So here it is.. I often get asked "Do you like being a wedding planner?" "Well yeah" I generally reply. So I decided I would get a little deeper into the whole "Why I love being a wedding planner" story.
Wow where do I even begin? When initially thinking about this post it sounded like a pretty simple blog that I could breeze right through. Ok, so all through high school I was a fairly creative kid. I was always finding cool unusual places to host parties and places for us kids (at the time) to hang out. I am pretty sure that is where my "planning obsession" started. I did not really carry it with me into college and at that young era of my life I was positive I would be an amazing fashion designer in San Francisco or New York. I pretty much spent most of my late teens and early twenties behind a sewing machine with huge supplies of fabric creating dresses and hats that I would later sell on the streets in San Fran to try to fund month long road trips to places where everyone was amazingly dressed and gorgeous. Never did I once buy a pattern or even attempt to make one but somehow everything I made was wearable and actually pretty good. I even sold some things that I had made during a few of many road trips. It was during those road trips that I realized fashion design in Cincinnati is really not going to work and for some crazy reason I could not bring myself to leave Cincinnati permanently. So then I decided that business is what I should learn about. I always knew I would have a business, but I really envisioned some trendy boutique. After college I went on to work many office jobs but never felt satisfied running other people's business and I was hating the fact that I could not be creative in any way. I had helped a few friends plan weddings and I enjoyed it but I do not think that is when I decided being a wedding planner was where I needed to be. Over the course of some years and many weddings that I helped design it still did not register. It was just a few years ago as I drove to my job that it hit me. Completely out of the blue. "wedding planner" I did not even know if they really had wedding planners around here. So Immediately once I got to my office I started researching this wedding planner idea that I had. I was amazed by all of the online classes offered, associations, local businesses, and the entire wedding industry as a whole. I was somewhat overwhelmed. I had no idea what happened outside of the design aspect of planning a wedding. I also realized that if I was overwhelmed, how on earth must a bride feel! So at that point I just picked an online course that seemed reputable and breezed through that like it was nothing. I spent hours and hours and days and nights looking at vendors,and venues and reading the knot message boards like crazy. I was blown away by the talent that Cincinnati had. Finally a creative outlet that is here in Cincy. I can totally do this. And I did! It was like second nature.
I remember my first paid wedding. I was so nervous but I knew that no one else knew that. I walked into this wedding like I had been doing it for all of my life. It was flawless, perfect! I know we all hear that no wedding is ever perfect. Well I am telling you this one was. The bride and the groom praised me all night long, along with the vendors that I worked with that night. I wondered in my head, "surely these vendors know I am a nobody." but they treated me like I had been around forever. And I played like I had been and it worked. The end of the night rolled around and guest were telling me how wonderful the evening was and the parents of both the bride and groom hugged me and thanked me for making it so amazing. That was when I realized, this is what I was meant to do.
To me being a wedding planner is a great honor. People are trusting me to create and orchestrate this event that they will remember for the rest of their lives. There is no "it was okay". It MUST be "it was AMAZING". And I think that it what makes me awesome at my job. I will not settle for mediocre. Am I being boastful by saying "I am awesome"? Hell no! I am saying that because every single one of my past clients will say the same thing. I bust my butt making weddings what every girl has dreamt of. I get the fact that people are spending a ton of money on this event and they do not want it to be anything short of perfect. I also get that every bride and groom are different. Their taste vary from the last couple and no wedding that I plan fully will be the same as another. I also get that MY personal taste is different from my clients. Just because I like rock n roll bride does not mean my client will. I am able to pull off weddings that are totally traditional, completely modern, to totally off beat and very not within the boundaries of normal. I can even create an event that has touches of all of the above. It is all about getting your clients. You have to be able to detach from your personal style and allow yourself to embrace what they love in order to create an event that is all about them. I think that is an essential quality to have.
A wedding day is one amazing day in my opinion. Wow, the emotion that runs throughout that day is almost bipolar. You see happiness then stress then panic then crying then happy again then scared. It is so intense and to be able to provide a bride or mother of the bride a calming sense of security is the best feeling ever.
I think you must have your poker face mastered for sure. I may know that the rental company is running an hour late but does the bride really need to know that? Heck no! I know that once they get to the destination, myself and my assistant will probably need to help get everything set up and I know that we have the ability to do it. So let me worry about it and not freak the bride or family out. I hate to micro manage. Yes I totally am capable of doing it but I love when I have an amazing vendor team in place and we are able to work as a team. I hate to have to tell vendors what they need to be doing. It seems that happens with my Day of Clients vendor's mostly. Because the bride's select and hire them with no assistance on my end. Sometimes it may be vendors that I have never heard of but I always walk in hoping they are awesome. In the case that they are not I just go with it and give them shoves in the right direction without seeming like I am trying to do their job. All in all the vendors are another reason my job is awesome. I have had the pleasure of meeting so many amazing creative people in the wedding industry. I have learned so much from various vendors and have made some really great friends as well. Most of the population does not enjoy talking about weddings but I know there is a select group of creative types that do enjoy it and we are all passionate about our work in the wedding industry.
Overall I think I have a pretty amazing job. I am surrounded by beautiful people who are hopelessly in love. How could that not make a person smile.
As weddings season is drawing to a close I have been looking through all of the weddings that YWBJ coordinated this year and I must say we did some pretty amazing and pretty work. So that was the inspiration for this contest! 
