Comments from Wedding Planners in Marbella

As expected I have received many responses to my recent blog posts and today was no exception as it is such a contraversial subject.

Lisa from Bella Weddings sent us her comments and felt by blogging about this subject, that we were damaging the reputation of many honest wedding planners that are working hard to bring integrity to the wedding industry here on the Costa Del Sol.

This is not the case at all and there are many fabulous wedding planners here, including Lisa, that offer a fantastic service to her clients.

Lisa also felt that as we were not in her suppliers list that she was insinuated as being one of those planners.

There are so many talented people here all offering a wide range of services for weddings and parties that it would be short sighted to think if a supplier is not on a wedding planner´s preferred list of vendors is purely based on the commission policy.

There are many planners here that use the suppliers they know and trust, will deliver a good service and work within their client´s budgets, a good planner will maximise the wedding budget and select the right supplier and gain as much added value as they can for their clients.

Whilst I have covered this sensitive subject, the commission structure that is in place is a dying breed now thanks to the wedding industry recognising it´s professional obligations to clients and the competitive nature of the business.

Hiring a Wedding Planner in Marbella Part 2

Yesterday I wrote a blog post about hiring a wedding planner in Marbella and bought up a very controversial subject covering the whole business of brown envelopes and commissions, referral fees, whatever you would like to describe them as.

I have been trail blazing this subject here in Marbella.

I am not the most popular person here at the moment with some people, but today I received so many messages and emails about this sensitive subject I thought I would do a follow up post with some of the feedback I have had. It has to be honest been very interesting and I was not expecting this sort of response.

One of our 2010 brides sent me this interesting email today which stood out and sums up the sorts of messages I have received today, it is edited of course to avoid naming and shaming. We decorated this wedding but did not plan it and have since become good friends, as I do with many of my brides.

Hi Laura
I read your blog post last night on Wedding Planners in Marbella and was super impressed by your honesty, it took guts to write that blog and well done to you for unveiling what is truly a hideous reality with wedding planners. I was nodding my head in agreement with every word you wrote. This is exactly why I fell out with one planner and the other left me with a bad taste in my mouth......the merry go round of wedding industry commissions and brown envelopes is so incredibly unfair on the person who is keeping everyone in business and that person is the bride, so that is what I call integrity, well done to you.

I do understand the other viewpoints to this subject that have been argued with me and so I will raise them as it is only fair to do so.

If you are new to this business and an established wedding planner is promoting you, then perhaps you need to pay them or reward them with a referral fee, it is another form of advertising and marketing, no different to paying for an advert in a magazine or perhaps paying for an online sponsorship on a blog, internet site, etc.

Perhaps a planner wants to keep their fee down in order to get business, so when the client contacts them initially they seem affordable, but they are making their money through the supplier bookings.

All the above I think are acceptable if the planner is transparent and tells the client this is how they run their business and makes their money, it is then left up to the client if they are happy to proceed with their services.

What I do disagree with is when it is all hidden, when the planner is selecting suppliers for their client based purely on how much money they will make and not because it is the right supplier for that wedding. When they do not disclose to the client that they are taking commissions, I cannot possibly see how this would be conducive to a good client relationship and is not in the clients best interests at all as many good suppliers are completely sidelined in favour of who pays the most.

Do all these planners really think their clients are that stupid?
Do the clients really think they are getting a fabulous wedding planner for 500 euros?
Perhaps it is the two parties combined that prefer to move on with their eyes shut, I am never sure!

There is the other side, as a supplier when you start to realise your business is being controlled by a planner, they start to tell you what they want for their clients and you are also paying them for the privilege? You find yourself eventually just running a bolt on company for them and making their weddings look amazing!

I suppose 4 years down the line, I am lucky, I run a unique business that has been very successful and now do not need to rely on referrals, I am able to stick my neck out and say enough is enough.

I am grateful to all the planners that choose to still continue to recommend us but it does work both ways, we make their weddings go from Ok and average, to looking amazing and this is what sells their company, without the fab flowers, decorations and details and the fantastic photography they would have nothing to show their clients, perhaps they need to start paying us instead!!!!

Tomorrow I promise I will be back with pretty inspirations, I guess after a fairly interesting year I have had to get this off my chest.

My final note with this whole commission thing is that in the very busy month of June when we had over 20 weddings and I was literally working an 18 hour day and sleeping and dreaming weddings and on a hugely excited creative roll, I had one planner who had probably 2 weddings in June, chasing me for 15 euros constantly every day, I was gobsmacked and found it really quite draining and sad, I think it was this that made me throw the towel in and start to think about things, can you blame me!!!

I will continue to wave my magic wand here and spread lots of glitter and fun over our weddings in Marbella.

Hiring A Wedding Planner in Marbella

Google Weddings in Spain and a whole host of websites will leap out at you.
Some are gruesome, some are OK, some are quite interesting and some are fab and exactly how you see your dream day in Andalucia.

The heart of Spain is a popular destination wedding area and many couples dream of a beautifully hot sunny wedding on the beach or inland in the olive groves of Andalucia.

However, for busy professional people, and perhaps, the not so busy, the thought of spending over 6 weeks, in total, planning your wedding abroad becomes an impossible task so having googled all the possibilities available to you, you finally email a few companies, not the gruesome ones! to see how much damage they will do to your already over stretched wedding budget.

(Note to most of our brides at this point H2B is normally breathing down your neck and this is usually the first potential row on the horizon as you throw your organised wedding planning role in)!

You have contemplated doing it yourself to save on money and have found enough information on the internet to book your dream day, but as the wedding planning progresses you hit a wall, run out of time and the actual thought of your mobile phone lodged firmly down the front of your wedding dress on your actual wedding day is not appealing.

Worse still the thought of your parents manning the phones is just not even thinkable let alone acceptable, if they are anything like mine they can barely text! I am not even going to go down the best mate or sister is great route this is truly not on the cards!

This is normally when the sleepless nights and nightmares start!

You have no idea whether the suppliers you have booked even exist, let alone are reliable, and of course you want to enjoy your day and not be worried and at your wits end by the time you say I do :)

Having had yet another sleepless, harrowing night you have been up early and narrowed down your top 5 websites so you throw caution to the wind and email them, you might have even been super organised and booked the venue so you google that as well to see who has worked there.

Lo and behold you get prices, information and feedback from 3 out of the 5 planners you have contacted, three super speedy and efficient planners have replied within 48 hours, tick a box, good start.

The other two will reply after your wedding whilst you are on honeymoon in the Maldives 4 months later.
We are in Spain after all said and done!

Some seem cheap, great news, some have planning added on as bolt on to their company, better still, kill two birds with one stone, well hopefully not at your wedding!
Others even offer free wedding websites, yipee yet another saving in the wild and rocky world of wedding budgets :) H2B´s are normally impressed with this one!

But what do you really want, are you really interested in a free wedding website?
Let´s face it Google offer a whole host of wedding tools including websites to help you plan your wedding. Try googling free wedding websites and you would be amazed at what pops up, but that is a different blogpost!

So you want a run of the mill wedding, a venue or a church, or both as they are offered, that obviously churns out wedding after wedding or do you want something different, tailor made, created just for you?

I would hazard a guess that the majority of couples would shout yes please it is all about us and our day, it is special but we have a budget and want to use it to the maximum.

The 10K hotel conveyor belt is looking interesting and by now quite appealing, fitting within your budget and includes, if you are lucky, a free taxi to the church but is this really you?

Finally, thank the saving grace of Google, you have found the perfect planner, they have organised lots of weddings and only charge a few hundred euros, result!

Yet, apparently they will spend about 80 man hours running around for you and organising your dream day, they will be there for at least 10 hours on your actual wedding day, will recommend and organise suppliers, pay suppliers and all the things that tick the boxes. Heaven has just landed on your doorstep and you are sold.

But hold on a minute, think about it, are they really going to run around for you and devote their life and time to you for on an average of 90 hours for 800 euros? This is less than 10 euros an hour?

No of course they are not, many planners here in Spain only work with suppliers that will offer them a commission, it is normal apparently and makes good business practise?!

I quote this from a wedding planner here who was surprised when I stated I was not offering or accepting commissions. We have since parted company needless to say as I am not feathering their nest anymore. I also did not want to jump onto yet another conveyor belt wedding scenario belting out wedding after wedding at one particular venue as this is just not our style.

So they have charged you what you think is a fair fee but are you happy in the knowledge that they are probably raking in at least another 1000 euros from all the suppliers they book for your wedding? Normally without your knowledge or disclosing to you what they are being paid from the suppliers.

Do you think this is conducive to a close working relationship? Or are you left wondering how much that wedding cake would have really cost had you booked directly or how much the DJ really charges, how much the caterers, a large budget, hand over to the planner?

Are you confident that your planner is offering you the right choices of suppliers or is merely driven by how much commission they will get and perhaps not suggesting the right person for your wedding as they don´t pay commission?

I know planners that will not recommend photographers because they make such a huge commission from one particular one that is in my opinion rubbish, but this is all the client is offered. To be honest the stories I could tell are horrifying and it abhors me that this goes on in wedding world here.

I have two sides to my business, the design, decoration and floral business is fantastic and offers an amazing range of decorations and flowers and yet many planners will not recommend us because we do not pay commissions to them but why should we.

All it means is we cut the clients budget by 10% so they are not getting their true value spent, we would have to provide something that accommodated the price not what the client was actually paying, this for me is unacceptable.

Sad but true unfortunately and yet we are unique here in what we offer, there is no one else like us that provide such a great service and encompasses so many things from chair covers and sashes, linens, vintage furniture hire, flowers, stationery the list goes on and on.

But many planners will just recommend the florist down the road because they rake in yet another 10% commission from them. Is this right?

Our planning business charges a fee for our professional services, but we do not accept commissions from our suppliers so what does this mean to you?

For me personally it means we can develop a great relationship with you, we are not hiding anything from you. We are passionate about what we do and are strict when it comes to moral business ethics, we do not accept commissions from our suppliers. If we are paid a commission that is unavoidable from a hotel or caterer or gain a discount or get a commission we give it back to our clients.

We will offer you a supplier that fits your needs not based on our personal gain and if we can get something extra for you because of our relationship with that supplier then great.

I do hope next time you google wedding planners in Spain this will make you think before you leap and although some planners might seem slightly more expensive, really think about what you want from them rather than opt for the cheap version with the free website thrown in.

I will of course do a blog post on free wedding websites shortly as well but in the meantime just check out Google Weddings :)