Introducing: The Wedding Planner

*I apologize in advance for the long post*

Let me tell you about my job. Not my full-time Corporate Event Coordinator job, but my "part-time" wedding planner job. I have recently been accused of doing a job that "anyone can do" and of being a "cultural hall decorator" (which was said disdainfully and thus I take to mean that they think I have low quality decorations and no taste). In this post I hope to be able to enlighten my friends and family about what I am actually committing to when I take on a client. Hopefully I don't bore you to death with the tedious details. My job is a lot more complicated than simply putting up Christmas lights in a cultural hall.

I love, absolutely love, being a wedding planner/decorator. It has become a major passion in my life. My absolute goal is to always make the wedding better than the bride imagined it would be. Sometimes I am limited by the bride herself, but I strive nonetheless. If some of the weddings I have done are less than perfection it is only because I have been restrained by clients with small budgets and low expectations. I get giddy when a bride leaves a consultation really excited for her wedding. It means that I have done my job right and am earning my paycheck.

I have discovered that in order to be good at my job, I need to be really in-tune with my perceptive skills.

Before each consultation I take a careful study of what outfit I should wear. Because I have already figured out what kind of a person they are, I try to dress in a way that will gain the confidence and respect of my potential client (a consultation is simply a long, fancy advertisement to convince people to "buy my product"). I can tell when some brides want an over-the-top planner, like the ones they see on TV, and so I dress in classy (expensive-looking) black with modern accents. Some brides are shy and afraid of being intimidated. These people I try to connect with on a friend level and will wear trouser jeans with a hip blouse and dangling earrings.

Between the time I first talk to them on the phone and when we meet for a consultation, I need to have already developed a sense of who they are and what they want. In most cases I have only talked to them for about 10 minutes on the phone before they show up at my house. However, 8 out of 10 times I know which backdrop they will love and choose before showing them a single picture. I judge how well I am doing by how many pictures I need to show them during a consultation.

This is all before they even sign a contract! Getting a client to sign and commit is the number one, hardest part of the job but once it's signed, we celebrate. Getting a sale is cause for celebration for anyone in this tough economy.

With a signed contract and deposit in hand, I then proceed to buy the most expensive looking materials for the cheapest price. I am a highly-valued club member of Roberts, Michael's, and JoAnn's. I always shop with a 40-50% off coupon in my hand and at Robert's the cashiers know me as "the wedding decorator". I roam up and down aisles that I have been up and down dozens of times, trying to get my mind to work up a better way to make something new. At Michael's the staff now know that I'm not lost and that I will probably bug them about getting in 15 vases when they only have 2 in stock.

The week before a wedding I go crazy. Literally. I have 3 different lists and my work load ranges between 3-15 hours of last minute projects. If I am lucky the boxes are loaded, in the car with minutes to spare before driving at break-neck speeds to get to the venue on time. Once we are at the venue things are great if it is only me and my crew there. If family or (heaven-forbid) the bride herself is there, the stress level jumps about 10 notches. The average wedding takes about 3 hours to set-up, despite the fact that we run everywhere we go and I have 3 helpers. It just takes a lot of time. Sadly, about 2 hours of that I am standing on a ladder with my arms above my head trying not to poke wire underneath my fingernails.

Once the wedding is set-up I breathe a sigh of relief and pray nobody touches anything until I return that evening. I have been known to seriously lose my cool if I return to clean up and find tablecloths on the floor and LED lights missing. I just remembered that I forgot to include that clause on my contract: "Everything stays where it is until Elegantly Expressed returns to clean up that evening. I don't care if you ended 2 hours earlier than you thought, that is not my problem. You will sit and wait until I arrive before you even THINK of touching a table or a pillar."

Each wedding I do brings an immense satisfaction. I love being a part of the most important day in most couple's lives. It is a blessing to be able to contribute to their happiness.

So thanks for those of you who support me with encouraging words and positive comments. And those of you who think I am an amateur? Please tell me if you find anyone more devoted to their job than I am.