As a veteran in the wedding industry I was honestly torn about using a wedding planner-- I knew generally what I liked and didn't, I understood cost and budget, I knew a lot of vendors and resources.... but what I lacked was someone who could m...anage all of that for me so I could actually HAVE a good time at my wedding.
This might sound silly, but I'll explain.
My mother and I went full DIY with many aspects of the wedding: we are crafty and picky so it seemed like a good thing and it saved a TON of money (we wound up doing 14 tables of centerpieces for the cost of about $200....all together) and it allowed for personal touches (I designed, with Kelly's help, my own save the dates, invitations, and signage for the wedding). However as we went about planning how actually GET everything assembled, set, manage vendors, manage family and (oh I don't know) get married on the day of the actual wedding we realized that when you DIY you actually have to .....DIY every aspect of the day. That was daunting. Also my mother and I have decidedly different tastes and we can't agree on whether the sky is Blue or Turquoise.
What we REALLY needed was someone who was a calming, organized influence who was going to take the raw materials of a wedding and make it complete and beautiful: Kelly and her team were precisely what we needed.
Come the final weeks to my wedding not only had Kelly talked me (and my mother) each off of a couple different ledges but she had taken over the management of the vendors and began to identify problems that I couldn't even anticipate, handle things as they came up.
Even though I've been through many weddings I wasn't prepared for how much of a blur the day actually is: without Kelly there to call the florist about a missing corsage, get the last minute pumpkins to the ceremony, set up our ceremony while two other weddings were getting off of our site, and manage my marriage license I'm not sure I'd be legally married right now or just some sad lump in a gown that was crying because she had too much to do and couldn't enjoy her wedding.
Don't think of Kelly as a wedding planner if you yourself are a very "planner" type personality---think of her as an expediter and organizer. When you want to be able to sip your champagne, have time with your friends and family, and enjoy being with your husband it will be Kelly's job to expedite your wedding and she is truly phenomenal at it. When our last dance played and we were will milking the last minute of it Kelly handed us a bag of our cards, had all our centerpieces packed up, and was checking that all my guests were safely in cars and shuttles. I got to be a bride because I wasn't being a manager: that's a distinction I highly recommend you make.