Imagine if you were a professional wedding planner and you got engaged. How simple would it be to plan your own wedding, right? Wrong. Just like all brides, Lisa Clayton, professional wedding planner and business owner of First Class Weddings and Events, is having all the same headaches and heartaches ("I love it, but it won't fit in my budget!")
As Lisa discovered her own wedding was no more simple, and in fact the polar opposite – much more tricky to plan, she decided to blog her way through the process. Each week, she will be posting helpful hints and confessing her own dificulties on her Project Wedding blog in the lead up to her wedding to fiance, Chris. Lisa gave us the scoop on the blog, and the beginning of her wedding planning process.
Lisa, is planning your own wedding just an absolute breeze for you with your vast experience in weddingplanning?
Planning my own wedding is not as easy as what some people may think. It is an advantage to have the knowledge that I do with 17 years Hospitality experience and being a Wedding Planner, however I am still experiencing difficulties in coming to a decision about particular aspects of planning the wedding as I have seen so many.
So far, what have been the biggest challenges?
As I am only in the early stages, to date the biggest challenge for me has been the guest list. Chris and I want to keep the wedding intimate and it has been difficult doing that as we know there are some people who are expecting invitations and we will have to break the bad news and make them aware that they won’t be invited. Some of my friends have already placed the date in their calendar. It is a very difficult subject and we are going to have tread lightly.
Is your partner, Chris, getting involved in the process?
Chris is involved in the wedding planning process to a degree, but really NID (not into details.) He has made it clear to me the reception, especially the food and entertainment, are important to him, oh and of course the most important thing – the dreaded budget. He keeps reiterating to me he has the utmost faith that the wedding will look spectacular if left to my creativity. No stress on my shoulders at all! However, with every decision I make I run it past him first and I really try to encourage his feedback as this is our day, not mine.
What is the advice you always give to brides who you work with that you should be sure to follow yourself?
First and foremost is the budget, you have to be realistic. If you don’t have the money to spend you can’t have it all, but in saying that, what I specialise in and which I will be doing for my own wedding, is working with my budget to still create the wedding I want, without compromising to much on style. I always ask my clients to select the three most important things for your wedding day and make sure the money is allocated to these areas without compromising, and work with trimming on other aspects.
The other ever so important thing is STRESS. I can not enforce this issue enough to brides. If I had a dollar for every bride that I have met that has said to me they don’t get stressed and are very carefree and the wedding won’t get to them, I would be a very rich lady. As brides, we need to remember that weddings bring on a totally different set of emotions, that we have never experienced and there will be times where your fiancé will not recognize who you are! But once the wedding is over, those emotions disappear with it. It is only natural.
Therefore even if you can’t afford a wedding planner, hire a wedding coordinator for the day of your wedding to make sure everything arrives on time and goes according to plan, without getting your family to take care of these things. Your family are there to enjoy and celebrate this day with you, not to be sweating the little things. Like anyone else, I am investing a lot of money into this special event and I want that insurance that everything is going to go the way I have planned over the next nine months. Therefore, using my own advice, I have hired a wedding coordinator for the day of our wedding. I will be involved to a degree, but I am going to make sure a professional will make sure everything arrives on time, is set up the way I want and takes care of the details behind the scenes.
What made you decide to start a blog detailing your wedding planning experience?
I decided to start my blog for me personally, but to also share my experience with other brides. By sharing, I believe I can connect with other brides by letting them know they are not the only ones out there experiencing difficulties making decisions when it comes to planning their wedding day. Too many times in consultations I have encountered with my clients that they are reluctant to share a story because they feel it is only them going through a particular situation. Because they have not planned a wedding before, they don’t realise the emotions or difficulties they are enduring are only natural and are normal part of the wedding planning process.
What will you be sharing on your blog?
My weekly blogs will be based on the natural hiccups that I experience in planning our wedding. As I undergo the journey, I am sure there will be topics that brides will be able to relate to as I have already seen to date and along with this I will be able to provide whatever advice I possibly can and I am sure other Brides will be able to offer their experiences to assist others. Therefore, we will be covering every aspect of wedding planning, from picking wedding dresses, bridesmaids, selecting themes, flowers, photography, doing the dreaded seating plan, the legalities, supplier contracts, wedding cakes, speeches, itineraries, checklists, music selections, food selections, dealing with stress and much, much more.
