As Sydney Smith said, ‘To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.’ It is even greater joy when you set aside a day to celebrate love and create an experience to last a lifetime.
Special events are not necessarily grand or lavish events. The goal is to have a more intimate and engaging experience with your guests to the limit where the budget allows. Your special event can be a wedding, marriage proposal, elopement, or engagement party, to name a few.
Quality input in the planning process of any event is essential to ensuring a positive experience for attendees, hosts and planners. Coordination of the venue, food, decoration, entertainment and budget can be overwhelming to the ordinary person.
Managing your budget and at the same time successfully planning the wedding can cost you your well-being given the high likelihood of sleepless nights and anxiety.
The journey towards your wedding ought to be a special one, therefore choosing qualified professionals to take the lead in planning and making it happen to your satisfaction is critical. Unique and Forever is your desired partner to present you with the rare opportunity to enjoy full-service planning for your dream wedding.
Beyond a day’s glamour and fun, the creativity employed in the framework and organization of an event determines the quality of the memories created.
To successfully plan an event, proper consideration of the critical elements is fundamental. The 5C’s approach in event management can help assist in drawing a well-informed event plan. The key phases are concept, coordination, control, culmination and closeout, in that order.
For a wedding, the venue and services are among the top priorities in the planning checklist.
The services for a wedding setup include the reception, floral arrangements, photography services, entertainment, bridal care, flyers/handouts, transportation, and accommodation. The selected services in an event should accessorize and put form to the wedding; therefore, failure in services management can render the wedding a complete failure.
The decision on whether to host an outdoor wedding overlooking the steep Santorini cliffs or a rooftop evening party while enjoying the tangerine sunsets that light up the sky and sea is not limited to the couple’s preferences only. Some of the other factors include the number of attendees, décor and details, photo opportunities, weather, service style, and available amenities.
A proper wedding plan saves you the last-minute rush, omission of critical elements in your wedding or worse, the frustration associated with having a different outcome from what you had envisioned.
Here are the five essential tips to designing a reasonable and implementable wedding plan to suit your budget
1. Event Conceptualization
During this stage, the purpose and timelines of the wedding should be clearly outlined. The decisions made at this stage serve as the foundation of the entire wedding plan.
Any shortcomings or oversights made during conceptualization will affect the materialization of the wedding.
Activities at this phase involve setting the wedding date, identifying the number of guests to invite, the desired venue options and the services likely to be incorporated into the wedding.
2. Wedding Coordination
Every detail that makes up the wedding is exhaustively attended to during the coordination stage. It involves designing a more detailed work plan based on the general conclusions made during conceptualization.
The coordination phase should have timelines for finalizing each activity, the budget against every item, and its sub-elements breakdown.
Activities under this stage include selecting the theme colour to be portrayed in the bridal outfits, decoration and reception setup, food, cake design colours, venue and complimentary services.
Delegation of tasks to the planning team members allows ample time for the implementation of each service.
Providing alternatives for the wedding date and venue is good practice to ensure flexibility in case of the occurrence of unforeseen scenarios.
3. Control
The success of the wedding plan is achieved when the planner is confident that no surprise elements are likely to arise.
It is a vital element in the planning process. An exhaustive assessment of all practical alternatives should be done for all services to ensure you don’t get stranded at any point.
The access points of amenities such as washrooms from the reception should be considered when selecting an appropriate reception orientation.
The planner can physically visit the venue to estimate its sufficiency in accommodating guests, parking space or whether the lighting meets the photography needs.
It helps to ensure that if a particular combination of setups doesn’t work, there is adequate time to make changes until the best outlook is achieved.
4. Culmination
A wedding day marks the transition to a lasting companionship to deepen your practice of conscious love.
A detailed wedding program and a suitable program coordinator are vital in ensuring a smooth flow of activities.
Depending on where the aisle is located, the perfect entrance can be determined; hence the floral arrangement can be adjusted accordingly.
Order is significant on your wedding day. During the wedding rehearsal, the order in which the bridal team enters the reception is agreed upon, thus avoiding confusion. In most cases, the bride and their parents walk in last.
The flow of activities, starting with the arrival of guests to the exchange of vows and till the point where guests leave, should be well spelled out in the day’s program.
Preparing printed copies of the program helps inform attendees of what is expected of them at a given time during the day.
5. Wedding Closeout
When the last dance ends and the music comes to a halt as the day fades away, guests leave at their pleasure, but the work of a wedding planner continues.
The next stage is to finalize all payments and terminate contracts with suppliers, entertainers, vendors, and caterers.
Feedback is vital to any business. Whether positive or negative, feedback helps a business keep up the elements that were applauded and adjust the areas that need improvement.
The opinion of the day’s couple and guests on the quality of services rendered at the wedding is essential to the wedding planners.
As the business experts say, one of the valuable things a client can bring to a business is a referral. A jaw-dropping customer experience creates excellent memories and assures the clients’ return for other services together with their referrals.
Making the best memories while sticking to the available budget is the ultimate goal of any couple planning their wedding.
Bringing onboard expert event planners offers you peace of mind and a chance to presently experience the path towards the big day marking the beginning of a lifetime commitment.