Couples' big day is big business for wedding planner (From Gazette Series)

Couples' big day is big business for wedding planner

5:00pm Wednesday 1st October 2008

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

A MASQUERADE ball, steel drums, a fair ground, a Police escort and even a bride riding a bucking bronco in her dress, Claire Shea has seen it all as Eastwood Park's very own wedding planner.

For more than five years Claire has been helping to plan and co-ordinate weddings for brides from across the region who choose the South Gloucestershire estate as the setting for their big day.

"I love weddings because everybody is always happy. I like the excitement.

"There's nothing better than standing there on the wedding day and watching people enjoying themselves.

"The feedback I get from brides is great too I can sit for hours looking through wedding pictures," said Claire.

No job is too big or too small for Claire, who spends a lot of time getting to know her couples.

"When I first meet the couple I like to find out about them as a couple and what their style of wedding will be.

"It is a big responsibility helping to organise someone's wedding but I have complete confidence in my suppliers.

"I have lost count of the number of weddings over the years but they have all been different, they have had the same menu but they have all been unique. Each wedding day reflects the personality of the bride and groom," she said.

Claire has even been known to perform tasks above and beyond the call of duty just to make sure everything is right for the nervous brides-to-be.

She said: "I end up being a bit of a support. I think it's because I'm detached from the emotion of the day. If a bride-to-be has had a bad day in the build up, either with arrangements or family then I am here just to listen and make suggestions on how to resolve it.

"I have become a bit of a counsellor over the years and I have even gone to wedding dress fittings."

As well as counselling Claire has also turned her hand to performing minor miracles. Used to co-ordinating up to three weddings over a weekend, Claire recently had to organise a complete re-run of a wedding less than 48 hours after it happened.

"Two days before the wedding was due to happen the bride rings up very upset because her brother, who lives in America, has discovered his passport is out of date and can't fly over.

"He was supposed to read at the ceremony, his daughters were supposed to be bridesmaids.

"However, after a few phone calls to suppliers it was all sorted. We had the wedding as planned on the Friday and on the Sunday we repeated the whole thing again, once the brother had sorted out an emergency passport," said Claire.

Having helped with more weddings than she can remember Claire is quick to defend those brides that might get branded Bride-zilla, having worked with a few herself.

She said: "Anxious brides can get a bad name, but I like to call them high impact brides and they are just women who know what they want and want to be organised and get it all sorted and there is nothing wrong with that."

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)