From the Experts, Wedding Planning Tips
Wedding Planning Course Sample: Problem Solving
Wedding planners are basically professional problem solvers on the day of the wedding. As the wedding planner, it’s your job to make sure everything goes smoothly for the couple. If there are any hiccups, you have to handle them without undue stress or hardship on the bride, groom, or wedding party. Since problem solving skills are essential to your career, any good wedding planning course will train you in that area.
In this video excerpt from the wedding planning course, Candace Coppola goes over the steps you need to take on the day of the wedding to ensure things go smoothly.
Let’s recap:
On the day of the wedding, there’s tons for you to coordinate. To ensure things go smoothly, you want to avoid as many questions as possible from staff and vendors. By minimizing the amount of questions you’re asked, you can focus on making sure details aren’t missed.
Remember, depending on the size of the wedding, you might have anywhere from 10 to 40 or 50(!) different vendors that you have to coordinate. This includes everything from photographers/videographers to caterers to rental companies and lighting technicians. If all these vendors have 5 questions for you on the day of the wedding, that’s 250 questions you have to answer!
1: Have a thorough timeline for the event
Having an extremely detailed timeline for yourself, your staff, and your vendors is key. Make sure to review this timeline with everyone involved before the day of the wedding. If anyone has questions, they should be able to get those questions answered before the big day. Your timeline should be down to the minute but should also be realistic. If a vendor thinks it will take them 15 minutes to complete a task, give them at least 20. You’ll be thankful for those buffers.2: Prep as much as possible before the wedding day
The day of the wedding isn’t the time to decide how napkins should be folded, or where the buffet should be set up. You shouldn’t be making any decisions on the day of the wedding, other than problem-solving decisions. Back up plans should also be set up ahead of time. Be ready for inclement weather, traffic causing vendor delays, equipment failure, etc. The more prep work you’ve done ahead of time, the fewer problems you’ll encounter.
3: Foster healthy relationships with your vendors
Your role as the event planner is to direct the action on the day of the wedding, but things run more smoothly if you and your team are ready and willing to get your hands a little dirty. Instead of directing a vendor to solve a problem, if you’re able to get in there and solve the problem yourself, do so! Of course, you shouldn’t touch expensive or fragile equipment that doesn’t belong to you without talking to the vendor first. But that doesn’t stop you from, say, moving a table or helping to set up a candy bar. Candace talks about how much vendors appreciate this hands-on approach from her planners, and how it helps to create a teamwork environment for all the vendors. Teamwork always leads to better results!
