Today let’s sort out some misconceptions and frequently asked questions about wedding planners and day of coordinators.

Our goal is to get really clear on the difference between a wedding planner and a day-of coordinator, and to determine whether or not you really need to hire a professional to help you with your wedding plans.

When I got married, I thought you had to have a wedding planner.  I laugh looking back, because in my mind it was wedding law that to plan anything, you HAD to have a wedding planner. 

Like, I couldn’t even pick up the phone and call caterers for information and quotes, because you had to have your wedding planner do that.  So silly.  Things have come a long way, LOL! 

And not only silly, but a professional planner was completely out of our budget, and, as it turns out, totally unnecessary. 

I wasted a lot of time researching and interviewing planners before I realized that A.) I didn’t HAVE to hire anyone, and B.) John and I had all the tools we needed to plan OUR perfect wedding day.

And side note, shocker - obviously, none of the wedding planners I interviewed ever mentioned to me, hey by the way, did you know that you could actually just do this on your own?  Thankfully I came around to that, but it took lots of wasted effort and stress to get there.

So I will tell you - hey by the way, did you know that you could actually just do this on your own?

Flash forward to today - I literally created the Wedding Planning Podcast so that any engaged couple could tune in and use the episodes and the tools we review in the weekly shows to plan their own wedding - no professional or pricey wedding planner required. 

So spoiler alert before we even dive in - I definitely DO NOT think you have to spend thousands of dollars to hire a professional wedding planner! 

Some alternatives?  Try checking out the sites we mentioned in today's show, including your local Craigslist postings, taskrabbit.com and fiverr.com

I also know that there are countless wonderful wedding planning professionals out there, and for some couples it’s a really smart investment … and we’ll get into all of that that much more in today’s show.

Blog post for today's show, and free "Day Of" Checklist here!

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