To hire a wedding planner or not to hire one???

MSFRN

My fiance and I have officially booked our reception hall and decided on colors and have a good handle on things so far (we still have 17 months to go)! I have decided to DIY everything I can; with the help of my aunt, who did the same thing when she got married (i.e bouquets, boutonnieres, invitations and save the date cards, etc) to help cut down some of the costs since our reception venue was so expensive. Do I really need to hire a wedding coordinator for the entire process? My aunt says I should only hire someone for the day of who will make sure everything flows properly and goes according to plan. The reception venue we chose comes with an onsite planner who will be at our entire reception taking care of our needs for teh evening. There is a lady from my church who says she will do it for me but I am afriad she will be kind of pricey considering all the ideas she was already talking about!!!       WHAT SHOULD I DO?!?!?!

sweettiffy03

It seems like you are DIY things and your Aunt is willing to assist, I would say you only need a day of coordinator. I would ask the lady at your church, how much she charges and if she could work with your budget. If she is too expensive search for other day of coordinators. How much can the on site coordinator handle or what does her services include? Although your family will be helping prior to the wedding, the day of the wedding that should be able to relax and enjoy the days events, and the coordinator will allow things to run smoothly w/o informing you of things that are not going exactly as planned. With family they may inform of things you should not be worried about .... Just my thoughts.. Sorry my reply is so long....

CreoleBride30

I say that your wedding party will be busy doing other things so to me...that x's them out of helping...they need to get ready and help you get ready. Family...well, you know how family can sometimes be. They tell you one thing and do another because they do not feel accountable to you. And to save on relationships and feelings, I would x that out too. (ie..you know when you want something done immediately and they don't see it your way so it becomes a battle...You don't need that...And I know not all fam is like that, but you will experience from someone at least some point during this. You just don't know who it will be). You...you for sure do not need to be doing anything but getting ready, smiling, and preparing to marry the love of your life!

To hire a wedding planner...totally up to you. I would most definitely hire a month of coordinator if your wedding is not a small wedding and you plan to have detailed things. She can make all those necessary phone calls to make sure everything is organized, appropriate timing, etc. 

I had a DIY wedding as well...made all bouquets, papergoods, wedding website, wrote the ceremony from start to finish, wrote out my detailed timeline of how I wanted events to go, met with all the vendors and basically had my hands in everything. However, when it came to the week of and week before...My coordinator came in handy. I didn't have to do much and I needed that break. Now, mind you, I only had 6 months...well less...to plan a wedding for 261 invited guests. Depending on what type of person you are, a coordinator may or may not work for you. I knew exactly what I wanted and no one was going to tell me how it "should be". I knew how I wanted it to be so while my coordinator was there for the logistics and organization, I still planned my own wedding. 

Just think of who you are as a person and that should give you your answer. You definitely have time to decide. 

Cha

Oh, make use of the onsite planner, but also find out what her duties are exactly. Just because there is an onside planner, it doesn't mean she will be a wedding coordinator. 

island07b2b

You can go either way with hiring a WP or not.  Seems like you have everything under control and with 17 months to go you have plenty of time to nail down all of your vendors and figure out the details.  

As to a DOC, it doesn't have to be the church lady but my vote is that you hire DOC to complement your onsite planner.  You don't want to think about anything other than yourself and your DH on your wedding day.  No matter how organized you are, how much you've done yourself, etc. come the wedding day the emotions you will experience is enough to deal with.  Trust me you do not want to have to also deal with all of the wedding logisitics as well.   

 

MSFRN

Thank you all so very much for the advice! My biggest concern with hiring a planner is because, like Cha said I know how I WANT things to be and I dont want to be told anything about my day. The onsite coordinator is very hands on and involved as far as she described to me when we met. She is very personal and wants my day to go off without a hitch. Also, I am having a light (very light, ie cake and punch) reception in the lower level of my church for all the guests who are not being invited to the formal reception (I hope that doesn't sound as mean as I think it did because I dont intend it that way) because we are only inviting 200 to the formal reception and we estimate we are intiving well over that to the ceremony.  For this reception I feel as though I will need the most help with coordination, making sure we get to the formal reception on time and make time for pictures and all that. But as I stated earlier, I am DIY'ing everything myself including invitations, programs, decorations, the whole nine! So I wont need anyone for that and we have already booked the reception site, have gotten down to two bakers for the cake, and still looking for a DJ, everything else is provided at the reception site which is included in our package. So we won't have that many vendors to really deal with or decide on.

M1ssJ

I would still hire a coordinator. Handing things off to someone the week of is priceless

nursing2u

I definitely think the Ladies have given you EXCELLENT advice...

The only thing I would say is with the amount of guests you are having and some of them arent invited to the reception... you may want someone to handle all of that on ur BIG DAY... sooo you can just enjoy your day..imo