Lehigh County Health & Medicine Fall 2019 - 13

L C M E D S O C .O R G

And, we wanted to understand particular
challenges that may pop up while juggling a
busy medical career with the job of thinking
about and planning for a wedding, especially
if the union includes not one, but two
medical professionals.
Nearly 40 percent of physicians marry other
doctors or medical professionals, according to
the American Medical Association.
To learn those things and more, we went
to the pros - wedding planners who have
worked with doctors and doctors' families to
plan memorable weddings, while helping to
keep everyone sane along the way.
FINDING TIME TO PLAN
Practicing physicians normally spend long
days in hospitals or offices, and evenings can
be consumed with catching up with email,
messages from patients and colleagues and
other work. Planning for a wedding - even
thinking about planning for a wedding - can
seem overwhelming.
While many people dream of planning
every detail of their own wedding, for others
it's simply not a practical goal and the task
of planning the event becomes frustrating
and overwhelming.
Finding time to plan can be equally, or
even more difficult for medical students and
residents. If there's any way you can manage
it financially, it may be well worth your time
and money to hire some help, advised Amy
Jones, owner of Philadelphia-based Amy
Champagne Events.
"Trying to manage and handle all the details
of an event with multiple vendors when you
already have an extremely demanding schedule
could take the enjoyment out of the process
and the event," Jones said. "As the wedding
approaches, it's important for the couple to
use their down time doing things they enjoy
instead of being consumed with a multitude
of wedding tasks."

THE DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF
WEDDING PLANNERS
There are many types of wedding planners,
from full service to someone who steps in
to help on the day of the event. There are
planners and designers and event stylists and
coordinators. Here's a rundown:
Full service. A full-service planner is with
you from the very beginning until the wedding
is a memory. The planner can help you draft a
budget; find a venue, come up with a timeline;
and recommend, hire, and manage vendors.
He or she will be on site the day of the wedding
to assure that everything goes smoothly.
Partial planner. This is someone who takes
some aspects of planning off of your plate,
but is not responsible for handling all of the
wedding plans. For instance, a partial planner
might identify and negotiate with vendors who
meet your needs, but not be responsible for
site planning, menus or day-of management.
Day-of planner. Also called a wedding day
manager, this type of planner understands your
vision of exactly what you want the wedding
to look like and how it should proceed, and
works on the day of the event to make sure
that happens.

visuals and making sure that everything
is perfect.
Merida Alexander, owner of Philadelphia-area Events by Merida, urged those
planning a wedding to at the very least hire a
day-of-planner to manage details on the day
of the wedding.
"Even if you don't need a full-service planner,
please have a day-of coordinator so you and
your family can be present and have fun on
your wedding day," Alexander said. "They'll
help you take care of all the little details and
help you when things go wrong. Remember
that you don't get a do-over."
PLANNING A WEDDING ON A BUDGET
Planning a big, fancy wedding can be exciting
and great fun, but not if you're stressed out
about every dollar you're spending and not sure
how you'll pay your rent, much less come up
with money for a dress, flowers and all the
other wedding essentials.
It's no secret that medical school is expensive,
and many students, residents and young
doctors have very significant student debt.

With the average cost of a wedding at
more than $35,000 you need to decide what
Month-of coordinator. A month-of co- makes sense for you and what you can afford.
ordinator works with you for a prescribed Don't be pressured into spending more than
amount of time, typically for four to eight is reasonable for you. It will only prove to be
weeks before the wedding. So, you'd find and stressful and put you even further into debt.
negotiate with vendors, locate a venue, plan a
menu and so forth, leaving the coordinator to
Having said that, however, as long as you're
step in and handle any last-minute problems going to be spending money, look for a credit
or overlooked details that pop up close to the card with a great rewards incentive and charge
wedding day. The coordinator also would be all your wedding expenses to it to reap the
on hand the day of the wedding.
benefits. Just be sure you know how you're
going to pay the bill when it comes due.
Event manager. An event manager also
typically comes on board later in the planning DESTINATION WEDDINGS
process to do things like review final contracts
About 25 percent of all U.S. weddings these
with vendors, schedule and run a final venue days are destination weddings, and they bring
walk through, take care of last minute details with them a whole other set of opportunities
and manage the rehearsal, wedding day and and challenges.
any other wedding events.
A new subset of wedding planner is the
Stylist. Some people hire a stylist in addition destination planner, who scouts out locations
to a planner. A stylist pays attention to every and venues in far-flung locations when you're
detail of the event, focusing on design and
Continued on page 14
FALL 2019 | Lehigh County Health & Medicine 13

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Lehigh County Health & Medicine Fall 2019

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