Top wedding planner Bernadette Chapman

Bernadette Chap­man is one of the UK’s fore­most wed­ding plan­ners with 8 years’ of expe­ri­ence as Direc­tor of Dream Occa­sions, her wed­ding plan­ning busi­ness in Essex. She is the found­ing direc­tor of the UK Alliance of Wed­ding Plan­ners and along­side her fel­low direc­tors, trains up to 100 wed­ding plan­ners a year.

She’s shared her top tips exclu­sively with Eng­lish Wed­ding — if you want the best advice the indus­try can give to help you plan your wed­ding, it’s here.

Bernadette Chapman’s essen­tial wed­ding plan­ning advice

Cre­ate a real­is­tic bud­get and stick to it (for more advice on cre­at­ing your bud­get read Stay on track with your wed­ding bud­get)

Don’t try and do every­thing your­self, del­e­gate some tasks to fam­ily mem­bers or friends who would love to be involved leav­ing you the fun tasks, you can then act as ‘project man­ager’ for all del­e­gated menial tasks!

Involve your fiance, it’s their wed­ding too! Talk about the areas of the wed­ding which are impor­tant to each of you and split up the duties.

Make a pledge to spend one evening per week NOT talk­ing about the wed­ding, you dont want to get to the wed­ding night with a deathly silence as you no longer know how to com­mu­ni­cate to each other.

Remem­ber less is more, do you really need favours, cam­eras, nap­kin dec­o­ra­tions, wine charms and trivia cards on the table?!

Keep your san­ity, do you really have to match the favour rib­bon to the brides­maid dresses? Stop try­ing to match every­thing, some­times using sim­i­lar tones is more effective.

For­ward plan, check with your sup­pli­ers when they need con­firmed infor­ma­tion from you, i.e when is the lat­est date for the table plan to be printed, when do cater­ers need dietary choices — use this to then work out when invites need to be posted, allow enough time to print labels and get stamps (don’t for­get to check with the post office if it is a reg­u­lar or large stamp).

Remem­ber you are not super­heroes, if you become fran­tic at work or fam­ily health issues are mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to organ­ise the wed­ding, get a pro­fes­sional wed­ding plan­ner in. Most will offer par­tial plan­ning ser­vices so you are still in con­trol. I cover the East Anglia region, please review my web­site for fur­ther details or for plan­ners in dif­fer­ent areas try the UKAWP.

Don’t be bul­lied, you may find fam­ily, sup­pli­ers and venues will try to enforce their opin­ions on you. Lis­ten to what they are say­ing but remem­ber it is YOUR wed­ding, do what you think is right for your wedding.

And finally have fun! It’s not often you get the chance to plan a fab­u­lous event with all your friends and fam­ily present so don’t get too stressed. If you have a bud­get and sen­si­ble time­line of when tasks need com­plet­ing you can enjoy plan­ning your wedding.

About Bernadette Chapman

Bernadette launched Dream Occa­sions at the end of 2002 fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful 10 year cor­po­rate career in Lon­don. She had a dream of pro­vid­ing a per­sonal event ser­vice to cou­ples mar­ry­ing in East Anglia and has con­cen­trated on build­ing up her brand since then. There isn’t much Bernadette doesn’t know about wed­dings, and as such she is well known through­out the indus­try for her down to earth per­son­al­ity and prac­ti­cal advice.

Client wed­dings have been fea­tured on TV in a series on wed­ding plan­ners in May 2006. Bernadette was also proud to have been a final­ist in a pres­ti­gious indus­try award for ‘best plan­ner’ 2007 & 2008.

A Pio­neer­ing Wed­ding Planner

Recog­nis­ing the need for a pro­fes­sional organ­i­sa­tion of wed­ding plan­ners in an unreg­u­lated indus­try, Bernadette is the found­ing direc­tor of the UK Alliance of Wed­ding Plan­ners. The UKAWP actively pro­motes pro­fes­sion­al­ism within the indus­try and all mem­bers com­ply with a code of ethics. More infor­ma­tion can be found via www.ukawp.com.

Bernadette is the train­ing direc­tor and along­side her fel­low direc­tors, trains approx­i­mately 80–100 plan­ners a year. Bernadette was also approached to write a train­ing course for ICS Home Learn­ing which was com­pleted in 2008.

Why wed­ding plan­ners admire Bernadette Chapman

“We call Bernadette a dynamo as she shows the most incred­i­ble energy, enthu­si­asm and man­ages to get through an aston­ish­ing amount of work. She has a great vision for our com­pany and comes up with inspi­ra­tional ideas (we some­times strug­gle to keep up!) which she is skilled and deter­mined to put into action. She is an amaz­ing busi­ness part­ner and along with Sandy (the third of our trio) we have made great changes in the wed­ding plan­ning indus­try and have excit­ing plans for the future.” Kelly Chan­dler, UKAWP

“Since before I even launched my wed­ding plan­ning busi­ness Bernadette has pro­vided me with great busi­ness advice and sup­port. As the owner of Dream Occa­sions and the found­ing direc­tor of UK Alliance of Wed­ding Plan­ners she is an inspi­ra­tion to all aspir­ing wed­ding plan­ners for all her hard work and com­mit­ment to the pro­fes­sion. With the estab­lish­ment of the Wed­ding Plan­ning Excel­lence Con­fer­ences she has also pro­vided wed­ding plan­ners a great resource for con­tin­ued learn­ing and devel­op­ment in keep­ing with UKAWP’s ded­i­ca­tion to improve pro­fes­sion­al­ism in the wed­ding plan­ning indus­try.” Andri Benson

More great advice from a top UK wed­ding planner

Get­ting started with your wed­ding bud­get. Prac­ti­cal tips to give you per­spec­tive and advice to help you stay on track with budgeting

Mar­quee design for a wed­ding at home. Bernadette is known for her exper­tise with mar­quee wed­dings and has some fan­tas­tic ideas for per­son­al­is­ing your marquee

Cater­ing for a mar­quee wed­ding. Prac­ti­cal expert advice and what to ask your cater­ers if you’re plan­ning a wed­ding at home

Chil­dren at wed­dings: angels or demons? A great arti­cle focus­ing on cre­ative ways to keep chil­dren enter­tained at your wed­ding. With this, they’ll be angels!

Emer­gency kit for your wed­ding day. A handy list of essen­tials to have on standby — from plas­ters to wellies and pants — this is what plan­ners have: will you?

Guide­lines for wed­ding speeches. Great tips and out­lines for the groom’s speech, for the father of the bride and of course the best man’s speech.

Book­ing Dream Occa­sions to plan your wedding

The clients who hire Dream Occa­sions are those wish­ing to have a beau­ti­fully designed func­tion by some­one they can trust. They are busy pro­fes­sion­als with lit­tle time to plan their events. Bernadette always works to a client’s desire and not her own; clients have the final deci­sion always. Every client hir­ing Dream Occa­sions is guar­an­teed to have Bernadette, not an assis­tant, with them on the day.

UKAWP Code of Ethics

• I agree to respond to enquiries within 48 hours
• I agree to respect client confidentiality
• I will dis­close any sup­pli­ers I have a vested inter­est in
• I always pass dis­counts and/or com­mis­sion onto clients
• I will ensure my Pub­lic Lia­bil­ity insur­ance is up to date
• I will never give client details to any third party not involved with the wedding
• I agree to respect copy­right from fel­low wed­ding professionals
• I agree to rep­re­sent each client fairly and honestly

As an Eng­lish Wed­ding Expert, Bernadette Chap­man is here to help you with tips and advice. If you have a ques­tion for Bernadette please email Eng­lish Wed­ding and we’ll pass it on and post Bernadette’s answer on the blog!