My last post was about organization, a very important element to a successful wedding and worry free planning process, my next is....
Timeliness: This is extremely critical to your planning process, it goes hand in hand with organization.
There is nothing worse than having a wedding professional show up to a in person meeting late, not respond when you are suppose to have a phone meeting, or re-schedule 20 minutes before (unless its an emergency). The absolute worst is having them show up late, on your wedding day. Use each meeting, response time on e-mail and return of phone messages as a gauge to how efficient they are with timing. They should never use the excuse with you that they are "so busy" and that's why they couldn't respond to you. We all as wedding professionals (and as people in general) are busy, and if they have too many clients going at once, maybe they aren't the right match for you. Wedding professionals are suppose to be just that, professional. They should be held to the same standards as you would hold one of your associates at work. In a typical business environment you expect that your email or phone call will be returned in 24-48 hours. Especially in the world now of smart phones ect, where many (not all) receive their email on their phone, most wedding professionals will send you a quick "I will call you tomorrow" or "Let me check and get back with you" to let you know that they have received your message and intend on responding soon.
That said, let me say that some brides don't need to be in contact with their wedding professionals as often as others. In turn, for some, response times may not be as critical. Also, please remember that your wedding professionals are people too and have lives and families, so if you don't get a response from them ( especially over the weekend, the busiest time for most of us) don't fret, they should get back to you first thing on Tuesday morning. I highlighted Tuesday because many wedding professionals are closed or not in the office on Mondays due to attending to 2 or 3 weddings in a weekend. Monday is the "day of rest" so to speak for many wedding professionals.
A great tip in order to make sure that each wedding professional is on the same page as you with timing, make a timeline! We all think to make a detailed timeline for the day of the event (very important) but you should also make one for your planning stages of the Wedding. Give a copy of it to each of your wedding professionals so they can have an idea of what you need done, and by what point in the planning process. It is also nice for the wedding professionals to know who else they are working with so if any collaboration can be done, it can be done before the Wedding. Many of us know each other and work together frequently enough that small adjustments can be made to make things go much more seamlessly the day of your event.
I would say most, but certainly not all, weddings run a little over time. What I mean by that is the ceremony starts 15-20 minutes later than originally planned, pictures take over an hour when you planned them to only take 30 minutes ect. These things happen, and usually aren't a big deal, but the more organized and aware everyone is of the timeline and how you would like things run the more effortless your day will be. Be sure also to provide everyone with the timeline, including caterer, venue, florist ect. Each one of these people needs to be in the loop about what is going on. Also, it is a good idea (for you or your wedding planner) to print the timeline on brightly colored paper, this way it doesn't get lost in the mix of all the other paperwork that your wedding professionals will be handling that day. Hope this helped shed some light on how timeliness is an important factor on your wedding day, feel free to ask questions and make comments!
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