Choosing a wedding planner and location?

                            

The First Steps......

After you’ve researched potential wedding planners and narrowed down your list to, say, three, it’s important to make contact and conduct a question/answer session. The planner will need to know things like guest headcount, potential location desires, catering wishes, etc. in order to put together a basic service proposal and estimate the cost of your wedding. You’ll need to know about the planner’s experience, basic event rates, availability, etc.

Please note that, unless you have a ‘sky is the limit’ budget, a cost estimate is virtually impossible if information, numbers and details are not shared from the start. 

Our first consultation usually happens via email, Skype or telephone conversation. we have some very basic questions that we ask our potential clients, and which they should be ready to answer:

1) Where?

2) When?

3) How many guests?

4) How large is your budget?

5) Anything you can’t do without?

And we understand that you have questions too. 

Where do you want to get married?

Only know that you want to get married in Tuscany but are not sure exactly where? That’s fine. We have a broad knowledge of the region and its most beautiful destinations. During our conversation, we can help guide you to the most perfect venues and areas that make sense for you, your family and your friends. Some things that can help us narrow down the search: Any favourite areas which hold emotional value for you and/or your partner? Would you prefer to have your wedding on a sailing vessel, on the coast or in the countryside? Should the location(s) be in the thick of the city or off the beaten path?

When are you getting married?

Summer 2016 is a starting point, but we would like you to give at least two potential wedding dates; exact dates that can be identified clearly on a calendar.

Without specific dates to start from we can’t tell you whether we are available to work with you, much less work up the estimated costs, research venue/catering possibilities, and so on.

Something to consider: a low season wedding is less expensive than a wedding in the high season, and a weekend wedding is more expensive than on a weekday. Additionally, in terms of hotel/travel costs, these considerations could make a great difference when enticing your guests to attend.

What does your guest list look like?

The size of the guest list will impact your choice of the venue as well as the overall budget.

We suggest that you first speak to your family and friends, so that you can create a list of actual attendees. This helps everyone to be on the same page and minimise those unexpected and dreaded last-minute additions during the planning.

If this is not discussed in advance, inflated headcounts can easily double the budget.

How about your budget?

We’re all brought up to know that discussing the price of (most) things is tactless. However, this social rule does not apply to hiring a wedding planner. We will ask you frankly about your budget from the very start, and it’s vital to know this information so that we can get things started in the right direction.

We make it a point to provide you with realistic quotes. If you have a strict budget, we will let you know immediately so that you can look for other options. 

Keep in mind that our first estimate will not be exact. Alterations to the concept budget come down to adjusting the guest list, having more than one venue involved or adding more services. Through it all, we go out of our way to keep a running realistic concept budget.

What can you absolutely not do without?

You probably already have a list of the things that you really can’t do without on your wedding day.

For example, if you need a kosher catering service we want to make sure that we propose trusted caterers; if you have a guest who needs medical assistance we will give that person more personal attention; if you want sheer exclusivity we will only review private properties that are closed to the general public.

Knowing your can’t-do-withouts is useful to us, helps us to even better estimate how much your dream wedding can cost and the best suited venues to offer. 

We, at Original Tuscan Wedding, with our 12 years of experience in the field with our own company, want to help you make your wedding day a special, positive experience. 

We look forward to hearing from you!

info@originaltuscanwedding.com