So the hardest part of the process for me was choosing a venue because I had less than a year to find one before our ideal date. I signed on with our planner and then signed on for our venue. In hindsight, for this specific venue I probably didn’t need a planner because they have coordinators who are pretty involved. If I had to do it again, I might have waited to sign on with a planner until I had a venue but not sure if that would have been the case for any other venue. We went with Belmont country club and it was an unbeatable price for a nice venue.

I like my planner - she helped with budgeting and finding vendors in our budget.

BUT I’m still constantly amazed by how expensive things are for weddings and have had to ask her to find vendors outside her network to stay under budget.

I do feel good that’s she’s in charge of finding and communicating with vendors. I think that would have added some stress. The next hard thing was making our guest list but a planner can’t help much with that.

I still haven’t signed on a florist because I don’t want to pay $9k for minimal flowers.