5 Reasons Couples Don’t Hire A Wedding Planner & Why They Absolutely Should

Are there good reasons to not hire a wedding planner? As a planner, you should understand why couples might not understand the value you bring to their special day.

My husband and I recently celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. I can hardly believe that so much time has gone by — a whole decade — since we had our wedding in April of 2010. I was a 23-year-old journalist at the time, and my husband was working in the Canadian mining industry.

We had a two-year engagement, which was fairly typical for our peer group. We were in our early 20s, none of us had a lot of money, so unless you had parents or grandparents that were comfortably off and wanted to contribute to your wedding (thanks, Mom & Dad!), you’d both work hard and save as much as you could to have the wedding of your dreams.

Things get complicated.

To make things even more complicated, my fiance and I moved eight hours north to seek better opportunities in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. Yet, we still wanted to have our wedding in the little town we had come to love, a small prairie community in rural Manitoba. We started making plans, and then my husband’s step-father was involved in a near-fatal car accident that had him bedridden in the hospital for months. He was finally discharged but experienced a lot of pain and was wheelchair-bound. We didn’t want to force him to travel the two hours it would take to get to where we originally had wanted to hold our wedding (in a beautiful, historic firehouse-turned-cultural center). So we started from scratch, deciding to hold our nuptials just outside of the city where my future in-laws lived.

Planning a wedding from eight hours away was not easy. I was the first of my friends’ group to tie the knot. And being totally inexperienced with weddings meant a lot of stress; stress that could have been spared me had I opted to hire a wedding planner. 

Reasons Why Couples Don’t Hire A Wedding Planner

But I wasn’t alone. In rural Canada, hardly anyone in my age group would have considered hiring a wedding planner in 2010. And even now, in many different parts of the world, people have their reasons for forgoing hiring a professional to plan their event. Read on for a few of these reasons.

1. They think they can do it all on their own because they watch wedding shows on television religiously. 

Guilty as charged! I was obsessed with TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress and Rich Bride, Poor Bride. Pinterest was already a thing. How hard could it really be? Why would I pay someone to do something that I could probably throw together in my spare time? Which leads me to the next reason…

2. They don’t hire a wedding planner because they think it’ll cost an arm and a leg.

Guilty, again. I thought there was no way I could ask my parents (who funded the entire thing, except for the booze, which was generously paid for by my in-laws, and our wedding clothes, which we footed the bill for) to pay for a wedding planner on top of everything else. 

3. They see wedding planners as only necessary for very large, very fancy weddings. 

When I thought of wedding planners back then, I thought of Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner. I thought only rich, cultured people, in places like LA or New York, hired wedding planners. 

4. They think they’ll have plenty of help from family and friends – for free! 

Family and friends all have the best intentions when they tell you they want to help with your wedding. Aunt Peggy wants to bake your wedding cake as her gift to you? Perfect! Your future mother-in-law will handle the decorations? Great! But the thing is, just like brides have a habit of doing, well-meaning friends and family often bite off more than they can chew. The result is staying up till the wee hours of the morning the night before the wedding up to their elbows in ribbons and hot glue gun sticks. 

5. They can’t give up control of their special day. 

This wasn’t an issue for me, but it is for many, many other people. And I’m not talking about Bridezillas here (can we stop using that word? Weddings are stressful!). There are plenty of couples who simply don’t have faith that anyone else could ever manage to produce the epic, magical day they’ve been dreaming of. 

Why You Should Hire A Wedding Planner

Needless to say, I learned the hard way that there were so many things a wedding planner could have helped me with, and so many times that I wished I had hired one. Let’s take a look at what I consider the top five reasons to hire a wedding planner.

1. Hire a wedding planner because they’re professionals. 

It’s simple, but I can’t stress this enough. When you hire a wedding planner, you’re paying for so much more than just their planning and running the show. You’re paying for their expertise and years of experience. They know so much more than anyone else ever could about planning weddings because it’s their livelihood. You’d hire a realtor to sell your house (or at least, you would after your fifth open house was a bust), so why wouldn’t you hire a professional for one of the most important days of your life? 

2. They have a wealth of contacts, and they know who is worth your money. 

Figuring out your vendors is one of the most complicated parts of planning a wedding. So why bother trying to sift through online reviews and do it yourself? Your wedding planner will already have a great working relationship with tonnes of florists, DJs, caterers — the list goes on and on. Lean into their knowledge and expertise, and you’ll have confidence in knowing you’re getting the best of the best. 

3. They’ll help you stay within your budget. 

This may come as a surprise, especially to the folks I discussed earlier. Still, a wedding planner will actually save you money in the long run. Again, it all comes down to experience. These people know when it’s cool to negotiate and absolutely not cut corners. That knowledge only comes from industry experts. 

4. They’re always the first to arrive and the last to leave. 

Wedding planners go to great lengths to deliver — not just in the planning process but on the day of your wedding. Is Uncle Martin getting a little too tipsy on the dance floor? Is your rabbi running late? Fear not. A wedding planner can handle all of this with grace and diplomacy, so you can focus on what really matters: uniting yourself to your soon-to-be spouse and starting your lifetime journey together. 

5. Your mental health matters. 

I can’t think of any other time that it would be more essential to hire a wedding planner than right now, in the middle of the second wave of this global pandemic. Wedding planning is stressful enough on its own, let alone trying to navigate restrictions and by-laws by yourself. So don’t put yourself through that. You don’t want to be one wilted centerpiece away from a nervous breakdown at your wedding. You want to enjoy it and relish the love and warmth you’ll feel looking back on it for years to come. 

Hire A Wedding Planner For A Happy-Ever-After

Wedding planners are worth every penny they get. From their sensitive handling of family issues to offering unwavering support to the bride and groom, from their intuition and experience to their level-headedness and boundless energy, if you hire an event professional, you can be sure that you’re one step closer to your happy-ever-after wedding.

Miranda Leybourne is a writer who lives in the middle of Canada, in rural Manitoba. She enjoys working as a freelance writer and in her spare time she writes historical fiction novels. When she’s not writing or reading, she loves to enjoy the outdoors with walks, hiking, skiing and more.