So, long time no blog.
We’ve been busy. Very, very
busy. Which is a great thing. We are constantly revamping, restructuring
and improving. One of those items we
have been working on, is updating our blog to a new layout. And
when that’s all ready to launch we’ll be blogging much more regularly as well
as showcasing our weddings complete with pictures.
In the meantime, though, something today in particular
caught my attention that I wanted to blog about really quickly. I stumbled across a website today that seems
pretty popular (the blogger has even written a book). I feel it’s best to leave the site unnamed,
although if you are into weddings and wedding blogs you may be familiar with
it. In general one thing that the site
promotes is marriage equality (which we support 100%). This may be part of their popularity. But the other stance they take on weddings is
that what is put out there by “wedding media” is basically nonsense and while
planning a wedding, brides should pay it no mind and do their own thing.
Now, there is a difference between being unique and doing
your own thing as opposed to not being educated on how things in the wedding
industry work. Yes, you can have absolutely
gorgeous out of the box weddings that the standards may not apply to. But some people WANT a traditional or more “by
the rules” wedding. So to tell them to
simply ignore all standard practices and do what they want is a big
misguided. One thing they specifically
had zeroed in on was that it was by no means necessary to adhere to any kind of
wedding planning “timeline”. Meaning,
you don’t have to have certain things done by a certain time. Because weddings can be planned in 3 months
or they can be planned over the course of a year or two. So basically, if it
says on a timeline to book a caterer at 9 months out, yet you are planning a wedding in six months….. well, you missed the
cut off point. You must be screwed. So that renders ALL timelines for planning as
useless and nonsensical.
This kind of made me a little mad. I don’t necessarily believe that the
timelines need to be strictly adhered to.
They can be tweaked as necessary for the length of the bridal couple's engagement.
But I do find them extremely helpful.
Not so much for the idea that you HAVE to do things by a certain time,
but more as a TIME MANAGEMENT tool so that everything doesn’t close in on a bride
at once. This is especially true if
there are particular vendors that you really want to work with. I have had brides that even a year away from
their wedding have not been able to get the vendor they had their heart set on
and are shocked that they book that far in advance. I myself have had to turn away brides looking
for Day Of services because they wait too long to start booking and I am all
booked up. And if there’s one thing I
hate it’s turning away brides. By
waiting longer to book vendors, especially venues and photographers, a bride
may be pigeon-holing herself into using whatever vendors are still available,
rather than really being able to find that perfect vendor she loves that is
within her price range.
The timelines can also serve as just a general checklist to
ensure they don’t forget anything. For a
newly engaged bride who has no clue as to how to move forward with her
planning, these timelines can provide good guidance even if the dates are not
exact. I do find that some timelines
state that you need to do things more in advance than necessary, but it also
means that if brides DO complete the items that far in advance that the last
few months leading up to their wedding they can relax a bit, rather than
running around like a crazy person trying to get everything done in time.
Just as I tell my brides that the timelines can be
interpreted loosely to fit their situation, I would expect any kind of wedding
blog to do the same. To render an overall
timeline as “useless”, to me, shows that this blog writer is not a wedding
planner. Which in fact, she is not. She merely had, at one time, planned her own
wedding and found that she could do things differently than The Knot or Wedding
Wire may have led her to believe. But
planning ONE wedding a wedding planner does not make. We do this week after week, bride after bride. We become accustomed to which vendors book up fast, and which may be able to help us out in a pinch. I think as such a successful blogger, she
should have at the very least acknowledged that for some brides a general
planning timeline can be extremely helpful.
To say that no bride needs to worry about an overall timeline is a bit
absolute and misinformed. We can only
hope that no bride read that, ignored all possible timelines that were at her
disposal, and in the end missed out on great vendors or felt stressed in the
last months leading up to her wedding due to trying to finish everything so
quickly.
When in doubt, hire a planner. Even if its just a "Day Of" package :-) Do NOT take the advice of a blogger who has only planned her own wedding and deemed herself an expert on weddings. Philadelphia has many GREAT wedding planners who have taken courses, are certified in event planning, have experience, and really have made it their business to KNOW the wedding industry inside and out, some of which I have had the pleasure of working closely with. Even if we at Sitting In A Tree cannot accommodate you on your date, we can refer you to someone great who can.
