Got a Perfect Wedding in Mind?
Here's how a wedding planner can make your day
By Mara Severin

What's your idea of the perfect wedding? A six-course meal at a five-star hotel? Champagne flowing, heaps of caviar glistening at every table, a Vera Wang gown, Tony Bennett crooning softly?

Perhaps you have another idea altogether. Picnic tables and fried chicken. A short dress with cowboy boots. Barefoot dancing in the grass to the tunes of your 16-year-old brother's garage band.

Everyone's idea of a perfect wedding is different. But all brides can agree on one thing: They need help, and lots of it.

When family and friends don't mean 'business'
But wait, you say. I don't need a wedding planner. I'm going to bake my own cake, pick my own bouquet, wrap my own pigs in blankets. I'm not afraid of a little hard work. Besides I have such wonderful friends and family to help me, right?
Wrong, says Karla DeLong of Karla DeLong Weddings. It's a bad idea to assume that your attendants will be there through every step of the process. "People are not going to drop everything in their lives for your wedding." Really. No matter how much they love you.

"People often volunteer in the beginning when they're caught up in the excitement of an engagement," says Claire Sigurdsson of Affairs by Claire. "But then it becomes a real chore, and there's no fun in it for them."

Besides, says Sibyl Beucler of Alaska Weddings Unlimited, planning a wedding can be a very emotional time. "Frustration and anxiety become your next of kin," she says. With a friend or relative, everything about your wedding is personal. With a professional, everything is, well, professional. You don't need to be Princess Diana to need a little organization at your wedding. Nor do you need to be Princess Diana to afford it.

A heavenly wedding on a terrestrial budget
Far from adding astronomical cost to your event, a wedding planner can help you save money and can definitely help you save time.

"A wedding coordinator has already done the homework," says Sigurdsson. "They've done the networking with the caterers, musicians, photographers and other vendors." This relationship can often be helpful when it comes time to negotiate rates with the vendors of your choice.

"A wedding planner's responsibility is to keep the budget in line - to assist the bride in not overspending," says Beucler. Discuss the pay structure with your prospective planner at the first meeting, she advises. "Usually it's just based on what you actually need," she says. "Maybe you just need someone to direct the wedding and rehearsal."

Taming the lions
"Having someone on-hand during the wedding day is crucial," says DeLong. Timing and momentum are essential to the day and difficult to manage for the busy bride.

Common problems when there's no one in charge? A long lag time between the ceremony and the reception - leaving the guests hungry and thirsty can be lethal for a festive event. And during the reception? Without some guidance, guests often leave before some of the major events - the cutting of the cake, the toasts, the tossing of the bouquet - because they don't know when (or if) to expect it.

In addition, a wedding coordinator can help avert those last-minute "glitches" (they're called "disasters" on the day of the wedding). "A quick wedding gown fix. Assembling a quick boutonnière. Fetching something that's been forgotten. A good planner can improvise and put something together," says Sigurdsson.

Beucler puts it colorfully. "Even the most thought-out weddings can become a complete disaster when there is no ring master in the circus!" she says. "If the bride is supposed to have a relaxing and happy day, she has no time to tame the lions in the process."

An umbrella in case it rains on your parade
Glitches can be small or they can be mountainous. Take the couple that Beucler worked with who were flying in for an "intimate Alaskan wedding." The party's plane was delayed and they did not arrive until the day of the ceremony. To make matters worse, they arrived on a day of absolute downpour. Beucler's quick wits and her knowledge of the region came to the rescue.

"I took them up to the only place in southcentral Alaska that the sun was out.... At the Matanuska glacier where it very rarely rains," she says. "Here they had the 'real Alaskan' theme and a beautiful ceremony with a fantastic backdrop."

An Alaskan wedding - romance, beauty, and (of course) fish
The "destination wedding" is quickly gaining in popularity and a local wedding planner is an absolute necessity. DeLong helped Jackie Harris plan her dream wedding in Alaska.

"There is no way I could have had that wedding without her," says Harris. "She pretty much did it all" - from creating and mailing the save-the-date cards (adorned with handmade fishing lures), to making appointments, to picking a site, to planning day trips for the guests. But her input went beyond the nuts and bolts of a wedding, she says.

"She really knew how to add an Alaskan flair," says Harris. DeLong put together Alaskan-themed baskets that were sent to all of the guests before the wedding. These welcome gifts included tourist information and Alaskan products like salmon jerky and locally made chocolates. She coordinated homey local hotels, a Seward cruise, and even a fishing trip for some of the guests, going so far as to procure rods and reels that were waiting in their hotel rooms when they arrived.

"I really like the creative end of this job," DeLong says, adding that Harris' wedding was particularly rewarding. "I really got to show these people a great time and I was able to show off so many terrific Alaskan vendors."

Click here for a list of Alaska's top wedding planners.

Need more great advice? Pick up a copy of Alaska Bride & Groom on newsstands now. Alaska Bride & Groom is your complete Alaska wedding guide.