I'm a mid-level getting married in 3 weeks and I'm officially climbing the walls because I cheaped out on hiring a wedding planner. I'm organized, I said. I'm good at planning and run M&A deals for a living, I said. I have a supportive future spouse (who is also in big law), I said. It's so much money (we got quotes between $15k and $35k), I said. All true but somehow all insufficient.
Everyone told me to hire one, including colleagues at my firm. They were all right. We were okay on finding vendors and negotiating the contracts initially. But now that we're close and it's all final details that can't be done in advance, having another person to handle all of the unbelievable minutia would be life saving. Having a wedding is like having an extra deal to run but no juniors. Hire the damn junior. Let them handle the calendar reminders, making the timelines, drumming up the specialist teams (florist, photographer, DJ, catering, environmental (maybe not the last one)). I'm not even particularly busy right now (20-30 hours billed a week), and yes my fiance is proactively running with several workstreams, and this is still a massive lift on top of regular life. I've followed up 4 times in the last 2 weeks with my venue and still haven't heard back. We're saving $20k and I'm miserable.
Hire the damn wedding planner. And better yet, ask your colleagues who got married in your wedding location who they used because they probably had someone decent.