Here are my FOUR top tips to help you plan your wedding virtually and from the comfort of your hime, in under an hour.
Why Plan Your Wedding Virtually From The Comfort Of Your Home?
Now, I ‘used’ to love a good wedding fair, really I did… and I’ll still attend a few from now and then. But just lately, the quality of wedding fairs hasn’t been very good, and some of my clients have expressed to me that they didn’t feel that the wedding fairs were that beneficial.
The thing is that you need to meet your wedding vendors, you need to see their work, you need to tell them what you want… and currently, that’s not easy to do. But even after all of this self isolation, you may not want to give up your free time to interview lots of vendors, or drag your family and friends around wedding fairs every Sunday. So I think the way that clients look for suppliers may change.
And Now Is The Perfect Time To Plan Your Perfect Wedding
We seem to have a little tie on our hands, and I firmly believe that weddings will be back (sooner) and with a vengeance! So, right now is the perfect time to plan your wedding.
But how do you start? Well, you need to make a few decisions.
Establish Your Top FOUR Main Supplier Categories
Or establish 5, 2, 9 or all of them… The point here is that you need to establish what’s really important to you now – remember, you are NOT booking any one just yet.
What’s important to you? Obviously, your venue will be up there first – what’s your favourite venue, have you visited it yet, or have you only seen their site? Once you establish your venue other associated vendors may be an easy choice, as some venues use preferred suppliers for things such as catering and venue decor. But don’t just rely on these if you have a choice… but it is a start.
Once you’ve established your most important foundation suppliers, then it is really easy to look at other suppliers along your wedding planning chain.
Ask Around, Especially Your Suppliers
So, you have an idea of who your foundation suppliers are, now look at their sites and see who they would recommend. Most professional suppliers have a list of friends and colleagues who they would recommend… And professional wedding suppliers take these recommendations seriously, as their own professional reputation depends on their recommendations and the colleagues they do business with. Again, just to be clear, you are NOT booking anyone yet. Meet my supplier friends.
Meet, Virtually
Well done, you’ve probably now got a list of the top, TOP suppliers in your area for your wedding and it’s not even lunch time! Remember, you’re not booking anyone yet, you are simply building up a knowledge base of the kind of people you would like to have help you on your wedding.
But, now is the time you may want to start having a chat with them. With me, I always like to meet face to face at my studio, really to find out what you both want from your wedding.
But that’s not really possible… and even if it were, you may not want to give up your time to visit at this stage. call them or better still book a virtual meeting. Suppliers like Regency Cakes have been holding virtually meetings for some time as their clients come from miles away to book their services.
You can view our short studio intro movie here.
And for our virtual meetings, we love to use Zoom (www.zoom.com)
After this, you should have fantastic idea if you want to book, or if you need to look further.
And that’s the other thing you can achieve during a meeting… Ask your wedding supplier who they would recommend for other services.
Get The Pencils Out!
You’ll need to start to secure some suppliers and some dates, so once you get the good feeling about a supplier ask to them to provisionally pencil in your date. Most will, and will ask for a confirmation should someone else ask after that date.
Remember, you are only pencilling in at this stage.
You’re Almost There…
You CAN plan your wedding virtually, you should still go and visit wedding fairs and you and of course, there are so many things that you won’t be able to do virtually, you can’t do a cake tasting online and you really ought to go and try on your wedding dress, I suppose…
But having your suppliers on stand by and primed for your date, even if it is only a pencil at this stage will help and save you time for when we are all ready to. Then when you can, you’ll be able to meet and decide.
There’s a really myth that you have to spend three years planning your perfect day. Some would relish that, generally my clients tend to be really time poor, because they have lives! So, rely on your wedding suppliers for recommendations, most of us are completely passionate about this industry and we want the absolute best for our clients.
