PLANNERS ARE THE ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL IN THE WEDDING INDUSTRY | A COVID-19 ANALYSIS

WEDDING PLANNERS ARE NOT A LUXURY

If COVID-19 has demonstrated anything about the event industry, it has shown a group of dedicated professionals engaging their crisis communication skills full force.  Planners are at the pinnacle of this effort, after all, it is their job. During this unprecedented circumstance, planners have gone from working with couples on logistics and aesthetics of their weddings to abruptly changing course to guide, offer reassurance, lend an ear so they can vent, and provide a calming presence to their couples they deeply care about with the hard decisions they have needed to make regarding postponement. 

But just like the general workforce is separating essential and non-essential personnel this has been the case in the event industry as well.  While venues temporarily close due to mandate and lay off a good portion of their staff while we all wait this out, a good number of couples have been forced to navigate their options on their own if they don’t have a planner. Where events and weddings are concerned, planners ARE the industry’s essential personnel, not an optional luxury. In these situations, this is exactly why planners exist to be of service.  They oversee the vendor team and the event itself with the venue, which also means the communication between the parties, and they do it with a level head, seasoned expertise and they can pivot quickly with resources at their fingertips.  This is what they do on a daily basis.  Their value is oftentimes questioned and realized after the fact or, in times like this, realized when there isn’t one and couples desperately need it most to help them make sense out of a heartbreaking and overwhelming situation. Temecula-area wedding and boudoir photographer, Allie Lindsey, has been experiencing both scenarios first-hand with her couples, as she explains below:

“My intention is always to help my clients to the best of my capabilities, but that has taken on new meaning in the last few weeks. I was faced recently with the daunting task of having to help my clients navigate selecting a new wedding venue. While I may have lots of insight into locations to choose from, that is when my understanding of booking venues ends. During the COVID-19 scenario I have faced two different scenarios repeatedly. The first .. is my couples who have an event planner. This service has been invaluable, not just to my clients who rely on the expertise of a planner to help them navigate the changes, but to myself, as a photographer, whose job is not to re-plan someone's wedding. I am thankful that I can maintain my role to my clients that they hired me to perform because the planner is maintaining the role they were hired for as well. The second, is my couples who had a coordinator provided by a venue, and does not offer assistance in rescheduling. In this scenario my couples have reached out to me for help. While I adore and love my clients, what they are not aware of is they are essentially asking me to perform a job I am not skilled at, and I am not compensated for. This scenario is frustrating at best. I want to do my best to be of service, but this is not the service I offer. Like the sinking titanic, while I have always said I will play until the ship goes down, I am only one part of the band ensemble. The band leader (EVENT PLANNER) is essential in the process of planning a wedding, and navigating all the possibilities that arise during the processes. An event planner is a necessity, in all wedding scenarios, but as a fellow creative I can't stress enough. They are essential for when things do not always go as planned. And when does life every actually go as planned?” 

No one knows what our events will look like and what our new normal will be on this other side of this, but we do know one thing, the cream always rises to the top, and those planners in the trenches who have helped their couples best navigate through this will have earned their stripes, proven their value and come out stronger in the end.

Published on Real Weddings of Temecula