think you may need. Before you exclaim about how expensive the vendors may be, I do not expect you to pay the regular fee, just get the contacts.

Now, contact all your resources and find out what they can offer. This could be their gift to you, for your wedding. I got music at my reception, MC services and Project Managers, all free of charge. Hold a planning meeting with the key partners to identify the key activities – where to hold the event, entertainment and organization the venue.

Consider the weather of the period you have chosen before picking a location, also the accessibility.  Dad can help with this aspect. Chief on your selection criteria should be your own convenience and your budget. Don’t be backed into a corner by what others may feel. It’s your wedding and they are only invitees. They can choose to either honour your invite or not. After selecting a suitable venue, you need to plan how to make it look presentable and fit for the purpose. At this point you select your decorator, music and a MC.

Now, let’s digress a little. Remember the vendors I mentioned in paragraph one of this section? Did you know you can negotiate with them? Yes, you can! You can… big time. I’m a testimony; I got over 60% discount from one of those. The trick is this, know your budget. They almost, always ask you for your budget and are usually willing to work with your budget. However, do not give them your actual budget for the scope you wish to contract out. You must always have a management reserve that you do not disclose. After you’ve done the best you van negotiating based on the budget you push forward, add that reserve and if it falls within your budget, go for it. I will advise you to always go for the best. Did you say they would be too expensive again? Again, you may be wrong. Truth is most of those ‘big shots’ offering services already have all the tools they will use, at their discretion, they can throw in a couple of things without charge, just to secure one more deal. NEVER BE AFRAID TO TRY THEM.

That said, let’s continue with our planning. After you have sorted the venue and everything to make it up to standard, next important thing is food and drink. You can’t have people travel across town to come sit and watch you dance or listen to someone talking for hours without entertaining them (remember you considered your convenience over theirs). So, how do you get food to the venue on time? I suggest a caterer (mums can help here). Again, work with budget, negotiate and sample a lot of vendors.

Another important thing is logistics. I suggest you employ very close friends as PM for this. Don’t over-burden one person; make sure you spread the load, to ensure success. If possible get someone to follow up on each vendor, after you have signed the contracts with them. Note of warning here, you need to do a follow up yourself, at least a month to the wedding.

All other activities like getting souvenirs, bridal train are optional. If you want them, you can get help from your pool of resources to plan and execute these.

Execution

Part of this has been discussed in planning. Make the most of your willing resources (never impose on anyone) and ensure you monitor adequately. I will suggest a weekly meeting after the initial planning meeting or at worst a bi-monthly meeting. Keep a record and indicate progress at every meeting so you can easily identify any thing that is lagging or requiring more attention.

Always remember you are responsible for the success or otherwise of ‘project wedding’ unless you have transferred the responsibility to an event planner. As such, ensure you keep an eye on the baseline and do your negotiation yourself. The passion you have for your own event will help to drive the negotiation in your favour.

 Finally…

…Shopping. Ladies love this but I have a note of caution, you still have to work with a budget, especially with your wedding shopping. Remember the trick, negotiation. You can get the best of both worlds – looking good and feeling good (in your pocket).

That’s my bit of advice, hope it helps.