A Few Things That Annoy Your Wedding Planner (Said With Love)
Let’s be honest for a minute. Working in the Portland wedding industry is wonderful. We get to meet amazing couples, collaborate with talented Portland wedding vendors, and help create celebrations that people will remember forever. But like any job, there are a few things that can be… mildly annoying. Nothing dramatic. Just the little things, and here’s my very own Top Five:
Scammers
After spending five years working in Trust & Safety before becoming a Portland wedding planner, I have developed a very strong radar for scams. So when someone asks me to join “a quick Zoom meeting” that feels suspicious or insists on sending a check to cash it and pay “another vendor,” the answer will always be no.
Nice try, though.
Ghosting
If you sent me one quick question about wedding planning in Portland and then disappeared, truly no worries. You owe me nothing. That’s totally normal.
But if we have been emailing back and forth for several days, talking about your wedding plans, venues, timelines, and ideas… I start to feel like we’re becoming friends. At that point, if you decide to go a different direction, please just tell me. A simple “we decided to go another way” is perfect. It saves me from sending three awkward follow ups and wondering if I somehow ended up looking like a complete a$$ in your inbox.
Pinterest inspiration vs reality
We love inspiration. Pinterest can be a great tool when planning a Portland wedding.
But sometimes we see inspiration boards that show a $100,000 luxury wedding paired with a $5,000 total wedding budget. And at that point we have to gently say… that may not be possible.
I wish I could bend reality. I truly do. But even the most creative wedding planner cannot stretch certain budgets that far. What we can do is help you create something beautiful, intentional, and personal within the budget you actually have, and it will be beautiful, I promise.
Other vendors who take forever to respond
This one is less dramatic and more of a shared industry frustration. When planning a wedding, coordination between vendors is everything. Photographers, venues, caterers, DJs, planners, florists… we all rely on communication. So when a simple email takes five days to answer, it slows everything down. We promise we’re not being annoying when we follow up. We’re just trying to keep a wedding moving forward.
The follow and unfollow dance
And finally, the classic social media move.
Someone follows our Silk & Shadows account, we get excited about connecting with another Portland wedding vendor or potential couple… and once we follow back, they unfollow. They were just growing their own followers list. Ugh. It’s the Instagram equivalent of waving at someone and realizing they were waving at the person behind you.
The good news though! The funny thing is that for every slightly annoying moment, there are dozens of amazing ones. Couples who are kind, thoughtful, creative, and genuinely excited about their wedding day. Vendors who are collaborative and supportive. And the joy of seeing a celebration come together. So yes, there are a few little annoyances in the life of a Portland wedding planner.
But honestly, we would not trade this job for anything.
