Tuesday 18 August 2009

Can a VA run your wedding?

Planning a dream wedding can prove to be a logistical nightmare, however, there are only 3 things you need to have to run an outstanding wedding:

1. Common sense,

2. Hard work and

3. A little bit of imagination

Personally, I have made a big mistake by delegating the organisation of my wedding to 2 wedding planners. Considering that I’ve ran over 500 events myself, the only reason why I’ve delegated my wedding was because I was running 16 large projects at the time and simply did not have the possibility of taking on another “project”. The planners were given 9 months to plan the event… 3 months before the wedding I have asked them for a project plan that would list all of the updates (outstanding tasks and those already accomplished). What a shock it was to actually find out that nothing has been done apart from booking the venue, which I did myself. As it turned out, they did not even have a project plan – apparently, you don’t need one for a wedding!

Armed with 1 of VBB VAs, we’ve pulled a project plan together in the space of 2 days. By the end of the first week, all the flower arrangements were booked, the cake was chosen, the decorations were bought, invitations were sent out (we designed a hard and a soft copy in-house); the website was put together (guests do want to know what is going on) and entertainment was selected and arranged for (I was flying in 7 musicians from different parts of the world). By the end of the second week, drinks and food were selected; makeup and nail specialists (for guests and myself) were booked; local quartet was provided with the music (my wedding was to be held in Switzerland – so everything had to be done virtually); visas for all of my guests were provided; flights were booked; accommodation allocated; transportation booked; menus designed and printed; photo/videotographers booked; wedding outfits bought; presents selected and guests were communicated regarding the events to take place over the weekend. Having finalised all my wedding preparations within this short time, all that I had left to do for the rest of the 2.5 months leading up to my wedding, was to spend 1 hour a week just keeping an eye on the developments and sorting out any of the arising little issues.

Therefore, my honest opinion is: a virtual assistant can run your wedding. In fairness, event management is not a very difficult task – it’s just hard work. I also do not believe that it takes more than 1 month to organise every single detail of the event even if you are dealing with something as complex as running a wedding in a foreign country. As long as the venue is booked and the entertainment is selected – everything else is a “piece of cake”. On the plus side, VAs do not charge you as much as the wedding planners would, as we are used to getting things done very quickly and efficiently. It is our job to make sure that you are happy and we make every effort so that every single penny you spend on the planning is made worthwhile by working as hard as possible to protect you from the organisational hassle. To ensure that everything runs smoothly on your wedding day we will fly out to the wedding itself to run the operational side of the event for you.

Armed with experience in organising large scale business events VAs are well equipped to arrange a wedding with the precision and attention to detail second to none. In organizing my own wedding, reliable and effective, one VA proved to be more efficient than two wedding planners, and I honestly cannot think of anything in the wedding planner’s responsibilities that a VA could not accomplish. Can you?

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