Wedding Professional or Professional Wannabe?

Weddings have become big business, things have changed since the days when friends and family pitched in to decorate and provide the food for the weddings, while a family friend with a nice camera did the photos.

  Now most couples hire professionals for everything from the photography to the décor.  The trouble is how do you know you are really hiring a professional or a wannabe professional.  Seems as if everyone wants to be in the wedding business now days, most have no training or experience. Everyone thinks it would be fun to be a wedding professional, so they post a Facebook page and upload a website and call themselves a wedding professional. Most post some beautiful photos and seem legitimate.

 Wedding come with a hefty price tag, so you want to make sure you get what you pay for and that includes experience.  Remember it is not something you can get a do over on.

Just because you purchased a top of the line digital camera and photo editing software, doesn’t make you a wedding photographer, nor does helping a friend put a few chair covers on make you an event decorator. 

 Here are some things you should look for when hiring wedding professionals.  Is this so called professional legitimate? Ask to see a business registration number, if the business is not a registered business and something were to go wrong you will not have any recourse in getting a refund and if something were to go very wrong more than likely there would be no coverage of liability insurance.

 Ask the contact person how many weddings have you personally and your business been involved in? Ask when looking at photos, if the photos are of their work or are they stock photos? Many want –a- be professionals are posting stock photos on their websites, blogs and Facebook pages. This can be very misleading as one would assume if the pictures are on their website it must be their work. Florist and decorators are particularly guilty of this. In our local area there are several people calling themselves wedding florist and wedding decorators, most have no experience and are not registered businesses. Ask for a list of former clients you can contact for a reference. Speak with other wedding vendors most real professionals only refer professionals they trust and have had positive experiences with.

  Unknowingly hiring unqualified people to put together your big event could be disastrous!  Your dream of a beautiful elegant day could end up looking tacky and cheap.   Your wedding photos could have bright orange and yellow extension cord running up and down the walls, as most inexperience decorators are very guilty of not hiding the mechanics as well as not securing things like ceiling treatments properly.  I recently have seen photos from a so called professional decorator who hung a very large ceiling treatment by the cords of mini lights. Not only was that a fire hazard but could have led to the fabric draping falling on the guest in the middle of dinner.

 I have also seen what could have been beautiful photographs edited to the point the Bride and Groom look like they are ready for  the morgue. When it comes  to photographers look  at their portfolio closely, you may think you are looking at many wedding photos, when in fact you are looking at many photos of the same wedding. A sign you are looking at inexperience.

Ask lots of questions and be careful who you are handing over that deposit to... the old adage "you get what you pay for"  is very true when it comes to your big day.

Very Sloppy!

Professionals should never leave lights coming down the wall!

Green extension cord showing on head table!

 

 

The Big Picture

Hi everyone and welcome to our blog. Our intention is to write a monthly weditorial. Each month we will discuss various aspects of wedding design. This month’s weditoral I will discuss looking at the big picture.

Couples tend to focus on the details rather than the big picture or the overall feel of the wedding. I advise our clients to think about what they want their guests to remember and what they will see in their wedding photos.

When your guests talk about your wedding, you want them to say things like: elegant, tasteful, beautiful, classy, pretty, and fun.

In 20 years of working in the wedding industry I have never heard a guest talk about how well the colour of the roses matched the ink on the invitations or if all the bridesmaids were wearing matching shoes. I see over and over again couples stressing over little details that no one will ever notice, and not paying enough attention to things that are big contributors to the big picture like the size and scale of the centerpieces to the tables for example.

Budget also comes into play here. You want the most bang for your buck, so be careful not to use up your budget on things that will not be noticed in your pictures or by your guests. Focus your budget on the big contributors to the overall feel and look of the wedding.

This is where hiring vendors with experience and a reputation for elegant taste can be very beneficial. As well, keeping your services in one spot will help you to stay true to the big picture. If your florist offers a decorating and rental service, it will be much easier to keep everything consistent and coordinated. As well, it will save time and money. You can eliminate all the running around before and after the wedding picking up and returning rental items and often times the more services you use the better deal you will get, as well as a much more coordinated look.

 Another piece of advice I give my clients is when you look at your pictures 10 or 20 years from now you still want to see timeless elegance, not a short lived trend. Be careful with your wedding design. If you go with things and colours that are very trendy, you may have regrets when looking at those photos in the future.

At the end of the day when you look at your wedding photos (in reality that is all your will have is your photos, memories and that shiny new ring) you want to see an overall picture of elegance and taste that is timeless.