Destination Wedding: A Lesson, why you should NOT trust your Wedding Planner
Whenever somebody asked me if their can get a task to help, my answer was “just relax and enjoy, our wedding planner has everything fixed” You can imagine that this was the begin of a chaos story of our destination wedding in Spain.
We are a cross cultural couple from Iran and Chile, living in Germany and had our destination wedding in Mijas, Spain. For that reason, we NEEDED a professional Wedding planner. Having a planner is a tremendous help but our experience taught us a hard lesson:
you can’t completely lean back and trust that everything will go perfectly.
Here’s what happened when we did the mistake of trusting our wedding planner 100% and why you need to stay involved and delegate responsibilities effectively.
The Day of the destination wedding: A Series of Unfortunate Events
Late Arrival of the Setup Team
It was planned that the team will arrive early in the morning at 9 AM to prepare everything for our big day. They arrived at 1 PM, only four hours before the wedding was set to begin – far too late to set everything up properly. Of course, the planner said that they are professionals, and this is the routine, we don’t have to worry. But this rush caused significant stress and chaos. You can imagine that it didn’t worked out like promised.
Even if your wedding planner is super expensive and has glowing reviews, ask yourself if you truly trust other people’s words implicitly in any other aspect of your life.
Do you have the answer now?
Family stepping in to decorate
Due to the late arrival of the setup team, our families had to step in and help with the decorations. Despite hiring a professional decorator, we found them scrambling to get everything ready. They couldn’t get ready on time, missing out on the pre-wedding preparations and photos and constantly called me with FaceTime to check if everything is decorated as planned. But I was already in that Bridal-Bob-Marley-phase “Don’t worry about a thing…Cause every little thing’s gonna be alright…”
I’m thankful that my brother stepped in the prep room and finally gave us Champagne.
Choose someone who pops the champagne. People will forget about small but yet important things!
Food Anxiety
We asked several times if the Buffet will be enough. This was our biggest fear. But again, the answer was yes and that we will even have leftovers! Not the case. They underestimated the amount of food needed, resulting in a sparse buffet that left guests unsatisfied. When we pointed out that guests were still hungry, the planner and her team were visibly annoyed and reluctant to address the issue. One of the waitresses said that our guests eat too much! Can you believe that?
High-speed Photo Session
We had planned a special photo session with our family, a moment we were really looking forward to. We even gave our planner and photographer a photo list. However, she was insistent on sticking to the timeline, pushing us to move on to the next part of the schedule. This rush resulted in hurried photos and missing out on capturing some cherished memories with our loved ones.
Now we are planning a after shoot…
Get your closest persons to manage the photo list and tell your planner to wait. Its YOUR DAY and you can’t get another chance to get these moments shot. And believe me, the later it gets, photos will get worse.
Where is the Midnight Snack?
We had envisioned a charming Olive & Bread Bar for our midnight snack with a custom sign and detailed setup. However, instead of a beautifully arranged table, the olives were in small bowls scattered around the Hacienda, and there was no bread at all. The opulent fruit corner we planned turned into a single bowl of tiny fruit pieces. By midnight, everyone was dancing and having a great time, so it didn’t ruin the night, but it was disappointing to see our carefully planned details missed.
It is important to delegate tasks to someone close to you to ensure your vision is fully realized. NO, don’t trust your planner in that. Your close person knows you the best and can assess if you would love the setup or not.
2 major lessons...
Stay Involved
One of the biggest takeaways from our experience is the importance of staying involved in the planning process. Even with a wedding planner, you need to be proactive and ensure that all details are being handled to your satisfaction.
Delegate Responsibilities
delegate responsibilities to trusted family members or friends. Outline tasks & assign them in advance, so everyone knows their role and can step in if something goes wrong. For example, designate someone to oversee the setup, another to manage the catering, and someone else to coordinate the schedule on the day of the wedding. This way, you have multiple sets of eyes ensuring everything runs smoothly. Ten people have more eyes than one person.
After all that unfortunate events while planning our wedding – it was THE BEST wedding we (and our guests) could imagine! A little bit of Chaos is fun too, for remembering afterwards.
Check out what the beauty of Mijas has to offer at this Blogpost.
Maybe you will celebrate your own wedding in Mijas?…. Who knows…
