How to Choose a Wedding Professional

One of the reasons I love being in the wedding industry is that you get the opportunity to see how creative people can be. Sometimes it's the bride's uncle George who used his glass blowing forge to create special stemware for the occasion. Sometimes it is a cousin who is a lighting design specialist and turns a otherwise drab venue into a visual adventure. Often it is the horticultural skills of the parents who have turned a pasture into the kind of picturesque dancing lawn reminiscent of Narnia and it's magical creatures.

Practicably, it is usually one of the wedding professionals who create something exceptional. This is not surprising, they are the one group of people associated with any given wedding who have the skill and experience to be able to create something memorable.

So why do you so often see weddings that look little different than the wedding prior to it? There are, of course, a number of reasons. The most common reason, however, is that the professional can only do what the couple is willing to pay them to do - and that is not just a matter of money!

If a bride, comes into a pastry chef's place of business with a picture of her friends wedding cake and says, "I want my cake to look just like that." The professional either has to turn down the job or create a duplicate of someone else's (often someone many times removed) creativity. If the pastry chef is good it will look beautiful, but it won't have that special something that helps set the event apart.

Unfortunately this happens a lot more often than one might imagine. Brides dream big, but when they get down to specifics they tend to choose what they know. This is understandable, but it is not the best way to approach a wedding professional.

The best way to approach any wedding professional is to first find one whose personal style matches the tastes of the bride and groom. We're talking the kind of person who the bride (and / or groom) can comfortably think, "It doesn't matter what they do, I know I'm gonna love it!"

This isn't easy, but planning the biggest party of your life is not supposed to be easy.

Then, having found the artisan whose work the bride can trust the process turns into an open negotiation. By this I mean, the bride casts her vision for the professional - for the purpose of illustration we will stay with the pastry chef - and then listens as the professional responds with how they might be able to make it work. And the dialog continues.

Of course, the ugly issue of money comes into play. That's another matter - a much misunderstood matter, but I'll write about that another time.

The point is, find a professional you can trust, tell them where you want to go with your design and then listen. The truth is, they know what is possible and not possible in their discipline. More, they know what will raise your costs a lot and what will give you the biggest impact for your dollar.

Just like Uncle George, the bride chose to let him make the stemware largely because she knew what he was capable of, and that is where the possibility of true creativity comes in.