Guides
Wedding planning services and packages guide
Wedding planning services and packages: the three-rung ladder set by responsibility date, how the venue contract shapes each, and the change order that stops creep.
What to take away
- Every planning package is the same deliverable sold at a different starting point: the day-of timeline, and the vendor team that executes it. Coordination starts six weeks out; full planning starts a year out. The Saturday at the end is identical.
- Define each package by the date you take responsibility and the decisions you own, not by a list of features.
- Scope creep in this trade is not a nuisance. It is unpaid full planning delivered to a coordination client, and it is the most common reason a first-season planner loses money on a booked Saturday.
- The venue's contract sets the shape of every package before you write a word. Load-in window, curfew, vendor list and coordinator requirement are the walls you are building inside.
The deliverable underneath every package
Strip away the names, and a planning business sells one document and one team.
The document is the day-of timeline. Draw it backward from the ceremony start to the earliest vendor arrival, and forward to the last truck leaving.
The team is the vendors who execute it. Some the couple hired before you arrived; some you sourced.
Packages differ in how much of the year before the Saturday you are responsible for. That is the honest way to explain them to a couple, and it is the honest way to price them, because your cost is hours across that period, not features.
The federal occupational description states the underlying work plainly: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Meeting, Convention, and Event Planners lists scoping the event, soliciting bids, inspecting venues, coordinating services and monitoring delivery. A full planning package includes all five.
A coordination package includes the last two plus a compressed version of the first. Design sits outside the list entirely, so it is best sold as a separate line.
The three-rung ladder
You take responsibility from
- Day-of coordination (in practice, month-of)
- Roughly six weeks before the wedding
- Partial planning
- A fixed number of months out, or from booking
- Full planning
- From booking, often a year or more out
Decisions you own
- Day-of coordination (in practice, month-of)
- The timeline, vendor confirmations, the rehearsal, the day itself
- Partial planning
- Everything in coordination, plus sourcing a named set of vendor categories and building the budget from the couple's ceiling
- Full planning
- Everything, including the venue search where they have not chosen one, the budget from scratch, and the design brief
Decisions the couple has already made
- Day-of coordination (in practice, month-of)
- Venue, every vendor, the budget, the design
- Partial planning
- Venue, and usually the vendors already booked when they came to you
- Full planning
- Their guest list, their date preferences, their money
Two rules make the ladder work. First: the responsibility date sits in the contract, in words. Nothing before that date is yours unless a change order says so.
Three-rung package ladder
Day-of coordination
- Responsibility from
- ~6 weeks out
- Timeline
- You own it
- Vendor sourcing
- None
- Budget
- Couple's
- Venue search
- No
- Design brief
- No
Partial planning
- Responsibility from
- Fixed months out
- Timeline
- You own it
- Vendor sourcing
- Named categories
- Budget
- From ceiling
- Venue search
- No
- Design brief
- No
Full planning
- Responsibility from
- From booking
- Timeline
- You own it
- Vendor sourcing
- All vendors
- Budget
- From scratch
- Venue search
- Yes
- Design brief
- Yes
Second: every package includes the same Saturday, staffed the same way, with the same kit. A coordination couple gets the same day as a full planning couple; they did more of the year themselves.
What each rung costs in hours
Hours are the unit that prices a package. Fee is hours times your hourly rate.
| Package | Typical planner hours | Typical weekdays worked |
|---|---|---|
| Day-of coordination | 25 to 45 | 5 to 8 |
| Partial planning | 60 to 120 | 12 to 20 |
| Full planning | 200 to 400 | 30 to 50 |
A planner who charges $75 an hour and sells 30 coordination hours quotes $2,250 for that package. The same rate against 250 full planning hours is $18,750.
These hour counts are typical ranges, not measured averages. Guest count, travel, a closed vendor list and a venue with no in-house coordinator all push them up. Published fee ranges vary by market, so build your quote from your own hours and rate.
Rule one, in copyable form:
"Responsibility date. The planner's work under this agreement begins on [date]. Any request the couple makes before that date, including vendor referrals, budget review or design input, is not included and is quoted at [rate] per hour. The planner starts that work only after both parties sign a change order naming the task, the estimated hours and the fee."
Where the venue contract shapes the package
Before quoting any package, read the venue's contract for the couple's date. Four clauses decide what you can promise.
Four venue contract clauses to read
- Load-in windowhours of setup, assistants needed
- Curfewmusic-off, guests-out or vendors-out
- Vendor listclosed list blocks sourcing promise
- Coordinator clausedraw the line with in-house staff
The load-in window fixes how many hours of setup exist, which fixes how many assistants the day needs. A venue that opens at 2pm for a 5pm ceremony is a different job from one that opens at 8am.
The curfew fixes when the strike starts, and strike is where coordination hours are most often underestimated. Ask whether the curfew is music-off, guests-out or vendors-out; venues mean different things.
The vendor list, if closed, fixes which vendors you may bring, and therefore whether partial planning's sourcing promise is deliverable at all. If the venue requires its own caterer, you are not sourcing catering; say so in the package.
The coordinator clause tells you whether the venue's in-house coordinator exists and what they cover. Where one exists, your coordination package is about the couple's vendors and the couple's day; theirs is about the building. Write the line between the two into your contract so the couple is not paying twice for the same hour.
Scope creep, and the change order that stops it
A coordination client who books nine months out will email you in month three asking whether you know a good florist. Answer, and you have started doing partial planning for free. Do it twice more and the couple, reasonably, believes that is what they bought.
Change order stops scope creep
- Client emails before responsibility date
- Answer = free partial planning
- Offer change order warmly, immediately
- Price as hours, agree in writing
- Work starts only after agreement
- Keep change order with the contract
The fix is a change order, offered warmly and immediately. Anything before the responsibility date is available as an add-on, priced as hours, agreed in writing before the work starts. Most couples say yes; the rest stop asking. Either outcome protects the Saturday you already sold to them.
Keep change orders with the contract: they record what was agreed and what was paid for. Federal guidance on business records, Internal Revenue Service: What kind of records should I keep?, covers taxes, and those same documents matter if a couple later disputes what was included.
Add-ons that do not consume a Saturday
The Saturday ceiling means the only way to earn more from a sold-out season is to sell things that happen on other days. The candidates in this trade are real services, not padding:
Add-ons that spare the Saturday
- Rehearsal dinner and welcome event coordination
- Standalone venue search with written comparison
- Timeline-only consulting plus vendor call
- Post-wedding close-out the day after
- Design and styling as separate weekday scope
| Add-on | What it covers | Typical hours |
|---|---|---|
| Venue scouting | Weekday tours, a shortlist with pros and cons, and a written comparison for a couple with no venue | 6 to 12 |
| Single-category sourcing | Three bids, reference checks and a recommendation for one vendor category, such as florals or photography | 5 to 10 |
| Timeline build only | The day-of timeline, the vendor contact sheet and the load-in schedule for a couple who booked everyone else | 8 to 12 |
| Rehearsal direction | Running the rehearsal for a couple whose venue supplies the day-of coordinator | 3 to 5 |
| Post-wedding wrap | Rental and gift returns, vendor follow-up, photo and contract archive handoff | 4 to 8 |
Price each at your hourly rate, with a stated minimum and a stated hour cap. For example, a 10-hour sourcing engagement at $75 an hour is $750. A scouting job that runs past twelve hours becomes a change order, not a favor.
Each of these has a defined end and can be priced as hours. None of them competes with a wedding for the same Saturday.
Advertising the packages honestly
Package pages are advertising, so advertising rules apply. The Federal Trade Commission: Advertising FAQs: A Guide for Small Business sets the standard: claims must be truthful and supported, and endorsements must reflect the giver's honest experience.
For a planner, "we handle everything" appears nowhere on a coordination page. "Preferred vendor" is used only where the venue lists you, and the couple quoted was a real client who said it.
The responsibility date belongs on the public page, not only in the contract. A couple who reads "we take care of the whole day" on your site, then learns at the consultation that coordination starts six weeks out, was misled by that page. The advertising guidance is written for this gap.
Staffing each package
The day-of crew is the same at every tier. The weekday load is what changes.
| Package | Day-of crew | Weekday hours | Weekday lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day-of coordination | Lead planner plus one assistant, 10 to 12 hours on the day | 25 to 45 | Lead planner |
| Partial planning | Lead planner plus one assistant, 10 to 12 hours on the day | 60 to 120 | Lead planner, with an associate for sourcing |
| Full planning | Lead planner plus one assistant, 10 to 12 hours on the day | 200 to 400 | Lead planner plus a second lead or associate |
Assistant count on the day follows guest count and venue size, not the package tier.
Full planning consumes lead-planner hours all year. A business selling several full engagements needs a second lead or an associate to run sourcing while the lead runs the client.
Cost that person with local wage data, not a guess: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics Tables publishes estimates by occupation and metropolitan area. It is one input among several.
Market constraints shape what you can sell: which venues have room on their preferred lists and how many Saturdays the season holds. For the arithmetic under every package on this page, see the startup and market orientation.
Common questions
Should the packages have names?
Names help couples remember them and hurt when they obscure the responsibility date. "Month-of coordination, from six weeks out" is a better name than anything with the word "essential" in it.
What if the couple wants full planning but has already booked half their vendors?
That is partial planning with a long lead time. Price it on the hours the remaining categories will take, and write the responsibility for the already-booked vendors as confirmation only, not sourcing.
Can one package include unlimited emails?
It can, and it will be tested. A better clause is a stated response time and a stated meeting count, with additional meetings available as an add-on. Couples respect a boundary that is written down before they need it.
