How to Hire a Wedding Planner

wedding planners are your cheerleaders, project managers, and are here to support your wedding dreams.

When researching wedding planners there are 3 key areas to focus on: 

Specific Theme or Type of Wedding

Approximate Guest Count

Destination Wedding or Local Wedding Venue

Specific Aesthetic or Style

While not set in stone, having at least a rough idea of what kind of wedding you want will go a long way to help you find a planner that is going to be able to fully deliver on the wedding of your dreams. 

The true value of a wedding planner comes from their expertise and experience, so it just makes sense to hire someone that has the knowledge and/or experience specific to what you’re looking for. 

It is best at this point to keep this list relatively short – having dozens of options to choose from is only going to make this a more stressful choice at the end of the day. 

The next decision is service type, AKA how involved your wedding planner will be in the creation of your big day. Although planners will package their services in different ways, they all essentially boil down to 2 options:

Full Planning & Design

This is likely what you think of when you think of wedding planning.  Your planner will do most of the legwork, like plan and design the wedding, develop and oversee your wedding budget, contact and hire vendors, coordinate a production schedule and timeline, and execute everything the day of.

Wedding Management:

This is the service for anyone that wants to plan the majority of their wedding on their own and is looking for help with final details and day of execution. Also called “Day-of” or “Month-of” Coordination, the offerings will vary from planner to planner.

Services range from planners who will join you a few weeks out to round out your planning time and coordinate your wedding, to planners that will do this and provide limited support throughout your planning process.

NOTE: There is no such thing as a planner who will show up for the day of your wedding only. No experienced planner would ever show up at a wedding without preparation of some kind. 

As you go through this process, be sure to think about the following questions:

Can you trust this person?

Do you feel like they’re a good match for your personalities and you can build a relationship with them?

Do you vibe with their style and the quality of work they produce?

Then book a discovery call or consult. We strongly suggest sticking with speaking to  1-2 planners at a time, so you can compare them easily and don’t overwhelm yourself.

At the end of the day, this is about finding the person you trust to bring your dream wedding to life.

Trust your gut. Even the most experienced planner may not be the right fit if you are not able to build a rapport with them. Look for experience, transparency, and someone you will be able to rely on throughout your planning process.

A wedding planner is just as much a risk management specialist as they are an event planner.

A professional planner should have business liability insurance, a business license, and proof of their education and/or experience.

A potential wedding planner should also provide you with a written quote or proposal that outlines their services, pricing and any potential fees that may come up down the road. They should also have a detailed contract that outlines everything in detail and has clauses that protect both of you.

Should a planner not be able to provide any of these things, then that is a big red flag, and in our opinion, walk away from that planner.

Weddings are a risky business, so be sure to cover your ASS-ets!