It’s uncanny how many parallels there are between organising a renovation and organising a wedding.
Having run a renovation company for quite a few years now and recently being involved in organising my own wedding, it’s been interesting to see how many skills and templates I could leverage off from one for the other.
It all seems to centre around planning, finding good quality service providers and suppliers and scheduling.
BY ANA STANKOVIC
So the first place to start is to work out the requirements. What are you trying to achieve? What are the priorities? Look and feel? Doing research here into what others have done previously and learning from their mistakes and knowledge will make this process go a lot smoother.
Then you really need to identify all the different things that need to happen. Do a task breakdown structure just like with a renovation and work out what order they need to happen in.
Then comes finding good quality service providers and suppliers that will give you what you need and fit in with your budget. Just like with renovations, it can be tricky to find people that will get back to you, give you what you actually want, on time and be cost effective. And just like with tradesman, it’s always best to find people that are recommended.
Make sure you get quotes in writing and sign some sort of an agreement that also identifies terms and conditions and any rectification that may come into play depending on the different scenarios. They need to be made aware of your expectations and you need to understand fully their inclusions and any limitations. I used the same template to fill in details of quotes from wedding suppliers that I use to fill in details of quotes I get from tradesman.
Don’t be scared to apply your real estate negotiation skills here as well. It’s not always about negotiating the best price but many other terms and inclusions too.
Most importantly, don’t wait until the last minute to find and book the people that you need or you might miss out. The really good ones will be booked up much in advance so it’s important to give them plenty of notice and schedule them in early.
Be aware also that just like with good tradesman who don’t need to advertise because they mostly work from word of mouth, your wedding service providers are also likely to be in the same boat; so don’t look for them in classifieds or a general business directory. And just like with companies in real estate, it pays to search around and see which ones have been finalists or winners in different awards or with various associations.
The funny thing is that I used the same schedule that I use with renovations for our wedding. It still shows all the tasks that need to happen, in what order, by when, what the dependencies are, etcetera and where I normally have our building supply providers and tradesman, I had different types of companies such as celebrant, flowers supplier, cake maker, etcetera. Where I normally have the details of the property, I had details of our venue.
Who said skills, techniques and templates gained from renovations can’t be applied to other aspects of our lives?
To be completely honest it was one of our easiest projects and gave us the most joy.
Ana Stankovic is well known as one of Australia’s leading renovating-for-profit specialists and is regularly featured in prominent industry publications, expos and continually educates investors. To find out more or sign up for Ana’s free newsletter, visit www.RenovateAndProfit.com.
