Hiring a wedding planner can be a difficult thing for newly engaged couples to do.  After all, it’s not everyday that you are planning a wedding.  This is something that only happens once in your lifetime.  One of the most popular questions we receive from couples looking for a wedding planner is “What is your pricing?”  We do not publish our pricing on our website, so I can see why this is one of the first questions people ask.

We go back and forth about releasing our prices but ultimately we end up with the same conclusion: keep it off the site.  Now this is not to seem sneaky.  It’s just one of those things that is rather complex and dependent on MANY different factors.

I wanted to write a blog about this because I feel like it’s so important for everyone to have as much information and knowledge as possible before they commit to anything in life…especially the person or company that is going to be solely responsible for the most important day of their lives:)

Keep in mind, this is the way BTS does things, this is not across the board and this is not set for every wedding planner.  Different planners and companies do things different ways, it doesn’t necessarily mean one is better or worse at planning a wedding.  It’s merely a matter of what works best for that business owner and what works best for the clientele they are attracting.

To start this off, I want to first get into 2 very popular ways that planners price their fees:

1) Percentage: some companies base their fees off of a set percentage for the entire budget.  This is a very simple way to go about pricing.  You will always know where you stand as far as fees go, however, this number can fluctuate which some people are not comfortable with.  Others love it!  BTS chooses not to do pricing this way.

2) Set Fee: other companies will create packages with services and prices listed upfront.  The packages might include a specific amount of communication or hours, or they might not.  It is very dependent on what is included.  Read your packages and contracts thoroughly so you know exactly what you are getting and don’t be afraid to ask questions so you know if there are things that are not included.  This is the route BTS arranges pricing.

Now that we have that out of the way.  I want to list a few factors that go into determining a price for the wedding planning package:

♥ Services Needed: Some brides like to be very hands on when it comes to planning their wedding and only need a small amount of guidance.  Other brides do not want much to do with their wedding planning and would prefer a professional handle it for them.  This is something that we discuss with our newly engaged couples so we exactly what they are looking for.

♥ Intricacy of Wedding: Every wedding is different.  Some weddings are very traditional and can be simplistic.  Other weddings are very detailed and  complex and require much more time to execute.  Usually we can get a pretty good feel for which direction our brides are headed after the initial consultation.

♥ Wedding Date: Although this doesn’t hold too much weight when it comes to determining a price, it is a way that our brides can get a slightly better deal.  Weddings are very seasonal, meaning there are high peak times that are in high demand for couples to get married (spring and fall) and low peak times (winter and summer).  Brides also tend to like to get married on Saturdays.  When we have brides getting married on off peak times or any day of the week other than Saturday, we do have a little wiggle room with the price.  This does not mean that we charge more for days that are in higher demand.

♥ Guest Count: The number of guests attending the wedding is another factor in the pricing.  There is far more work that goes into setting up a wedding for 300 guests then there is for 50 guests.  Being as we only have that one day to set up, regardless of the size of the wedding, we need to staff heavier for larger weddings, which of course increases cost a bit.

After we gather all of this information, we create a few customized packages for all of our couples to choose from.  We list them at different price points and include services we think they would really benefit from.   We give our couples the freedom to change services around, as they desire before making their final decision.  As I mentioned earlier, many different planning companies price their services in different ways but we think this works really well for our couples.

I think that about covers it.  Please feel free to message us with any questions you may have based on the information listed above.

As always, be sure to check out our latest and greatest wedding greatness on all of these social media sites:

Web / Pinterest / Facebook / Instagram