Watch our interview on SoMdWeddings TV! (60 minutes)

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When you meet Mary Rahall, you’re going to want to hug her. She’s warm and friendly, calls you “dear” and makes you feel right at home.



Mary is a Master Bridal Consultant (there’s only 20 or so in the world) and owner of Waldorf Engraving and Printing. Her motto is “hassle-free weddings,” and if you’re a stressed out bride or mom trying to pull the whole day together, Mary is the person you’ll want to call. Brides are her first priority.



“My brides know when they come to me, it’s as if they were my daughter,” she said. “You know that if it’s going to be perfect for her, it’s going to be perfect for you.”



Mary’s services include connecting brides, grooms and their parents with vendors, setting up timelines and agendas with brides for the planning process, being the go-to person for the rehearsal and on the day of the wedding (giving Mom a break) and listening to brides’ dreams, ideas and questions about the big day.



“The one biggest thing they always know is I am only a phone call away,” she said. “I want them to have that piece of mind.”



Mary got into wedding consulting 18 years ago. “It was 18 years ago that I did a friend’s wedding,” she said. “Afterwards, I thought, ‘This was something I really enjoyed and I’d like to do it again.’”



Guests at the wedding asked her for her business card because they were interested in her services. This got her thinking, and she began investigating offering wedding invitations. Around that time, the Association of Bridal Consultants started up. She was one of the first to get the organization’s certification.



Becoming a Master Bridal Consultant requires years of service and courses, conventions and references from vendors and brides. Mary has been a Master Bridal Consultant since August 1994, and now she said she’s going to add other special event planning to her list of skills and services.



“No matter what level you’re at, you always have to update,” she said. She said she has worked with different vendors, such as florists, to learn the basics of their craft. In case of an emergency – an extra boutonnière is needed, for example – she can step in.



One of the biggest changes Mary said she has seen in recent years is the increase in divorced or separated parents. In these situations, she said, she can give brides advice and help on invitation wording and seating arrangements at the ceremony and reception.



Mary said the No. 1 reason to hire a consultant is to take stress away from the bride and her mother, the two people usually most involved in planning. “Because you don’t want all the hassles that go with it, and there are a lot of hassles,” she said.



Some brides, she said, will ask a relative or friend to serve as a coordinator the day of the wedding. Hiring a consultant assures no guest will have to “work” the day of the wedding, she said.



Mary said brides-to-be should consider hiring a consultant as soon as they get engaged. She said it is good to plan at least a year in advance, noting she is already heavily booked through 2004.



Mary’s love for her job is evident as she talks. She said she never tires of the excitement surrounding weddings. “Every wedding is awesome,” she said. “I’ll come home (from a wedding), and I’ll talk about it. How can you get bored when you have different people?”



“This is more than a business, much more than a business,” she added. “The day it becomes a business is the day I hang up my shingle.”



“The weddings today are as exciting as when I first started.”