What makes a DPNAK client?
We love sharing all kinds of tips, ideas, and bits of inspiration on this here blog. But today, we want to talk about us. Well, actually, no that’s a lie – we want to talk about you. And we want to talk about what makes a DPNAK client, because our wedding coordination services don’t fit everyone, but they fit specific someones perfectly.
Photo by Alison Conklin Photography of a perfect DPNAK Couple
Because we’re constantly talking about what we do and how much we love it (really, we love to gush) we often get asked “What types of couples do you typically work with?”. To which we respond “AWESOME ONES“.
But, what makes a couple “awesome”?
Well, in our eyes, “awesome” comes in all shapes and sizes.
First, we don’t care where you’re getting married as long as you absolutely can not wait to marry your partner there.
Barn? Great. At your Dad’s country club? Stunning. In your grandma’s backyard? Love it. In that swanky new industrial space? Très cool. Whether you have to create an entire space for your wedding, or everything you can imagine is already there, we’re on board and ready to help.
Second, we don’t care if you’re the most anti-DIY-er on the planet or a total Martha Stewart.
Every person has talents in different areas and we show you how to use those talents to make the absolute BEST decisions for you. Details are fun, but nowhere near as fun as the part where you marry your best friend.
Finally, we don’t care if you have a budget for your wedding – in fact, we absolutely prefer it.
Just about any big-ticket purchase you make in your life, you set a budget for yourself. Getting a new car? You know you want your monthly payments to be around $300. Buying a house? Well the bank determines that budget for us, but you still have an idea of your “ideal” listing price. Time for a new TV for the living room? You know you’re going to Google and check every Best Buy, Walmart, and HHGregg to find the best deal in your price range.
Planning a wedding should be no different and for the SAME reason that you should never feel ashamed for not being able to spend $1500 on a monthly car payment, you should not feel ashamed for the size of your wedding budget. What YOU want to spend, is exactly that.
As long as you have a realistic budget for everything you want for your wedding, we are more than happy to work with you. (When we say “realistic”, it’s the same as knowing you aren’t going to get a 55″ smart screen, LED TV for $150 just because that’s all you want to spend. Although, I’m sure somewhere in the future, they might be “totally old school” and sell for close to that amount. Yikes.)
While we are happy to work with any couple on any budget, there are certain realities that we also have to face. Due to the fact that our services start around $1500, and on average, our couples invest around $2500-$3000 for us to help them kick some serious wedding butt (and consistently tell us it’s the best investment they made for their wedding), it’s just not realistic that we’d be able to help a couple with a total wedding budget of $5000 (because we’d take up most of that budget without much leftover to feed the guests or do much else). Our “sweet spot” is couples that are investing $30k-$60k on their wedding and know that they need some help to make that money go as far as possible.
On a whole, most of our clients also share certain similarities, such as:
They are beyond excited to be getting married, but they’re also trying to manage a demanding career and personal life.
The “engagement chapter” is never what it looks like in the movies (thank goodness). It’s full of fun decisions like cake flavors and flower choices, but it’s also full of things like delivery charges, table rentals, power generators, and oops-we-forgot-about-bathrooms. Planning a wedding can easily become a full-time gig (we should know) and balancing that on top of an already busy work life leaves very little time for our clients to actually enjoy time with their new fiancè, let alone friends and family.
This is a BIG piece of what we do: save you time. We tackle the nitty-gritty detailed stuff, so you can focus on the fun stuff.
They want to have a beautiful wedding, but their guests and loved ones having a good time is more important than any piece of decor.
Yes, details, decor, and bits of Pinterest-inspired goodness is amazing and beautiful. But you know that a wedding can be the most beautiful thing in the world, but if it’s poorly structured, boring or uninviting, it’s no good. We like to help you blend just the right amount of details and cool Pinterest-worthy things but still keep a focus on your guests having an amazing time. We like building timelines that actually work, make sense and feel good to you and your guests. And we like helping you work through entertainment logistics so everything just feels natural and effortless.
Above just about everything else, they do not want to worry about a single, ever-loving thing on their wedding day.
We always say that wedding days are 24-hour days, same as any other. Things will go right, things will go wrong. But your wedding day is not the day to try and handle everything yourself. Our clients want to take in the moments while their best friends are together getting their hair and makeup done in the morning. They want to just “show up” to the ceremony without worrying about if the musicians are on-time, if the photographer is ready, if the Best Man has the rings and if the officiant has the marriage license or not. They want to spend their cocktail hour mingling with friends and family, receiving big, congratulatory hugs and eat, dance and lightly drink their way through their reception – without wearing a watch, wondering where they need to be when and making sure everyone else is there, too.
We take care of all of that. You enjoy the day.
