By Nasreen Faiz

I was 19 when I got married. Planning my wedding alone was a bumpy ride; not knowing what services I needed, where to find them, or even who to trust. On the day of my wedding, I was miserable for a good portion of the night. Why? I was marrying the love of my life, Alhumdulillah, shouldnt I have been over the moon happy? Not so much.

When I was getting ready at the salon, I was alone because my mom and sister had to get pre-Reception work done at home.

While at the salon, each time I got a quick break, I furiously sent a text to my cousins, uncles, siblings to see how things were getting along at the hall. Was the decor done? Were the center pieces set up the way I wanted? Had the photographers arrived to take pictures of the hall? Boy, was it one stressful time! To make matters worse, I was coming from Scarborough heading over to Mississauga – the 401 was packed! I knew I was going to be an hour late at the very least and had to trust my 14 year old brother to setup the reserved tables and settings!

Finally, once I did get to the hall, the entire night all I could was sit on the stage and watch helplessly as my parents ran around working instead of enjoying the night their eldest of four got married.

My family was more than happy to do this, and I can’t thank Allah enough for blessing me with having such a supportive family, but I did feel horrible seeing that they couldnt relax. It was at that moment I realized, I wanted to be a professional Wedding Planner and Coordinator- no one should feel this way!

Wedding Planners?

So what exactly does a wedding planner do, and more importantly, do you need one?

In all honestly, not everyone needs to hire a wedding planner. However, you’ll never find someone who has and regretted it.

If you have a great support system, and they want to play a very active role within your wedding, then hiring a wedding coordinator may not be for you.

Do you need one?

Here are a few reasons why someone would consider hiring a planner,  even if it’s just for the day of:

Time: You just don’t have enough time to plan a wedding. It takes an average of 250 hours to plan a wedding and with either a full time job, school or  other commitments it can be difficult to find the time.

Vision: You want to find the right vendors to create your vision within your budget.

I certainly wouldnt say the wedding industry is over-saturated by any means but there are a lot of options out there. How do you decide who to hire? More importantly, who can you hire within your comfort level for budget.

Family: You want your family and yourself to be stress free.

In all honesty, I find the last option to be usually the biggest deciding factor for majority of Muslim weddings that I have done. The decision to bring on a wedding planner usually stems from the want to have your friends and family relax on the day of. Instead of your cousins having to rush down to the banquet hall to set the favours and get everything ready for your arrival, you have someone else taking care of it while you spend time with family.

What they do

Heres a list of a few responsibilities you can expect a wedding planner to take care of for your big day:

• Timeline/ itinerary creation for both family and vendors
• Floor plan and seating arrangements
• Venue setup, including placing favours, folding napkins, setting up the receiving table, cake table etc.
• Working directly with the venue staff to ensure everything is on time
• Dealing with any and all problems that may arise without having to worry the couple or the family
• Coordinating setup times with different vendors so that everything is ready for the wedding

Many coordinators will bring emergency kits with them, so that they are ready to table any issue that may arise.

At the end of the day, the role of a planner would be to make sure everything runs smoothly, family and friends have a great time and that the couple can just sit back and relax.

About the Author:

Nasreen Faiz, WPICC is a professional Wedding Planner and Designer with her own business, Rangeen Weddings.

You can see snippets of their work on Instagram.

Image: 123RF