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Tying the knot without breaking the bank
How do wedding planners successfully organize low-budget weddings? Both Nina Hartiani, 34, and Edhy Nelson, 38, agree that their ability to cooperate with third parties is the secret to coordinating a successful low-budget wedding
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H
ow do wedding planners successfully organize low-budget weddings?
Both Nina Hartiani, 34, and Edhy Nelson, 38, agree that their ability to cooperate with third parties is the secret to coordinating a successful low-budget wedding.
"Aside from wedding attire, most of the other services I offer my clients belong to other people," Nina, who has been in the business for more than 10 years, told The Jakarta Post.
On her website www.nisaweddingservice.com, the mother of one sells her cheapest wedding package for Rp 8,250,000 (US $825).
The package includes a 50-square meter party tent, wedding decorations, 100 flip chairs, 150 sets of dining utensils, a wedding dress and makeup services for the couple and their parents.
To allow her to juggle more than one wedding on the same day, Nina says she cooperates with at least three makeup teams and three florists to make sure all the weddings run smoothly.
Right after she wraps up a wedding package order, she contacts her clients to discuss working schedules and the rate of their services.
"Developing business relationships is very important. After long-standing business cooperation is established, it is easy for us to get special discounts," said Nina, who commutes from Bogor to Jakarta almost every weekend to manage her business.
Slightly different from Nina, Edhy, who runs a smaller wedding planner business in Tebet, South Jakarta, said he never contracted makeup services out to a third party.
"I prefer to handle it by myself with the help from one or two friends," said Edhy, a self-confessed waria or transvestite who used to work in a professional makeup agency.
"So, aside from making a profit from planning the wedding, I also make a profit from handling the makeup service."
Running such third-party cooperation, Edhy and Nina said they could make a sizeable profit from every wedding they organized.
Nina said she could make a 20 percent profit from her low-budget wedding packages, higher than the average 10 percent she gets from planning wedding packages in halls.
"When organizing a wedding in a hall, aside from paying for the hall rental fee, we also have to pay a cooperation fee to the building's owner," she said.
Meanwhile, Edhy, whose wedding packages range from Rp 6 million to Rp 12 million, manages his budget slightly differently.
