How Does a Wedding Planner Plan her own Wedding?
One of our own undercover superheroes, Chelsea (read more about her here!), recently went through the process of planning her own wedding. How does a wedding planner plan her own wedding? We’re so glad you asked! Lucky for you, Chelsea is sharing her experiences, expert insight and GORGEOUS photos to show us how it all went down.
From the bride:
Planning my own wedding (as a professional wedding planner) was one of the most interesting, silly, frustrating, exciting experiences of my life. My husband Taylor and I decided to have a 10 month engagement – long enough to snatch up all of our must-have vendors, but short enough that we didn’t lose our minds or overplan.
Upon first meeting our brides at The Simplifiers we always ask them what their top three most important aspects of their wedding day are. For both Taylor and I it was: 1. to make our guests feel at home and to treat them to an amazing party, 2. to have an emotional connection to the day and enjoy every moment, and 3. to share the creation of our big day with family and friends. We accomplished our goals by serving mouth-watering food, tasty drinks, and having an excellent DJ to get the party started, reminding each other throughout the wedding day to be present, and assigning tasks to anyone who expressed the desire to be involved in the DIY and planning process.
Leading up to our engagement I curated a Pinterest board. I’ve always loved the paper crane DIY idea so we decided to expand upon that focusing on details like soft, pastel colors with pops of gold, birdcage centerpieces, takeaway bird house candy favors, mismatched bridesmaid dresses, vintage decor, and an antique Bentley getaway car. We referred to the theme as “vintage lovebirds”. We also wanted touches of Parisian charm because we said our first “I love you’s” under the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower. As a wedding planner I am constantly doing research on what current trends are and dreaming up ideas for clients, so I really wanted to do something I hadn’t seen before to freshen things up a bit.
Our first plan of action was to select a venue, which we nailed down a week after we got engaged. With our vision in mind it was easy to see that Heritage House was the perfect spot, the bridal cottage was even bird-themed! It was the only place my mom cried at so I immediately knew it was the one. It was very important for us to have an emotional connection to our day, so anytime something felt “right” we just went for it. It sounds so cliche, but after we selected our venue everything just fell into place. So many of our vendor decisions came from my working experience – for instance I knew Erin at Rosehip Flora makes killer, super unique floral arrangments, Jeff at Spacecraft Entertainment has an innate sense to play the perfect song at the perfect moment, and Royal Fig makes the most amazing beef tenderloin on the planet.
Of course other elements were difficult – no wedding planning experience would be complete with a little bit of stress!! I learned that 7 bridesmaids working for 12 hours on DIY projects was not nearly enough time to complete everything I had dreamed up. I spent many nights with my mom working on things that seemed so pointless at the time, but I knew it all would pay off in the end. Of course, my biggest takeaway from any frustrating experience wedding-related was to take it all in stride and remember what it all was really about. I cherish those memories of deliriously laughing with my mom while preparing invitations because I went back to my top three and remembered that creating our day with loved ones was super important. Plus, if making 1,000 paper cranes ends up being too big of a challenge and is stressing you out just remember that you are getting to marry the love of your life and your priorities tend to settle into place.
All in all everything ending up being perfect on our big day. (Freezing rain is supposed to be good luck.. right?!) We were given the opportunity to set up the venue the day before the wedding giving me the chance to be present and see all of my favorite people on the planet help us decorate. To this day it makes me tear up just thinking about how much work everyone put into all the DIY projects, set-up, and tear down. That was SO important to me and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Spending time with my mom getting dressed, doing a version of a “first look” with my dad and bawling through his welcome speech, seeing Taylor’s face as I walked down the aisle, dancing ALL NIGHT LONG, and spending quality time with the people I love most – those are the things I will never, ever forget.
Photographer – Lisa Woods Photography – Read more about Chelsea + Taylor and see more of their wedding photos on her blog here.
Floral – Rosehip Flora
Catering – Royal Fig
China – JenMarie Vintage Rentals
Getaway Car – Antique Limousines of Austin
Dessert – Tiny Pies
Day-of Coordinator – The Chic Reception
Hair and Makeup – Erica Gray
Ceremony Musicians – Evan Lecker and Sally Kirk, (friends of the groom)
Paper Goods – hmf + design
Videographer – Brittan Pittman
Check out their wedding highlight video:
Chelsea+Taylor Wedding Highlight from Brittan Pittman on Vimeo.
The Simplifiers are Austin’s top event planning and personal concierge firm, offering full service wedding planning for luxurious events, dreamy events, quirky events and everything else in between. For more information, visit thesimplifiers.com or give us a jingle at 512.695.7744.
What a great idea to feature this! You all are full of great ideas 🙂