Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

For many cou­ples, pre-wed­ding anx­i­ety and last-minute plan­ning can be a se­ri­ous road­block to their dream day. Those jit­ters com­bined with the stress of plan­ning the event can be chal­leng­ing and time-con­sum­ing.

Vet­er­an wed­ding plan­ner Na­tal­ie Orr is hop­ing to guide cou­ples with a self-help book on the ‘do’s and don’t’s’ of ba­sic events man­age­ment, with val­ue for mon­ey in mind.

With over five years of pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence as a wed­ding plan­ner, Orr has seen the very best and worst ex­am­ples of wed­ding cer­e­monies and is de­ter­mined to help cou­ples say their vows in style.

Orr said her book, Plan a Wor­ry-Less Wed­ding in a Year, is in­tend­ed to take a step away from the rigid in­struc­tion man­u­al for­mat of some self-help books, by tak­ing a more per­son­al ap­proach to or­gan­is­ing events.

The CEO of Wor­ry Less Ex­pe­ri­ence Pro­duc­tions Ltd said the book is the up­dat­ed ver­sion of an ear­li­er guide, re­leased dur­ing the ear­ly days of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in 2020.

The in­spi­ra­tion came when she made notes on what de­tails could be added for a more thor­ough wed­ding ex­pe­ri­ence.

Though orig­i­nal­ly in­tend­ed to be used as a re­source for pro­fes­sion­al use, Orr saw the val­ue of writ­ing a more com­pre­hen­sive book chron­i­cling the wed­ding plan­ning process on a month-by-month ba­sis.

“It guides you on what you need to do per month, it talks about get­ting start­ed, bud­get­ing, choos­ing spe­cif­ic needs, choos­ing the right ven­dors, every­thing you need to plan your wed­ding suc­cess­ful­ly and stress-free,” she ex­plained.

“What’s unique about this book is that it not on­ly pro­vides the in­for­ma­tion is the ac­tions. There are check­lists and prompts in­clud­ed that show you what to do.

“The ti­tle is the goal which is to plan a wor­ry-less wed­ding in a year, which is the rec­om­mend­ed time-frame for a suc­cess­ful wed­ding.”

Of­fer­ing one tip cov­ered in her book, Orr said hav­ing a re­al­is­tic bud­get is crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of the event. But apart from the fi­nances to make a dream day a re­al­i­ty, just as im­por­tant is hav­ing the right team to or­gan­ise the cer­e­mo­ny in the lead-up to and on the day of the event it­self.

Re­fer­ring to in­stances where the bride and groom opt­ed to hire friends and fam­i­ly for dif­fer­ent roles rather than a pro­fes­sion­al, out of con­ve­nience or cost-ef­fec­tive­ness, Orr said one could not af­ford to cut cor­ners on such an im­por­tant oc­ca­sion.

“Again this is a once-in-a-life­time ex­pe­ri­ence so you need this day to run smooth­ly,” she said.

“If you put your funds and every­thing in­to some­thing, you want to en­sure the day runs smooth­ly so to me the mis­take they make is not hir­ing an ex­pert but giv­ing it to fam­i­ly and friends and I’ve heard hor­ror sto­ries about it where you re­ly on a rel­a­tive to do some­thing and they didn’t up­hold their end of the bar­gain.

“I have ven­dors call­ing me to tell me this bride is run­ning be­hind sched­ule be­cause they didn’t plan it prop­er­ly.”

She warned that fail­ure to plan in ad­vance could be more ex­pen­sive to cou­ples over the long term as they would have to spend even more mon­ey to “fix” mis­takes.

Even for cou­ples not in­ter­est­ed in a lav­ish, large-scale wed­ding, suc­cess dic­tates that prop­er plan­ning is crit­i­cal. Orr said the ad­vice in her book will save many cou­ples time and mon­ey.