Your bride told you she's thinking that the two of you will need to hire a wedding planner. You laughed out loud and told her she's silly. There's nothing to planning a wedding, you told her. You call the florist, you call the priest, and you show up some Saturday in June. That's all the planning you need … right? In a perfect world, maybe.

What Do They Do?

A bridal planner and a wedding consultant essentially perform the same duties. Either will guide your bride (and you, too) through the planning process — as little or as much as you need or want. The benefit to hiring a planner is that she (or he) is already knee-deep in the industry — she knows which vendors are reputable, and which aren't, she knows when to book which service, and she'll know how to make your ideas happen. She already has a lot of contacts out there.

You're thinking, “Brides have planned weddings for hundreds of years without paying someone else to do it for them. My fiancée has her mom and her friends to help her.”(You're so practical.)

True, weddings have been planned by brides for centuries — but you're leaving something out of the equation. Your bride probably works full-time. If you add in all the work she brings home and the extra hours at the office, she technically works more than forty hours a week, and she may be on overload right at this moment. Throw a wedding into the mix, and there's no telling what will happen to her emotional state.

What Should You Ask Her?

You'll schedule an initial interview with a bridal consultant. Some topics you'll want to touch base on:

How much she charges.

How many clients she has at once.

What kind of contingency plans she has for emergencies.

What kind of budget you've got to work with.

Get the cost issue out in the open right away. Many planners offer different “packages,” which means you'll pay for his or her level of involvement in your wedding. If you just want some advice on wedding etiquette, she may offer this as a service; however, if you're looking for someone to dive in and plan your big day — and/or commit to being with your bride from sunrise to sunset on that day — you'll pay considerably more.

Determining her number of clients will give you an idea of your planner's experience, of course, but it will also give you an idea of what kind of attention you can expect from her. If she's booked eight weddings during the same month as yours, she's probably taking on too much, and someone is going to get the shaft.

Contingency plans are a must. What if you're hiring her to be in attendance, running your wedding day, and she comes down with the flu that weekend? Does she have an assistant? Will there be any type of price adjustment?

Finally, giving her a ballpark figure of how much you're looking to spend on the wedding is a great way to determine her ability to work with your budget. Really creative planners can work with any financial plan.