So, you (or someone close to you) is gearing up for The Big Day, and all of a sudden you start hearing about wedding stylists, as well as wedding planners. What’s all this, you ask yourself, aren’t they the same thing? While there are some wedding planners who also double as wedding stylists, the two positions require two completely different sets of skills, and affect your big day in completely different ways. While it might not be hard to plan a good wedding here on Queensland’s beautiful Sunshine Coast, a wedding planner and stylist will help you plan the perfect wedding, and save you a lot of stress along the way.
Organisation vs. Implementation
A wedding planner is basically your personal organiser. They’ll scout and source venues and suppliers, manage your budget, track RSVPs, and generally manage logistics. They’ll work with you to set the menu and count how many chairs you need so that you don’t have to. They put legs and wheels on your plans to ensure your big day goes off without a hitch.
A wedding stylist, on the other hand, has a purely aesthetic role. Their job is to manage the look and feel of your wedding. This isn’t anything as simple as making sure that all of the chairs match, wedding styling is an art form that ensures a cohesive thought throughout the entire wedding, from the balloons to the bonbonniere. A wedding stylist’s job is to transform the venue into something the represents the feeling that the bride and groom were looking for.
Putting the trees in the forest
Do you know why Martin Scorsese’s films are so beautiful? It’s not just the cinematography, or the actors, it’s that every single scene has been thought about right down to the last detail. While a wedding planner might set the scheduling and the venue, it’s the wedding stylist who’s thinking about the colour palette and how that extends from the flowers, to the table cloth, to the stationery on the tables. It informs the lighting (both where it’s placed and what it looks like) and the kinds of things you might include in your reception (for example, a selfie booth might be a no-brainer at some receptions, and a complete no-go at others).
Styling is a huge part of modern culture, anywhere from department stores, down to why you love that one little café so much. The combination of textures, fixtures and details come together in such a way that you feel comfortable and at home in a place you might have never been before. You can walk into a space and get an instant feeling of ‘I get it’ —a good stylist brings the ability to give an impression in an instant, an impression that holds up for the entire time that you’re in that space, even once you’ve had time to take in the details.
Wedding stylists often provide their own props and furniture, so there’s a huge benefit to working with an experienced stylist. An experienced wedding stylist also comes with a list of connections with them, who can either provide or source those feature pieces that will make your special day that extra bit special.
A match made in heaven
Can you have a wedding planner and a wedding stylist? Of course you can! You just need to remember to let them know that they’ll be working with each other and let them know what their personal responsibilities are. The joy of working with professionals is that they will be able to talk to each other rather than needing to talk through you, so you’ll have less to worry about and your wedding planning will be just as seamless.
They will be able to work together to ensure your budget is respected and they aren’t stepping on each other’s toes. With a wedding planner and a wedding stylist working together, you know that every detail has been thought about, talked about, and agreed on by professionals who know their work. They can also liaise with your florist to ensure that everything is just right, while you just worry about getting yourself organised.
A wedding planner might build the framework and put the walls up, but it’s the wedding stylist who picks the rendering, matches the letterbox to the front door and makes your guests feel welcome. With modern weddings moving away from the traditional all-white, often incredibly formal wedding, couples are freer now than ever to express themselves and their new life together through their wedding ceremony and reception. Rather than conforming to tradition, they can be as fun and personal as they want to be. As any departure from tradition is stepping into unexplored territory, the overall look and feel of the ceremony benefits greatly from a trained, stylish eye that can pull all of the details together into a single, coherent vision for the big day. A wedding is usually the culmination of years of lead-up and at least months (if not years) of planning, so why wouldn’t you take some stress out of your life and make sure your day is as perfect as possible?