One of the great things about working as a wedding planner is that you get to meet some really lovely people who are on the cusp of changing the direction of much of their future lives.
It’s a wonderful time and wedding planners usually get a great deal of satisfaction out of helping two people start their new married life together.
However, there are at times some challenges in trying to balance the occasionally conflicting demands of the bride and groom to say nothing of their respective families.
In what follows there are some rather stereotypical depictions of the various parties but in the experience of many wedding planners, these general tendencies continue to be in evidence!
The Bride
The wedding day is often referred to as “The Bride’s Day”.
The origins of that are lost in the mists of time but it presumably reflects the old and outdated sexist mythology that somehow the wedding day is the pinnacle of achievement for a single woman, whereas it is something the groom has had to be reluctantly persuaded to engage in.
Whatever current political correctness may tell us we should think though, the reality is that the bride remains the centrepiece of the day’s events. As such, it should be no great surprise that many brides will have a very passionate engagement with all aspects of arrangements for the day and they may certainly be, in reality, the key decision maker and influencer of many married couples to be.
The experienced certified wedding planner will therefore be very keen to make sure that the bride’s wishes and inclinations are sought on all key aspects of the arrangements.
The Groom
Although it is once again something of a sexist assumption, the reality is that many grooms are relatively content to sit back and let the bride and the wedding planner work together on many of the arrangements for the day.
Although they are often keen to play a role in being involved in the final yes or no decision on a given subject, many grooms will be happy to allow their future wife and the wedding planner to look at the options for things such as flowers and reception decoration schemes etc.
However, wedding planner coaching stresses that there is a subtle danger of unintentionally marginalising the groom on aspects of the wedding arrangements.
That can lead to squabbling and is therefore something to be guarded against.
The Families
Some family members, often by tradition and mythology the mother of the bride, may involve themselves in aspects of the fine details of the arrangements.
There is nothing wrong with this and it should be welcomed, though it can lead to some further complications in trying to balance conflicting requirements and views. It is important though to engage them in the process for a number of reasons, including the fact that they may be helping the couple concerned to fund the wedding.
The Wedding Planner’s role
Each individual wedding will be different and the wedding planner will quickly need to ascertain who the key parties are and make sure that they are engaged in the arrangements to an appropriate extent.
Occasionally, this will demand a high degree of diplomatic skill if some of the parties come into conflict with each other in terms of how they see things progressing!
Ultimately, in most circumstances, the professional wedding planner is accountable to the bride and groom jointly and equally. Nobody is ‘in charge’ as such between them.
It will be a good idea to avoid one or other of the parties, intentionally or otherwise, drifting away from the front-line decision making surrounding the wedding.
This is all usually good fun and an enjoyable challenge rather than a nightmare!
