Why You Need a Wedding Planner... From a Former TD Bride

Monday morning, I got the pleasure of sitting down with Tara Maddox and got to talk all about her wedding planning process and wedding day. After writing my favorite blog post to date: why you need a wedding planner, from a twenty-something new to the wedding business, I knew I wanted to do a follow-up piece and hear from a former bride of Taylor’s as to why they loved having a planner. I immediately knew that Tara was the perfect person to talk to + it is the perfect reason to finally get to share her gorgeous wedding pictures! So let’s get into the good stuff…

Tara and her husband, Will, got engaged in December of 2018 and wanted to take time to celebrate their engagement and the holidays before jumping into all the craziness of wedding planning. When they were ready to start planning their wedding, they had no clue where to start. Tara hadn’t given much thought to her wedding until it was time to start planning it. However, she went to high school with Taylor and had been keeping up with her business on Instagram for a couple of years.

Even though she didn’t have a color scheme or any details picked out, she knew she wanted every minute and detail of the big day to be meaningful and special. Since Taras's family used to vacation in Destin and it was a special place for her and her husband, they knew that was the place their wedding needed to be. A destination wedding then created another problem; it is hard enough to plan a wedding in the town you live in, but it’s much harder to plan one out of state!

Once Tara hired Taylor, she got to see the vision she never knew she had for her wedding come together. Taylor helped her find the perfect venue (one on the beach but in the grass) and helped her mesh the colors of a winter wedding with the carefree feeling of a beach wedding. Tara and Will wanted as many of their vendors as possible to be special people in their lives but did not have people to fill every role, Taylor helped to fill those gaps with the perfect vendors.

Although Tara never really considered hiring a wedding planner before her engagement, she was so grateful she did at the end of the day. She told me all about how enjoyable her engagement was because she wasn’t constantly stressed about all the planning. She also enjoyed her wedding so much because she didn’t have to worry about any of the details. Everything was taken care of for her and Will and they could just celebrate their love with their friends and family. Since their wedding was filled with so many special details, like using Tara’s grandmother’s china for their place settings, they didn’t have to worry about keeping track of any of those important pieces. Taylor had them all organized and taken to their room after the wedding.

When I asked Tara what she would tell someone who is not sure if they should hire a planner for their wedding, she was full of so much good advice! She told me all about how she loved having Taylor around to stand up for them and their wishes. Sometimes it's hard to stand up for what you want for your wedding but having a planner like Taylor guarantees you have an advocate throughout the whole process. The biggest thing that stood out to me was this, “ your engagement and wedding will go by so fast and you don’t want to miss it by being stressed. It is so much better to hire someone to manage the whole thing so you can wholeheartedly enjoy and celebrate.”

So thank you so much to Tara and check out all of her gorgeous wedding photos below!