wedding planners are expensive! And other myths about planning

Congratulations on your engagement! Or maybe your daughter/son, sister/bestie just got engaged. Either way, you or someone you know may be getting married soon and you should probably know a few things about wedding planning before you (or they) dive in. 

Everyone knows a little bit about weddings. You've attended weddings, helped someone out with their wedding or watched enough episodes of Say Yes to the Dress to know what's up.

The problem is, planning a wedding is a very long process and a lot can happen between the engagement and the honeymoon. Life gets complicated, family & friends get emotionally involved and stress levels start to rise. 

Why wouldn't you want to hire some professional help? It's probably because you have some misconceptions about hiring a wedding planner.

​Here are some of the most common myths about wedding planning. 

MYTH #1: WEDDING PLANNERS ARE EXPENSIVE!  Most people think the cost of a wedding planner is out of their reach. If you really start doing some research, though, you'll find that many couples hire wedding planners because they are in fact, usually very reasonable.

Most planners offer different levels of service to match your needs and budget: Full or partial planning, month-of or day-of coordination, setup and styling, and virtual planning are the most common services. These services often range from $400 to $5,000 and up, with the average being $1500 in 2019, according to WeddingWire.com. It all depends on the size of your wedding and the level of services you'll be needing. 

At first you may think "Wow, that IS expensive", but let's put things in perspective: 

• You know what else is $400? A bounce house for a kid's birthday party or a trip to the mall for back-to-school shopping!
• $1,500 (broken down into payments) = Your sanity and a well-planned wedding? = Priceless!

The memories of your wedding will last a lifetime for you and your family. And you want them to be good memories, not a blur of panicked family members and a stressed out wedding party.

Myth #2:  IF I HAVE PLENTY OF HELP I CAN PLAN MY OWN WEDDING  Of course you can, but don't! You've probably heard people say "You wouldn't try to be your own dentist", well there's a lot of truth to that.
Sure, you can re-invent the wheel and DIY it until you're dreaming of checklists every night. But, if you like to sleep at night, hire some help! Again, let's put things in perspective:

• There's only so much time in the day. Wedding planning is very time consuming. You'll spend so much of your time researching, pricing, emailing, and waiting for answers. A planner can eliminate a lot of the busy-work for you by providing you with referrals within your budget and style. 
• When you first start planning, everyone wants to help. Six months later, the excitement has died down and your fiancee, family, and friends are all tired of wedding talk. This is when you can turn to your planner and ask for advice or be reassured that you are on-track. 
• You can't be everywhere at once on your wedding day. A wedding planner typically puts in 12-15 hours on the wedding day: supervising setup, setting out details, keeping track of all the vendors, the timeline, the wedding party.... The bride will be getting hair and make-up done, the groom will be dressing and doing those last minute tasks. There is NO way either one of you would want to be handling everything when you're supposed to be enjoying your day with your wedding party.
• You should NOT make your family members do all the work. They are celebrating, too. Of course they will volunteer to help you, but you shouldn't put it ALL on them. It takes a whole team of people and many hours to set up for a wedding, no matter how small the wedding is. It's a huge undertaking and a lot of pressure to put on friends and family. Save their offer for clean up time if they'd like to help.   

MYTH #3: A PLANNER WILL TRY TO TAKE OVER MY PLANS  Planners don't want to take over. We want to help streamline the process for you and offer help where you need it. We want you to have an amazing wedding. That means...

• We offer solutions to your style ideas for table settings, lighting, decor
• We share our resources and tools with you, to make planning easier
• We help with logistics like seating and room layouts
• We help with the rehearsal, organizing the wedding party to make sure everyone knows their timing
• On the wedding day, we'll be behind the scenes making sure your plans are going smoothly, and everything is set up just the way you wanted it. We make sure everyone is ready and lined up to walk down the aisle. We solve small problems (like providing needle and thread for buttons that come off), and big problems (like moving an entire ceremony site because of rain). 

​We love helping people and want your wedding day to be the most magical day you've ever had.

​We hope you'll do yourself a favor and let a planner take some of the stress away so you can remember it being the best day of your life. 

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Dulce Events is a full-service wedding planning team located in Tallahassee, Florida.
​Contact us if you'd like more information about our services. 

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Stats: https://www.weddingwire.com/cost/wedding-planner 
Photos by Katie Harp  Clem  Emma Matthews