If you have been following along on our Instagram stories, you know that we are planning our upcoming destination wedding in Rome this Fall. This is a first in a series of blog posts about the process and all the beautiful details that will be a part of the big day. In this blog post I’ll talk about why we chose to hire a wedding planner and all the amazing things she is working on to make our dream day a reality.
Cristen & Co.
I’m sure most of you have “met” our wedding planning on IG stories over the past few months. Cristen Faherty of Cristen and Co. has been an amazing planner and person to work with! She is the reason we are able to plan a destination wedding in Europe stress-free—seriously all my friends keep saying that I am the most stress-free bride-to-be they have ever seen! And it is really because of Cristen.
What Does a Wedding Planner Do
To answer the big question in your minds, what does a wedding planner actually do? A wedding planner designs, coordinates and manages everything to do with the look and feel of your wedding. This includes everything from what is the color scheme of the entire day, which vendors do you use for venue, food, flowers, hair, makeup, etc., and what is the flow for guests throughout the event.
Typically, without a wedding planner the bride and groom are the ones calling vendors, negotiating prices and haggling with venues. But a wedding planner, with years of experience already has a whole arsenal of top-notch partners that she can go to that she trusts to provide the level of service that her clients demand. For a luxury destination wedding, this is crucial because it can be difficult to navigate the litany of vendors from afar. Finding trusted, reliable vendors that will do what they say they can do is the only way to have stress free wedding day!
The Value of a Wedding Planner
The value in having a professional take care of all of this is that they can truly turn your dream into a reality. Cristen begins the relationship with each couple by having them fill out a detailed questionnaire about their likes and dislikes and their goals for the wedding day. Next, she does complete venue search to figure out exactly where you will tie the knot. Then once you have the venue nailed down the fun stuff starts. She produces a mood board that will dictate the look and feel of the entire day. She creates this with input from the couple of course, if you have a Pinterest inspo board she can use that as a starting point and she takes all the information you gave her in the questionnaire and turns it into a full design plan.
This is the step we are at right now, Cristen has made our mood boards, and is finding all our day of vendors for décor and goodies for the wedding day! Here is a sneak peak of one of the mood boards (we have 3 since there are 3 main phases of our wedding, but I won’t be revealing all that just yet). Stay tuned for more!
A Fully Custom Wedding
The other main reason hiring a wedding planner is so crucial for destination weddings is that venues will try to push standard packages on couples. Everything from food to flowers to the band are induced in many “wedding packages”, and unless you want a run of the mill wedding, one that is quite literally a “package deal”, you need to go custom. This is where Cristen has been such a superstar, starting with her design board as inspiration she has found us unique and imaginative ways to make the day truly ours.
Stamping our personal style on every little detail is what is going to make the day special and we are so excited to see it all come together this fall! Check out the next articles in our wedding planning series on all the other steps in the wedding planning process, next up, the dress!