But Actually…Do Wedding Planners Cost So Much??

A solid reminder as we head into the 2025 and 2026 booking season. Here are just a few of the reasons why a good, full service wedding planners costs what some people feel is “so much”…but actually, is 100% in line with hours, responsibility, and execution provided. A good full service wedding planner is worth their weight in gold.

Reason #1

A full service wedding planners job starts on day one and doesn’t end until weeks after the wedding is over. The majority of what a planner does…you never even see. Its thousands of emails and meetings and paperwork, constantly. On average a full service wedding planner spends close to 300 hours planning a wedding. At 12 months out, that is 25 hours a month on each wedding. That means, if a wedding planner takes on 10 weddings a year, they are looking at 250 hours a month spent on planning…you do the math.

Reason #2

While 300 hours go into the backend of planning, an average of about 100+ hours goes into just the weekend of a wedding. With a team of 5 averaging 10 hours a day…it quickly adds up. Full service planners will be the first and last onsite to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.

Someone should send us shoe recs!!

Reason #3

Due to this high number of hours needed to produce an event on the backend, wedding planners usually have AT LEAST a small team of 2-5 before the wedding and 4-10 on the day of the wedding. Unlike a lot of other professions, this job is not something that can be done well with only 1 or 2 people and a team behind the scenes is an absolute non-negotiable.

Reason #4

Not just vendors, not just their team, but also family, friends, and clients. Being a great wedding planner means knowing how to talk to people, direct people, correct people, and still have them love you. While it looks like we are only perfecting place settings (which, yes, we are also doing) first and foremost, we are the managers of the entire event and all emotions within it.

Reason #5

Yes, being a full service wedding planner is actually about so much more than managing vendors, and planning a timeline to perfection. The best planners will calmly and efficiently manage budgets, timelines, payments, stress levels, emails, and more. They should be their clients biggest confidants and boldest allies.

A good wedding planner is worth their weight in gold.

End of story.