10 Questions to Ask Your Potential Wedding Planner Before You Book
So you’ve begun your wedding planning journey and are considering adding a wedding planner to the team? Whether you’re on the fence about hiring one, or know it’s a must and need to find the right one; we absolutely cannot recommend teaming up with a wedding planning pro enough! It could be because, well, we ARE wedding planners and we know how much we bring to the table. The right wedding planner will make your planning process seem like a breeze, but beware, the wrong planner can add more stress and confusion.
Have no fear though, if you know the right questions to ask your potential wedding planner, you can prescreen them like a wedding pro, yourself, and be confident that you’re getting the perfect addition to your team of wedding experts!
Let’s jump right in!
1. How Much Experience Does Your Potential Wedding Planner Have?
When the time comes for you to do your consultation to see if you are a good fit for each other, think of it as a job interview for the management position of the most important day of your life. Your wedding planner manages your event and all your wedding vendors from the moment they sign the dotted line, so it’s important to ask questions about experience and the number of weddings they have planned and coordinated before for a number of reasons.
Knowing your potential wedding planner’s experience will bring another level of clarity to their pricing and what you should expect. If a wedding planner is new to the game they shouldn’t be charging high prices as they are probably still figuring out best practices. On the other hand, a wedding planner who has been doing it for years, with lots and lots of resources up their sleeve, can and should charge appropriately. Hang tight, we will discuss pricing a little later in this article!
When you ask about experience, this can cover many different things, and just because a planner hasn’t necessarily planned a lot of weddings yet, does not mean that they are not good at what they do, or are a bad fit! Many wedding planner businesses might be new, and they may not have soloed a wedding gig but HAVE been in the wedding and event industry for some time and have a vast array of knowledge that helped them jump into their full-time wedding planning business! And this is how Alyssia Lee and Co. was founded—years of experience working at wedding venues, writing wedding planning guides and articles, managing wedding venues, and day-of-coordination, formed this very wedding planning service!
Ultimately, someone with little experience is not bad, but you must assess their confidence level and organizational skills. How is their presentation in your consultation meeting? Do you feel secure and confident that this person will ease your stress and make your life easier? Is your potential wedding planner at ease during your conversation?
2. How Many Full-Service Weddings Does Your Potential Planner Do a Year?
Brides and grooms! Pay attention to this one! Be sure to ask this very important question, because this directly affects you and your experience.
A lot of new wedding planning businesses are, well, new—which means that they’re still getting the hang of things (again, NOT a bad thing), and because they are learning how to structure their business and are excited to get business they might take on way too many clients, which in turn negatively affects the quality of their work as they are split in too many directions!
What IS a good number to look for per year, you ask? This number is entirely dependent on the scope of work the wedding planner chooses to curate for their clients, how big are the weddings they plan? Are they extravagant multi-day events or on the smaller scale? Most professional wedding planners who have been in the industry for some time, stay at the 15 and under mark as quality is so much more important than quality!
Now, if a planner has a higher number, ask them if they have any other employees, as this is often the case. If they don’t have staff on their team and they are in the 20+ region (not including day-of wedding coordinations), you might want to ask some more questions to ensure they can deliver excellence through the whole process. And this brings us to question number three to ask your potential wedding planner—What is your potential wedding planner’s area of expertise?
3. What Is Your Potential Wedding Planner’s Primary Area of Expertise?
I was listening to a wedding planning podcast once and the host, Brandee Gaar said something that hit me and has stuck with me since.
“Luxury is the absence of worry.”
When we think of a luxury wedding, we often think of glitz and glam, and while beautiful designs and backdrops are most definitely part of this, luxury is actually all about being able to relax through the process and have fun while someone does the work for you! All you have to do is show up and let your team know what your goal is, and they will execute! This is one example of a focused expertise. For us, here at Alyssia Lee and Co., this is our area of expertise—a total high-end, luxury experience, ensuring you, as the bride, groom, mother, aunt, uncle, or whoever is in charge, have only to worry about picking out dresses and conveying your dream wedding vision!
Another example of a wedding planner’s expertise might be destination wedding planning, a heavy focus on in-house design, in-house florals, and more! Not all wedding planners do wedding design, wedding florals, or destination weddings, so if those are things you are looking for, search for the wedding planner who can offer expertise to match your unique wedding vision!
4. What is your potential wedding planner’s Aesthetic?
Some of you brides and grooms have dreamed of your wedding day since you were little and have the perfect fairytale vision and for some, that’s not your thing, you just want someone to figure it out for you, whatever category you fall into, you need to acquaint yourself with your potential wedding planner’s aesthetic!
If your goal is to have a modern wedding aesthetic then you’ll want to find a wedding planner that specializes in modern wedding designs. If they don’t typically go that route, make sure you ask for photos of their work (do this either way), to see how they’ve designed previous weddings with your desired look.
Pro tip! It’s always best to choose a wedding planner who matches your wedding aesthetic as this ensures a better understanding of your wedding vision and no hiccups!
5. How long Will Your Potential Wedding Planner Be at the Venue on your Wedding Day?
Not every wedding planner offers the same services, some might opt out of some basic services altogether, or offer them for an additional fee. One example of this is, is service times on the day of your wedding. Some planners will arrive in the morning and stay to the very end, others will come in later on in the afternoon (typically day-of services) and/or leave after your send-off. If you are looking for a potential wedding planner who will stay to the very end and do the final walkthrough with your wedding venue, this can be an additional fee, i.e. additional hours added on!
When it comes down to it, every wedding planner is different so there is no way to ensure they’ll be there for the hours that you need them unless you ask!
6. What Services Can You Expect From Your Potential Wedding Planner?
You’re probably catching on now that every planner offers various services and pricing, so there isn’t a cookie-cutter answer to this particular wedding planner question. BUT, there are basic services that you should be able to expect from every potential wedding planner that you interview!
Wedding Budget Help
Wedding Timeline
Day-of Wedding Coordination
Vendor Procurement & Management
Wedding Floorplan Curation
Booking Your Perfect Wedding Venue
Assistance with Wedding Design
These are some of the most basic things you can expect from your potential wedding planner. When you find the right planner, they will create you a custom contract listing all the discussed services you are needing, if the contract is missing one of those services, be sure to clarify this before signing the dotted line!
7. How much does your potential wedding planner cost and how do they structure their fees?
The cost and pricing structure of a wedding planner deserves its own dedicated blog, but we will break down the basics of what you should know. Have you tried to research how much a wedding planner costs and come up short? There is a reason for that. No two wedding planners are the same and their pricing structure can vary greatly. One wedding planner might charge a flat rate for their wedding planning services while another might charge a percentage-based fee, and to add to this, most contracts are custom to the needs of the bride so that means not all brides will be charged the same price.
So to get straight to the point, ask your potential wedding planner if they charge a flat rate fee for their services, a percentage of your wedding budget, or some in-between hybrid.
We will dive into pricing and how each option differs and works in a later post. For now, knowing their pricing structure will help you decide if they are a good fit for you as well as understanding how proficient they are at running things.
8. Does Your Potential Wedding Planner Have References?
If your potential wedding planner has been in the business for a while, they will more than likely have some testimonials from vendors and past brides and grooms who you can personally contact! If their business is listed on Google you can find honest reviews there as well! Be sure to ask for a list though, as a planner who has been in the business for some time should have this readily available and sometimes posted on their website.
9. Does Your Potential Wedding Planner Have an Emergency Plan in Place?
When you meet with your potential wedding planner be sure to ask them what their plan is in the case of an emergency. What happens if they are unable to follow through on their services before you make it to the altar? What is their plan if something happens the night before and they are unable to coordinate?
Do they have backup planners they’re in contact with? Most planners will cover this in their contract and if are unable to carry out services are required to find a replacement for you.
10. Does Your Potential Wedding Planner Have a Preferred Vendor List?
Preferred vendor lists are not essential, especially if you’re hiring a new planner, but an established planner should have one that they 9/10 times work with and recommend. Working with preferred vendors can often times save YOU money as there is an established relationship already and vendors are more than happy to help their friends out!
Another element to this is that an established preferred vendor list speaks about your planners ability to work with YOU and other wedding professionals. A wedding planner who has a strong preferred vendor list shows that they are established in the industry, are known, and are liked by other professionals which is very important.
So there you have it—10 questions to ask your potential wedding planner! You are investing in the ultimate wedding team member so don’t be afraid to dive deep with them during your consultation to ensure they are the perfect fit for your wedding vision. Make sure you connect with them on a personal level so that you can be comfortable and enjoy not only the day of your event but the whole process!
If you have any questions you’re itching for answers to, be sure to reach out to us, we would love to write a blog on a topic you are curious about.
