Life of a Wedding Planner Tag

Couples often ask me “What does full wedding planning include?”. So I thought it might be useful for me to run through the four phase process that I use for planning my couples weddings when they book my full wedding planning service. In these examples I'm going to base it on a one-year planning process, obviously this can be extended or condensed depending on the time you have available or to work around other projects in your life such as holidays or busy periods at work. WEDDING PLANNING PHASE 1 - THE FOUNDATIONS & VIP SUPPLIERS Phase one is to produce the foundation documents and structures to ensure the wedding planning goes smoothly. It may seem rather unromantic but the 3 foundation documents are your budget, the schedule planner and the design board. Before we book any suppliers creating a realistic budget is key. The budget needs to be detailed and broken down, allocating it according to your...

As a consumer it can be daunting enquiring with a specialist, such as a wedding planner, when you have no idea how much it might cost. In today’s blog I outline some of the key factors on how a wedding planner charges for their services. Service Levels It’s helpful to start with a brief overview of the various levels of wedding planning. Most planners, including myself, offer services ranging from “on-the-day” wedding planning (read my blog here about why this is a misleading title), through to partial and full planning. “On-the-day” tends to have a fixed fee. To calculated this we need to get a full understanding of your plans i.e. guest numbers, venues, number of suppliers, complexity of design etc. We can then estimate how much prep work will be needed in advance of your wedding and how many assistants we’ll need on the day and from there we get a price. For partial and...

If you’re enjoying the planning of your wedding but want to a right-hand woman to ensure all your hard work comes to fruition, a day-of wedding coordinator may be the best option. Read on to find out exactly what an on-the-day coordinator does and how to find the right one for you. Why on-the-day wedding coordination is a myth You'll often see planners with packages titled 'on-the-day coordination', but really there is no such thing. You'll notice I call it 'wedding day management'. A planner can’t simply arrive on the morning of your wedding and instinctively know what is meant to happen. Instead, your planner is likely to start working with you about 4 to 6 weeks before your wedding. From this point forward, they become the main point of contact for your suppliers, fielding their questions for you rather than stressing you out. Depending on the complexity of the wedding, it takes...

Does your venue's package include the services of a coordinator? If so, many people often get the services of a venue coordinator and a wedding planner confused. Couples believe that their venue coordinator will look after all their planning and on the day needs. This, however, is not usually the case. Firstly, I would like to say that I love venue coordinators - they're great! They know their venues inside out and they are the experts at making sure its prepared properly. During planning they can advise on what has worked well before and they'll ensure you know the limitations/rules. They are there on the day to ensure the venues operations run smoothly. Your venue coordinator will deal with any issues that arise, such as overactive air conditioning, or tatty toilets. However, that is a very different role to that of a wedding planner. Simply put, the difference comes down to allegiances....

On Sunday I spent the day at a local wedding fair, speaking to the suppliers, the venue and some brides-to-be. As great as the suppliers were I couldn’t help but come away feeling a little dejected...