Professionals do it better

There are some things you need to leave to the pros.

You can collect all the pictures you want and have a wedding folder whose content could rival an encyclopaedia, but there are some things that you just need to leave to the pros. Much as I would have loved to make my own flowers, centrepieces and invitations in order to minimise the damage to my bank account, I have learned that it would be better to fork out that little bit extra and leave it to the pros.

This is where a wedding planner can save you loads, even if you're paying for their services. Wedding planners know the best of the best in the business, negotiate the best costs for their client and are the band-aids to the kinds of situations that threaten to pull you under. You don't even need to have them there for the duration of the whole planning process, utilising their services for a few sessions as a consultative measure to make sure everything you want is achievable still works wonders.

My band-aid is Danielle of Entertainment Solutions International, a trusted friend and the type of person who would fight for whatever I wanted until I was 100% satisfied with the outcome. You see that's the thing about weddings. There's a lot of push and pull, and an agenda that's not always your own. The team behind you has to be as committed to you as you are committed to your marriage.

In my short span of time as a bride-to-be, I have learnt that the best laid plans can go astray, only to be replaced with the kind of dilemmas that would have you wishing you could brave the Chapel-of-Love Vegas option no matter how much you wanted Daddy to walk you down the aisle.

Familial issues, traditions, costs and even suppliers can all threaten the beauty and harmony of a big day. To make it out of the ensuing melee unscathed, you need to step up to the plate and be prepared to jump over each and every hurdle that would inevitably come your way, no matter the consequence. You'll learn to be firm about some things, and lax about others - and that's even before you get down to organising the finer details of the whole event!
 
All may be fair in love and war. But nobody's ever said anything about weddings, which interestingly enough, fall kind of in between.