Hiring a wedding planner for your wedding abroad

Following on from their success in America, wedding planners are growing in popularity for UK couples who are getting married. They are especially popular with couples who are planning to get married abroad.

The packages which wedding planners offer can be tailored to your needs. A planner can manage every last detail of you wedding abroad if you choose, or they could just help you out with selected areas, such as organising your ceremony abroad and handling the legal side of things.

Pros and Cons of hiring a wedding planner to organise your wedding abroad

Pros

  • If you and your partner are pushed for time when it comes to balancing everyday life and planning your wedding abroad, a wedding planner can ease the stress and save you a lot of time and effort.
  • Wedding planners have a lot of contacts in the industry and can often get discounts with suppliers to bring down the cost of your wedding abroad.
  • Some wedding planners specialise in weddings abroad, and even in particular destinations. A planner with this specialist knowledge can be a real asset to a couple who want to get married somewhere unfamiliar to them.
  • If you have certain family members keen to meddle and take over the planning of your wedding abroad, a wedding planner can be a tactful way of sidestepping any potential awkwardness.
  • A wedding planner will have been involved in lots of different weddings and can often give you innovative, economical and unusual ideas for your wedding abroad that you wouldn’t have even thought of yourself.
  • One of the main things many couples worry about when planning a wedding abroad is the legal side of things. A wedding planner can take of all this for you and alleviate your fears.

Cons

  • Whichever way you look at it wedding planners do cost money, and a good planner won’t come cheap. If you’ve decided to get married abroad to economise you may be put off by this. At the end of the day you have to weigh up whether the budget for your wedding abroad can accommodate a wedding planner. Do bear in mind their industry discounts and the range of packages available.
  • By hiring a wedding planner you may worry that you’d be losing control of your wedding abroad. A good planner will work alongside you, rather than taking over and making decisions without consulting you. They should offer you options and choices and will be happy for you and your partner to have input.

Choosing a wedding planner for your wedding abroad

If you’ve decided a wedding planner is for you, the next step is to choose the right one to plan your wedding abroad.

Ask for recommendations from friends and family, particularly if they used a good planner for their wedding abroad. If you don’t know anyone who has been married abroad there are loads of wedding abroad forums online where experienced brides are happy to share knowledge with those who are just planning their wedding abroad.

Ask for the wedding planner’s credentials, for example how many weddings they have planned and on what scale. Look for someone with experience that matches your needs. Ask the wedding planner for testimonials from previous couples, and especially from couples they have helped to get married abroad.

Look out for planners with experience of planning weddings abroad, or one that specialises in this market. There are a number around. Speaking the language of the destination of your wedding abroad can be a real bonus as well so look out for credentials like this.

Your wedding planner may be based in the UK or in the country where you have chosen to get married abroad.