Choosing A Wedding Planner

If you watched "Father of the Bride" with Steve Martin, the wedding planner played by Martin Short was a hilarious interpretation of a job that is serious business. "Frahnk" (or Frank), as he was called, flitted about managing all of the details of the elaborate wedding. But, a real wedding consultant or planner can be an invaluable tool in making your day a real joy. There are several available wedding planning books that outline all of the necessary tasks to plan a wedding and gives you a timeline. While it's great information for learning what nedds to be done, it will not do any of the jobs for you. An average wedding take around 200 hours to plan. Can you spare 200 hours. A wedding planner can take care of all of the legwork for you so that you can go on with your life and enjoy the planning process.

Many brides assume a wedding planner is an expensive luxury. However, often a good wedding planner can save you both time and money.

How do you shop for a wedding planner? Just as you should do when you look for any type of service professional, you can ask friends and family for recommendations. If you can get a word-of-mouth referral, this is better than an advertisement. If you don't know anyone who has used a planner, you can always look in local bride publications and bridal shows.

Once you have a few potential leads you will need to interview the wedding planner candidates. You are hiring them for an important job, and you need to have confidence that they share your "vision" for your special day. See how willing they are to take suggestions and see what they will do with the ideas that you already have. Do they have doubts about their ability to fulfill your needs? This is a yellow flag, but see why they have concerns before you make a judgment. Once you have interviewed a few planners you are ready to make your decision and get to work.

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DON'T WAIT. Good wedding planners and vendors are often booked a year or more in advance. The sooner you contact them, the more they will be able to do for you.

Most wedding consultants charge a fee of around 10 percent of the cost of the wedding. This is standard-and it is worth it for the peace of mind it will give you. At Pierce Events we provide service discounts from vendors that often can off set the planner cost.

Meet your perspective planner, ask plenty of questions and ask for images of weddings they have done in the past. Do not be shy about contacting references. The planner you choose will be an important partner. You should trust and be comfortable with that person.

We would be honored to speak with you about your wedding day an answer all of your question. We invite you to contact us.

Pierce Events offers complete event planning, production and management services for corporate, social and non-profit events. For more information and other helpful tips visit our website at www.pierceevents.net

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Choosing A Wedding Planner

The Power of Live Entertainment at Special Events

It has been more than 25 years since Guy Laliberté first formed Cirque du Soleil from a band of colorful street performers in Quebec and, it seems, almost as long since cirque-style shows started showing up at events. Why do cirque acts stay strong? Maybe it's because no other type of entertainment is at once so physically primal and so perfectly adaptable to corporate messaging. Oh — and let's not forget the awesome costumes.


Michael Manzenet of Los Angeles-based cirque company Wonderworld Entertainment says that in an event market where every vendor must justify its price, “The value of cirque entertainment is the ‘wow’ factor” — its ability to capture and hold attendees' attention. His troupe's formidable talents — many members hail from Cirque du Soleil productions including Mystere, O and Ka — are particularly well-suited to distraction-packed environments such as trade shows, where aerialists performing on logo-imprinted lengths of chiffon and acrobats handling delicate or technologically complex new products are highly effective at drawing in show-goers. “If your booth has quality [performers] showcasing your products, it's going to get noticed,” Manzenet states. “Crowds will come and expand your customer base.”

For internal corporate events, particularly incentive and sales programs, cirque performances — which showcase mere mortals overcoming such huge obstacles as gravity itself — can be “extremely motivating,” says Sam Trego of San Diego-based Imagination Entertainment, which stages both public and private-event cirque and Broadway-style productions. He points out that pacing and location of entertainment — whether the client selects Imagination's popular Viaggio by Il Circo extravaganza or a slightly less death-defying musical theater production — is key. “Placing the right entertainment in the right place in the event will always lead to a desired response,” he notes. “I will always remember what a rather well-known insurance meeting planner told me about our shows: ‘Sam, your shows are the golf of our program.’ I said, ‘Golf?’ She said, ‘Absolutely. Your show productions create a feeling level in my audience that is conducive to good business. You have no idea how much money we make because of the good feeling you create in the ballroom with your shows.’

Pierce Events offers complete event planning, production and management services for corporate, social and non-profit events. For more information and other helpful tips visit our website at www.pierceevents.net ◦

The Power of Live Entertainment at Special Events