Articolo disponibile anche in: Italian
With the new year just started, we’d like to tell you something more about our work, because we realise that there are still many misconceptions about our profession, one that can at times be carried out in a less than professional way.
Firstly, we’d like to point out that… . We are not “the people who arrange flowers on the tables”. Before, during and even after the weddings, we’re the ones who work hours and hours, even at night, to make sure everything runs smoothly.
Having many customers who live at the other end of the world, we often have to be available during the night, answering customers’ emails or speaking on the phone with them.
We’re constantly travelling around to deal with suppliers, negotiating prices and conditions with them, and looking for new ones.
Because, no matter how many people you know, there’s always some customer who is looking for that particular and special detail that you need to arrange.
For all these reasons, we work long hours in the office, answering questions, asking people for things, making quotes, drawing up budgets.
Our duties also include visiting the facilities, on our own or with the customers, checking the quality of the food, services, transportation and so on.
And this is just the work we do “upstream”. Following this we have to work up the quotes of the various services (venue, catering, flowers, music, lights, makeup and hair, tours and accommodation), and prepare a complete project plan for the event, agreeing details, setting up times, and organising people.
And yet we’re only just getting started. We must then check that all payments had been made, and, as the day of the event is approaching, that everything is ready.
On the wedding day, everything has to run smoothy, everyone must know what to do, where and when. We know that something unexpected is always bound to happen: rain, a tear in the dress, traffic, anything.
And we’re there, with smiles on our faces. Even if something truly out-of-the-ordinary happens, somehow we always resolve it, without anyone noticing anything and we’ll talk about it once the wedding is over.
In the end, some details can really rattle your nerves, a simple broken heel can turn into a drama… .
This is why our job requires experience, professionalism, and hours and hours of work. It’s not a part-time job, it’s not about “arranging the flowers”, on the contrary it involves a great deal of preparation, and you need organisational and communication skills, flexibility and problem solving, technical and language skills, and also empathy.
The qualities you need are endless and you never stop learning. We’re thankful for being part of an important group like the Italian Event Planners Group, made up of real professionals in this sector, always growing and improving. They have been, and still are, our motivation to keep getting better.
In this sector nothing can be improvised and you don’t become a Destination Wedding & Event Planner with a few hour long lessons, nor by organising any event in your spare time while having another job.
Let’s take one of last year’s weddings as an example. A couple called us only 3 weeks before the “big day”, because their original wedding planner had only confirmed the photographer by then.
The couple was obviously desperate and so we took the job, despite the fact that normally the organisation of a wedding event requires over a year, to be perfected in all its aspects.
The result is in their feedback and in the photographs we show. This result can only be achieved with experience and professionalism, as well as with good and solid relationships with our suppliers.
We’d like to take this opportunity to invite everyone to come and visit us on the occasion of the opening of our Studio in viale Vittorio Veneto 80 (Galleria delle Cantine, Floor 1), in Greve in Chianti, next Saturday, January 26th, starting at 4.30pm.
Simonetta Paoli & Debora Chioccini
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