5 Questions To Ask Your Wedding Planner Before You Hire Them

Hiring a wedding planner can be a daunting task. As he/she remains pivotal to bringing your wedding vision to life, your planner is the vendor with which you’d be working closely throughout your wedding planning period. Hence, the need to be thoughtful with choosing one. So, you’ve researched; asked around, read reviews, scrolled endlessly through their Instagram page, and have finally found a wedding planner you think could be “the one”? Well, now is the time to sit for a somewhat face-to-face interview before engaging their services so as to ensure choosing the right planner, and pilot a good working relationship from day one till the very day you say “I do”. While the primary question should be as to whether your preferred planner is available for the day, the following are five imperative questions to ask your the planner-to-be: 1.  Are You Certified This is an important question. Honestly speaking, nowadays there are so many wedding planners, in fact, if you are not careful you may come across a person who claims to be a wedding planner because he or she was partly or fully involved in the planning of a friend or relative’s wedding; but this does not make the person fit to plan your wedding. I should also point out that it is not just about being certified, it is about being rightly certified, or having the requisite experience to deliver on your dream wedding, because as you know, experience can sometimes be at par with certification. Therefore, some questions to ask about your wedding planner are: “Are They Experienced Enough to Plan My Wedding?”, “Have They Planned the Kind of Wedding I Want Before?”, “Do They Have the Expertise to Deliver On My Dream Wedding?”, “Are They Innovative, Passionate and Competent?” “Do They The Right Mental Energy To Help Express My Journey And Personality? “Is this planner able to handle crisis and contingencies?” Trust me, you’d have your answers by simply observing them in an interview-like conversation. 2.  Do You Have Preferred Vendors? The vendors you choose for your event have the power to make/ break your event, so you have to choose carefully. With a good wedding planner in your pocket though, you should have nothing to worry because he/she must have vendors they work with and trust completely to deliver on the job. You however, should ask for more than one option to be able to choose from to avoid being stuck with a vendor just because your planner likes them, for example photography vendor, your planner should be able to provide you with more than one reliable photographer, so you can choose. A good planner gets you good vendors for amazing prices based on the work relationship they’ve built with these vendors [especially with halls, hotels etc] but be careful when he/she is extremely particular about a certain vendor and this brings us to the next question. 3.  Do You Get Commissions from these Vendors? This is a question you definitely want to ask a potential planner, because there are many planners that in addition to their fee, collect about 10-30% commission from the vendors they recommend to you. This implies that not only are you not saving money, you are also not getting “good deals” because the planner’s recommendation is based on (at least in part) how much they’re making from these vendors. I personally think this is very wrong! Clients should spend less and not more because they hired a wedding planner. I don’t take kickbacks from vendors because I want to sleep at night knowing that the vendors I recommend are being recommended because they are talented and reliable and not for lining my pockets. The bottom line is, if you’re hiring a planner to have access to amazing vendor discounts, make sure the recommendations are honest. In a nutshell when hiring a wedding planner, make inquiries to ensure that the planner does not get cuts/commissions from your vendors. This helps you get the most reliable products and services. 4.  Do You Do Vendor Contracts? Vendor contracts are  “to-be-signed document that state in clear terms the agreement between client, planner and vendors”. Most experienced planners understand the need for this contract, as it saves you stress and protects you. The  wedding planner  you choose should be one who understands the need for these contracts and has templates and knowledge on how it is done. So, ask and be sure your planner does these contracts and remember to also ask “Who signs the contracts; the client and/or the planner?” You’ll want to find out whether you’d be signing the contracts or your planner will be signing on your behalf. And do keep in mind the need to familiarize yourself with where the liabilities lie and how the payments would be handled.