At The End Of The Day, Whose Wedding Is It?

Kate and Dakota at the Family Farm

    Somewhere along the way, wedding planning became very complicated.  There are venues with rules. Vendors with contracts. Families with opinions. Social media with expectations. Trends telling couples what they should want. And an entire industry of professionals, including planners, with very definite ideas about how things should be done.

    What I have learned after years of doing this work, I still come back to one very simple principle:  I work for the couple, not the venue, not the photographer, not the florist, not the caterer, not the latest trend and certainly not my portfolio.  I work for the couple.

   Years ago, I used to say, “I am for the bride.”  The language has changed. Weddings have changed. Couples have changed.  The principle hasn't.  A planner's job is to help take a client's vision and make it possible, not replace it with their own.  That doesn't mean agreeing with everything a client wants.  Sometimes advocacy means saying, “I don't think that's where you should spend your money”.  Sometimes, it is “That timeline isn't realistic”, or, “You don't need that”, or, “Before you sign this, there's another question I think we should ask”.  Sometimes the most valuable thing I can give a client isn't agreement.  it's  judgment.

  But that judgment should always be exercised in service of the people who hired me.  One of the greatest compliments I ever received, from the mother of a bride, wasn't that I created the wedding I envisioned for her daughter.  She said I had helped expand her daughter's vision and make it possible.  I've never forgotten that.  Because the vision wasn't supposed to be mine.

    Over the years, I've developed relationships with extraordinary venues, caterers, florists, photographers, entertainers and other event professionals. Those relationships are enormously valuable to my clients.  But a professional relationship should never become an obligation for the client.  I can recommend,   I can explain why I trust someone,  I can point out concerns.  I can help compare proposals, ask questions and understand the implications of a choice.  But, ultimately, the client's money belongs to the client. And the client's wedding belongs to the client.  That sounds obvious.  I'm not sure it always is.

    A planner shouldn't choose vendors because there's something in it for the planner.  They shouldn't spend someone else's money as though it has no consequence.  They shouldn't push a client toward a professional simply because that relationship is easier or more familiar for them.  And they shouldn't create a wedding primarily around what will photograph beautifully for her own social media.  Our job is not to make the wedding serve our business. Our business is supposed to serve the wedding.  Sometimes that service isn't glamorous at all.

    At the end of one wedding, there were 19 handmade centerpieces that needed to be dismantled and carefully packed.  Nobody photographed that part.  It wasn't going into my portfolio.  But someone had spent hours creating those pieces.  They mattered to my client.  So they mattered to me.  That's the part of planning I wish couples could see more often.  Not simply the tablescape after the candles have been lit.  Not the planner standing with a clipboard.  Not the perfectly staged photograph.  The thousands of decisions, large and tiny, made with one question in mind:  What is best for the people who trusted me to be here?  That, to me, is advocacy.  And it is one of the reasons choosing a planner is such a personal decision.

    You're not simply hiring someone to make a timeline or recommend a florist.  You're giving someone access to your budget, your family dynamics, your priorities, your worries, your expectations and, very often, some of the most emotional moments surrounding your wedding.  You should know whose interests that person will protect.  After all these years, my answer remains very simple.  The answer is, yours!

Such a "sweet" Wedding