Happy New Year! We hope 2008 is off to a good start for you. Rod and I thought this would be the perfect time to address the topic of "planning your wedding". We will be posting some advice or tips in the next couple of weeks that we hope will help a bride with the planning process.

The first advice or tip is about hiring a professional wedding planner to help you plan your wedding. A professional wedding planner will assist brides in all aspects of planning their weddings. They provide advice and assistance with selecting a venue,vendors,acquiring attire,invitations,decorations,music, food,as well as other aspects of the wedding. Why choose a wedding planner? Almost every bride has dreamed about her wedding day since childhood. She sees only the beauty and the glamour of being"Queen for a Day". Unfortunately, to get all the beauty of a perfect wedding day, it takes approximately 100 to 200 hours of planning. Once this is realized,this is when the panic sets in and the dynamics change. Today's bride needs to think:

1)Do I have 100 to 200 hours to plan my wedding?

2)Do I know all the best vendors that fit my vision and my budget?

3)Do I know the proper wedding etiquette?

4)Do I have the patience to deal with all the emotional personalities that are involved in every wedding?

5)Do I tolerate stress well or will I become the dreaded "Bridezilla"?

A professional wedding planner will be able to work with your budget to help create the dream of a perfect wedding day!

If you choose to plan your own wedding and to have a director for your wedding day only, make sure he or she has plenty of experience. Ask for references. We have seen weddings get a little stressful for the bride and the mother of the bride because a director is inexperienced or is not at the wedding site early enough. A director should help make sure everything runs smoothly and not add any stress to the wedding day.

A good wedding planner can help make your wedding day everything you want it to be!