How to make sure you are hiring the right help to make your vision come alive.

Having been in the wedding, lifestyle, and events industry for over a decade, I often meet with wedding professionals, industry professionals, businesses on a weekly sometimes daily basis. I also talk with other professionals regularly that know vendors that may be new to me but offer something different or fresh. There are a few things that are red flags for each type of service provider that are pretty easily picked up on when deciding who will work with you for months, a year, years and possibly your friends and family if they are lucky.

However life happens to the best of us and there are things that just cannot be avoided. Asking some of the right questions to a event planner, designer, stylist, or service professional that can help you decide on the right choice for you.

Here are some things you can do to make sure you ask some right questions.

Q: Tell me about your experience as a wedding planner, photog, stylist etc.. .

You want to know what your wedding planner or other vendors experience is like.

Where they live and work out of. What is their family life and do they have work life balance. When do they take clients and how many a year, month, etc..

Q: Why and how did you get into your industry?

When you can literally log up free videos on Youtube on how to do anything you need to make sure they have the experience to back up what you are paying for. And be sure to remember that if it seems too good to be true it usually is.

Q: What will the process of working together look like?

What is the process to do and execute exactly what it is that you are wanting to achieve and how much will it cost? Again if they low ball your event, design, photos, etc.. to cost a lot lower than what you kind of have a sense of, it is too good to be true.

Also will they be a leader or just a yes person? A yes person is not going to go to bat for you with all of the moving pieces that go into things getting done, delivered, or on time.

Q: Does hiring you mean I will be relinquishing my vision

Some planners are project managers and some are designers as well. Do they only work with certain vendors? Are they open to new ones?Ultimately in every good planner or designer's contract they will say that you take full responsibility for the vendors hired and their acts and omissions, but you need to have final say on what happens in your total vision.