Here's the truth of it: weddings are expensive. Wedding coordinators or planners are expensive. The average coordinator or planner is about $2,000. Some coordinators or planners with less experience may have much lower prices. But is it worth it to hire a coordinator or planner?
You might be thinking, "I love to DIY and craft and plan things, so I can handle the wedding planning before hand." and "I have plenty of family and friends who want to help on the day of the wedding! I don't need one!" Yes, you may be able to DIY all of the things...and ask for all the help and orchestrate it yourself -- but do you WANT to?
That's the question right there. A wedding takes 200-500 hours to plan, depending on how elaborate it is, and how much experience you have in doing it. Everyone has 168 hours every week. If you sleep for 6 of those hours every night, then that gives you 126 hours left. If your job is 40 hours a week, plus a half hour lunch and a half hour total commute, you've lost another 45 hours. That gives you roughly 80 hours left. Minus meals, showers and scrolling socia media, that's maybe 50 hours a week or less to plan. If you sleep more, then that gives you even less time! And if you compare that to a job...you can see that planning becomes almost a part-time job!
So, the question becomes - do you pay someone to take at least some of that work off your hands, or do you take a part-time job for the next three, six or nine months to get all the planning done yourself?
That's the question you need to ask yourself when you start planning - is it worth it to pay someone (who is an expert) help me with this, or do I take on all the stress myself to save the money?
*Keep reading if you want a breakdown of the financials of hiring a coordinator or planner!*
(I got this idea from two other articles - https://www.aislelesstraveled.com/why-are-wedding-planners-so-fcking-expensive/ and https://www.firstcoastweddings.com/blog-posts/why-do-wedding-coordinators-cost-so-much)
Let's take my Premium Coordination package, which is a good middle ground package. I currently have it at $1,400.
$1,400 minus business expenses like my client portal software ($40 a month), random supplies (like scissors, zip ties, etc), my website ($16 a month), gas ($25-$50 a month, depending on where my weddings are located) and my car insurance ($100 a month). If I do one wedding at that amount, I'm down to about $1,200.
Then minus money toward taxes, because I'm self-employed and I have to take those out myself, so down to $1,000.
- Initial communication, contract, invoice, questionnaires, setting up an in-person meeting or video chat - 5 hours
- Venue walkthrough with couple - 2 hours
- Emails with couple/bride, family members who are helping, vendors and venue - 10 hours
- Wedding day timeline - 3 hours
- Transportation to various events regarding the wedding - 3 hours
- Rehearsal - 1 hour
- Set-up time delegating tasks to others or doing the work - 2 hours
- On site, leading ceremony and reception - 7 hours
- Follow-up with vendors and couple, social media - 1 hour
Round that up to about 35 hours for one wedding. $1,000/35 hrs = $28/hour
I have 11 weddings this summer, which is absolutely great for doing this my first year! But that's only $11,000 for the year. Can you imagine living on that?
If I made $50 an hour, that would be about $1,800 per wedding. For this year, that's just short of $20,000.
If I made $100 an hour, I could charge $3,500 per wedding. That's very expensive for most couples! With 11 events (and not all of them pay the same or have the same hours), that would be $35,000 for the year.
In most places in the US, you cannot live on the first two salaries, and you're barely getting by on the third one.
So...are wedding coordinators/planners really that expensive? I say no - we really should be charging way more for the things we do for our clients!