Important questions to ask your professional wedding planner

The organisation of a wedding will always be difficult, so it’s understandable that you may wish to seek out the services of a professional wedding planner. However, this person must also be someone who ‘clicks’ with you – who understands and serves your needs and desires from your wedding day, and who ultimately works for you, instead of forcing you to work for them.

We know a few things about the finer points of selecting a professional wedding planner here at Château Bouffémont, and the following are the questions that we would most urge you to ask.

Are you available on my wedding date?

This is the very first question that you need to ask, as you will otherwise be wasting your time if your preferred wedding planner is not free.

Alternatively, you may not have settled on a definite date yet, in which case, you may be prepared to wait for a wedding planner who you especially like to become available. Even in this scenario, we would advise you to question several potential wedding planners so that you always have another option, or even in case you find a better one than your original ‘first choice’.

Will you be busy with anyone else’s wedding at the same time as ours?

The acceptability of a ‘yes’ answer to this question may depend on whether they will be occupied with another couple’s nuptials on the big day itself, or instead merely during the planning process.

When an in-demand wedding planner is planning your wedding, it’s to be expected that they will also be working with other people on their own weddings. The big question is whether your wedding planner will be distracted by anything else on the day you tie the knot, as that’s when you will want them to be focusing only on you, and ready to respond quickly to any last-minute hiccups.

Have you previously planned weddings at this venue?

The way your intended wedding venue and wedding planner interface with each other will be crucial, so it will be a definite benefit if the wedding planner on whom you have your eye is familiar with and has planned weddings at that venue previously.

Bear in mind that when you reflect on your wedding in the years to come, it will be the setting in which you got married that you will almost certainly remember over the wedding planner with whom you worked. So if you have your heart set on a French chateau wedding in the impressive surroundings of a refined and elegant venue like Château Bouffémont, it may be worth asking the venue whether there are any wedding planners that they know well and would recommend.

What is your experience in wedding planning?

This is an important question, and it goes without saying that you will be reassured by someone who has worked as a wedding planner for many years, planning a great number and wide variety of weddings.

However, if the person’s experience is of a slightly different nature – for instance, they have only previously worked as an assistant to another wedding planner – you shouldn’t necessarily dismiss them, but instead ask more about what responsibilities they had in such a past role.

What have your greatest challenges been when planning a wedding?

This should inevitably be followed by “…and how did you solve them?”. This will enable you to tease out those vital signs of the organisation, problem-solving and communication skills that could be invaluable for the planning of your own wedding.

There are many other questions that you may wisely ask a prospective wedding planner – ranging from “Is wedding planning your full-time job?” to “Do we have to book your recommended vendors, or are we free to hire someone of our own choice, even if you haven’t worked with them before?”

For further guidance, take a look at The Knot’s five steps to hiring a wedding planner.