How to choose your wedding planner
I can only assume that if you’ve stumbled across this blog post, you are newly engaged and looking for a wedding planner or wedding coordinator - congratulations! It’s a fairly busy market out there for wedding planners, so I have tried to simplify the decision making progress for you.
Reasons to choose a wedding planner
Do you align with their ethos and vision?
All wedding planners will plan and design with a different ethos and vision. For example, I’m a design-led planner, inspired by nature. This means guest experience and the aesthetic of the day is fairly central to my planning process. I design with the venue in mind so that nothing is too jarring. Other planners may be all about entertainment, or all about food and wine. Decide what is important to you and select a planner partially based on their ethos.
Do you like their previous work?
This one is fairly obvious, but do you like the look and feel of their previous clients’ weddings? ‘A picture speaks a thousand words’ - the majority of couples will book a planner based on images of their previous work. And rightly so. But please don’t make this the only reason you choose a planner! It is important, yes, but every client has a different brief for their planner so you might not like all of their previous work, which shouldn’t be a reason to write someone off.
Do you get on with them?
This one is SO important and I really can’t stress it enough. Book in a consultation with a planner you have your eye on and see if you like them as a person - do you think you’ll get on with them? You will work closely with your planner for (likely) 12-18 months and you want them to essentially become a friend. They need to be professional, experienced and align with your vision, but they also need to be able to have a laugh and talk you down from stressful points!
What are their reviews like?
When it comes to wedding planners, quality of reviews is so much more important than quantity. Planners work on far fewer weddings each year than any other professional in the industry - we just don’t have the time to do 30+ weddings a year and still give 100% commitment to each couple. Usually they will be working on just a handful of weddings. But it is still important to read wedding planners’ reviews, for their quality and honesty from previous couples. Have previous couples enjoyed working with them and did they deliver the wedding they asked for (and more?)?
These are not reasons to choose a wedding planner
Price
When it comes to picking a wedding planner, the pricing will be fairly standard across the industry. Usually planners charge 10-15% of your wedding budget, with minimum fees applied. They also might stipulate the minimum size wedding budget they will work with, with some planners only working with clients whose budget is 6-figures minimum. However, how much they charge is generally a reflection of their experience and value. Couples so often say that having a wedding planner was the best decision they made. There is SO much value in having a wedding planner (particularly in the last few weeks before the wedding and the day itself!). My advice is to make a conscious decision to invest in a wedding planner and not pick one just because they may have decided to undercut another quote you received.
Number of followers on Instagram
This one is a funny one. But whether or not a planner has 20,000 followers on Instagram, or 200, is not a mark of how good they are. Generally speaking, planners that have been in the industry for over 10 years will inevitably have more followers. But I know some incredible experienced wedding planners that don’t have many followers, for no reason other than Instagram is not their primary marketing strategy. Because really that is what Instagram is for wedding professionals - a marketing tool. The important thing is whether or not you like their work, their vision and them as a person. (This doesn’t mean that popularity should be ignored - generally there is a reason why a planner might have a lot of followers!).
I hope you have found this somewhat useful and if you think I might be the planner for you, then don’t hesitate to get in touch! I would be thrilled to work with you.
