I am a wedding planner and the one thing I would love is for my brides to be able to just utilize my services without a thought of cost, because a wedding planner alleviates your stress. The reality is for most people, that's not possible. Many of my brides use me to fill in gaps, for example, they don't have time to find a caterer or other vendors so I do it or they need a wedding director/on site coordinator, but not the planning side.
If you have the opportunity and means to utilize a wedding planner for everything, it will save you and your family a lot of headache, but if cost is an issue, see about having them "fill in the gaps."
