Finding your Right Wedding Planner
- Soymarieta Wanders
- Feb 4, 2019
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 28, 2019
There's a lot to choose from when it comes to deciding who your wedding planner should be. But what are the things you need to look out for?
How to get in touch with a Wedding Planner?
Joseph and I started to find wedding planners in Dec 2017. Right after we got the dates on when we should be holding the two weddings. We didn't have a wedding planner in Singapore, but we sure needed one in Manila.
I started sending Facebook messages/email enquiries with the following format: (We were looking through 9 wedding planners via Facebook; and I sent 4 emails)
"Hi Good evening, I am looking for a wedding planner and would like to check for your rates and packages if you may. We are based in Singapore and these are the details: Date: January 2019
Location (Church and Reception): San Agustin Church / Reception: (We are looking for a good reception that is nearby the church) *
How many pax: 120-150
Email address:
Contact no.:
Name of the couple:
*at this time (Dec 2017 - Jan 2018) Conrad Hotel wasn't in our list.
How do you know it's the right one?
So, I did my research on which ones are the good to best wedding planners: You can easily Google it.
Since there's a lot of Wedding Planning services in Manila, we were very weary of the news we hear and see from Manila: Wedding planning scams.
We knew we have to find the right one. Here are the things we took into consideration:
Do your research well. Some wedding planners are just expensive. So, what are the things that make the difference? Well, Small things matter, like what? If you send an enquiry, how long do they get back to you? Is it within the day, the day after, within the week, not at all? You’re planning for your big day. So, it’s important that you get a wedding planner that is efficient and shows that they truly care for you.
Look at their website. - As a couple who is not based in Manila, we have to look out for their website. Is the website good? Who were their previous clients? Remember, you are going to trust them with your big day, you will have to deposit money to their bank account so that they can pay your suppliers/ church, what ever.
Research. Research. Research. You can decide if the Facebook webpage is good enough (Read the reviews of the previous clients), Instagram, social media accounts, they have to be active to be searchable online to breakthrough to international market.
When you do enquire, their email address should be legit. If their services are more than PHP 50,000.00 , they should be using their own domain. Not “@gmail.com”, “@yahoo.com”, or whatever free online account. You are paying them, signing up for Facebook and Instagram is already free, and they are charging you with a "not so small amount", they should know that they should use a proper domain. (Remember: Small things matter)
So, a day after I enquired to their FB messenger, and I received an email with their quotation. Right after that, I also received a message through Whatsapp, stating that they sent me the email and just wanted to follow up.
I was actually the one who took a long time to reply as we were in the midst of deciding which one should we choose, since some are also doing some follow ups with us. It was a week after browsing through the quotes each wedding planner sent, and we decided to have a Skype meeting with Ms. Rita.
We had other options in mind, some are very well known: But they choose to "seen-zoned" my inquiry (Disclaimer: seems like my enquiry is not legit enough to them); some are my friend's wedding planner (In which: it became too expensive, maybe because of inflation rate?); and some are random suppliers I found from Bride and Breakfast website with good reviews.
Can't blame the suppliers who didn't respond since I messaged them only from Facebook Messenger.
*We were also thinking if we should do it in Bicol, but we figured it's too far and ambitious considering other costs.
So, we chose Rita Neri Event Planners: Why? What makes them different from other wedding planners?
Apart from the fact that they have been in the industry for 25 years, here is our checklist:
Are they efficient in replying to enquiry? (Check)
Are they polite and gracious when talking to you and suppliers? (Check)
Are they expensive or reasonable? (reasonable)
Do they have a legit domain for handling the enquiry? (Yes) - Actually, this is the part that made the difference. Among the premium wedding planners that we have enquired for, they are the only one who actually have a legit domain. The rest, they are asking from PHP75,000 - PHP 180,000 for wedding planning services, yet, they use mostly “@gmail.com”. They didn't have a proper domain. *Joseph told me, small things matter. He said: "Why would they charge such amount if they don't use a proper domain?"
Once we have booked them, they are very efficient in making reservations for our church, hotels, bands, videographers, etc.
During the first week that we hired them, they immediately booked San Agustin for us! Which is the only choice for the church. (No other church I’ll get married at, but San Agustin Church), and they made it happen!
And the rest was history, they did everything possible; to the best of their abilities to support us, and be a helping hand. Jhane was our account manager, and she did nothing but wonderful.
I can't say there were no hiccups, but they were on the ball when we were having issues with our other suppliers. And we can only remember the what they made us feel: We felt loved. RNEP team were transparent in terms of money/ transactions. We trusted them with our account and we didn't regret a single thing. As a couple, it's one of the best decision we've ever made.
On the day of our wedding, I can't remember any panicky moment (thank you to our Entourage as well, and to our trusted suppliers), because I knew that we were well taken care of.
Ms. Rita and Neri were there too, ensuring that everything is organised and according to plan.
It was indeed a money well spent with RNEP team!
Thank you for making our dream wedding come true!
Love you lots!
Rita Neri Event Planners website: http://ritanerieventplanners.com/
With Love,
Joseph and Marieta
05.Jan.2019
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