You’ve said, “Yes!” and you’re ready to plan your happily ever after. Your wedding day will be the start of a new life ahead together, and you want it to be perfect. But do you hire a wedding planner or a wedding designer? Or do you hire both? Do you even know the difference between a wedding planner and a wedding designer?
Now that you’re planning your perfect day, you’ll find that you learn a lot more about just what goes into a wedding. There’s so much more to a flawlessly executed wedding than people think. It usually takes the bride’s desires, coupled with an incredible wedding planner and/or visionary wedding designer to make it happen. While a wedding designer and a wedding planner sound similar in their responsibilities, they are not. Each role is unique.
What Does A Wedding Planner Do?
In a few words, a wedding planner is all about the details. Your wedding planner will help you conceive your vision for your wedding day, and then help execute it. They take you step-by-step through the process of making your special day happen. Wedding planners are the taskmasters of all the logistics of the day. From working with each vendor on your behalf and negotiating the contracts to being there on your wedding day to make sure every single thing happens as you’ve planned. Their job is to make sure all the details go off flawlessly.
A wedding planner takes your budget and works with you within it, knowing just whom to use for whatever it is that you want, and the fact that a good wedding planner has years of experience with varied vendors means you can trust you are hiring the best vendors for your budget and vision. A wedding planner schedules everything, creates a timeline, and a game plan for what your day will look like, goes to all the venues and menu tastings with you and guides you as you create your perfect day.
They’re also the ones who coordinate hotel and transportation needs for out of town guests, oversee and manage your rehearsal so that no detail is left unanswered. On your wedding day, they’re the ones making all the moving parts you’ve put together work like a well-oiled machine. The perfect wedding planner essentially runs the day so that all you have to do is show up, look incredible, and marry the love of your life. Think of them as the stage manager.
What Does A Wedding Designer Do?
While you may think a wedding planner and wedding designer are the same or do the same things, that’s not quite accurate. The most significant difference between a wedding planner and a wedding designer is that a wedding planner has his or her hand on every aspect of your wedding from beginning to end. A wedding designer’s role in your wedding is solely to make your day look exactly how you envisioned.
Wedding designers do not typically deal with vendors or contract negotiations, nor do they attend many meetings with vendors that are not related to the visual aspect/design of your wedding. They plan with you and your wedding planner to make sure that the design decisions you make are ones that will let your day look like you’ve pictured it. A wedding designer specializes in just that—the aesthetic design aspect of your wedding—and that includes everything from the lighting to flowers to furniture and linens. Essentially, a wedding designer focuses on making your wedding a ‘brand’ unique only to you, the happy couple, and does so based on all the plans you and your wedding planner have come up with. They transform the ordinary ballroom into a magical reception area with (what seems like) the snap of their fingers and make sure your décor fits perfectly with the theme of your wedding.
A wedding designer does all of this on their own with their own creativity and vision. They do not rely on individual vendors to offer suggestions matched to your wishes. Instead, they offer YOU suggestions based on their years of creativity and expertise to create your perfect day.
You Need A Wedding Planner And A Wedding Designer
When you’re looking to create and plan your big day, it’s super convenient to find a vendor who offers both wedding planning and wedding design services. At Fir Island Floral Smith, we offer packages that allow us to help design and plan your wedding. That’s just what a hybrid wedding vendor will do—offer you the ability to work within one company for both the design of your wedding as well as the planning and management of your wedding day.
The plus to using a company that offers both design and planning is that they’re obviously used to working together and their collaboration means an even smoother process for your wedding day. That combined experience in one package means a more harmonious wedding day. When you consider going with a design and plan package for your wedding, you’re getting a cohesive team that will design your day and then also plans the logistics from start to finish.
At Fir Island Floral Smith, we can seamlessly handle every detail about your wedding—from designing the theme and style you pictured to ensuring the tines on your wedding cake forks shine. We combine our years of design and management expertise to offer you full-service wedding design and planning, which means all you have to do is dream about your new life with your best friend. It all starts with the first conversation, so give us a call today!
