You are only going to get married once (at least that is always the plan!!), so of course you want to get it right. Getting married in Portugal or any other foreign country makes planning a wedding even more difficult than it would be to get married in your home country, so the vast majority of couples use a local wedding planner to guide them through the process. In this post we are going to explain the steps we take our clients through from first contact to The Big Day itself.
First contact
Generally, the first contact we receive from a client is an email. We do our very best to answer this first email within two hours (well two hours during our working hours!) because this for us is an important statement of intent to our clients: we aim to always attend all our clients’ queries as promptly as possible throughout the wedding planning process, so it is as well to set off on the right foot! Our first email will address any specific queries that a prospective new client may have and then there is a slightly formulaic bit where we explain what we do and what the next steps are.
Filling out the form
This does not sound much fun, but we promise it is only a few basic questions about things like how many guests, your budget and some rough ideas about what kind of wedding you have in mind. This form is really important to us, because it allows us to prepare for the next stage (the online meeting) to make this time as productive as possible. Filling out a form like this can also be a useful process for the clients, because it can force them to address some issues that they may have not considered before (things like if their guests will require accommodation for example). The form is filled out online and we automatically receive a copy of it once it is complete.
The online meeting
Here one of our wedding planners will have an online meeting with you, generally for about one hour. Based on the requirements you mention in the form, we will prepare a presentation in which we outline a few venue options and a number of other things to consider. We will of course answer all sorts of questions during this meeting. As well as being potentially very informative for you, this meeting is also an opportunity for you to form an impression of what you think of us as wedding planners: if you think we are a bunch of clowns then you would do well to find someone else to plan your wedding, but hopefully we will impress you with our sincerity, knowledge and passion for all things Porto that you will decide to move on to the next step!
The first installment
By this stage we have already done a few hours work in preparing for and carrying out the first meeting, but we cannot go on indefinitely working without some sort of commitment from our clients. So at this stage we ask for a €950 payment, which is to some extent a symbolic payment to show your commitment to using us as your wedding planner – having this payment gives us the comfort to dedicate ourselves completely to the detailed work that is to come. We understand that it is not easy making this decision, but you will have to jump one way or the other in choosing your wedding planner at one stage and this is the point where we force your hand!
A lot of emails/whatsapps, meetings and perhaps a visit
Now that we have received your first payment, we can now unleash a flurry of work. Our first job is to narrow the venue options down to a couple of options and then sometimes clients want to come and visit them (either on their own or guided by us). Then there are a lot of other decisions to be made of course, but generally once we have understood the kind of thing that you are looking for, we are able to give the best suggestions for the vendors to use. We try to work with the vendors that we know and trust; we try and keep options down to a minimum, because as your wedding planner we are effectively guaranteeing the quality of service of every vendor we introduce.
More payments
Generally the venues and vendors have there own structured payment systems which we have to follow. The best venues and vendors are typically booked well in advance in wedding season, so they all require deposit payments, which can sometimes be made directly or through us.
The wedding day
Your wedding planner who will have worked with you tirelessly (!) for so long will of course be there for your wedding day from beginning to end. Our job is to make sure everything runs smoothly and to be the first point of contact if something is not right or needs to be changed, to allow you to focus on the good stuff!
If you are interested in finding out if you want to contract us for your wedding planner in Porto, then be brave and send us that first email and you can try all of this out for yourselves!
