Wedding planning startup costs with the hidden lines included

What to take away

The outlay, line by line

The table prices a solo coordinator in a mid-size Canadian market. Every figure is a typical range as of 2026, not a quote. The full-service column assumes design inventory, a showroom or a second lead.

Registration is the line most often mispriced. ServiceOntario registers a sole proprietorship for roughly $60, covering a five-year term. A federal corporation costs $200 online through Corporations Canada.

Ontario, BC and Quebec each add an extra-provincial registration fee on top, set by the Ontario Business Registry, the BC Registry or Quebec's Registraire des entreprises. A BC limited company registration typically runs about $350. Confirm current fees with the registry before you budget, because they change.

Bookkeeping is a subscription, not a one-off. Wave has a free tier that handles a solo planner's invoices, QuickBooks Online Simple Start runs around $30 a month in Canada, and FreshBooks Lite around $22 a month. The first-year totals above assume nine to twelve months of paid software.

Website and email cost less than most planners expect. Squarespace Personal is about $16 a month billed annually, Wix starts lower, and a .ca or .com domain typically costs $15 to $25 a year. Google Workspace Business Starter runs about $7 per user a month.

Business bank account fees at Canadian banks usually land between $0 and $20 a month, and some packages waive the fee for the first year.

The insurance line is not yours to set. Venues in Banff, Whistler and Niagara-on-the-Lake write certificate requirements into their contracts, and your broker prices against those requirements.

A solo planner's $2 million commercial general liability policy typically costs $500 to $1,200 a year in Canada. Errors and omissions cover, which some venues and referral partners ask for, pushes that higher. Ask three venues for their vendor insurance schedule before you ask a broker for a quote.

The hidden lines

Four costs sit outside the table because they are not purchases.

GST/HST and QST registration. Once you cross the small-supplier threshold, currently $30,000 in taxable revenue over four consecutive calendar quarters, you must register with the CRA. Quebec adds QST registration through Revenu Quebec.

Registration itself is free. The cost is the bookkeeping to file it, and the decision about whether to register voluntarily before you cross the threshold.

That is an accountant's call, not this page's.

Deposit handling. If you collect the florist's fee from a couple and pay it on, you are handling money that was never revenue.

Ask your accountant how pass-through payments and client deposits should appear in your books, and whether your contract makes them refundable.

Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, Quebec's Consumer Protection Act and BC's Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act each set rules for deposits on consumer contracts. A licensed lawyer is the person to read yours.

Bilingual vendor contracts. If you work in Montreal or Ottawa-Gatineau, vendor agreements and couple contracts may need to be in French and English. Translation runs $0.15 to $0.30 a word, which on a 2,000-word contract is $300 to $600 per document.

Indigenous venue protocols. Working with First Nations venues or territories may require a protocol agreement, a gift, or a fee set by the community. Ask the venue directly. There is no standard schedule and no shortcut.

Why the first winter is the funding problem

A couple books and pays a deposit, then the balance arrives shortly before the wedding. In a business running two years, spring deposits and autumn balances overlap enough to fund a quiet winter.

In year one there is no overlap. The deposits arrive, the balances are months away, and the fixed costs do not wait.

Fixed monthly costs for a solo coordinator usually run $150 to $500. That covers bookkeeping software, a phone, insurance spread across twelve months, accounting and the odd kit replacement.

So the funding requirement is the outlay plus the months of fixed costs between launch and the first cluster of balances. At $300 a month, a September launch into a May-to-October market crosses seven months, or about $2,100. Launching in February crosses three.

The cash calendar in what the business plan should contain draws that gap month by month. Do not decide on funding until it has been drawn.

Deposits are not yours yet

A deposit is a promise you have been paid to keep. Spend it on the wedding it belongs to, or not at all.

If you spend February's deposits on a website and the couple's October wedding needs an extra assistant and a tent walkthrough, the money has to come from somewhere. Keep a running figure of deposits held against undelivered weddings. Treat it as a floor below which the account does not go.

Federal guidance at Internal Revenue Service: Starting a business covers structure and recordkeeping from the start. The equivalent Canadian starting point is CRA's business registration pages, and your accountant is the person to ask about how deposits should appear.

Funding sources, ranked by what they cost if things go wrong

Canadian loan programs publish their prices. A CSBFP-guaranteed loan from a participating lender carries a 2% registration fee plus a 1.25% annual administration fee on the outstanding balance, and borrowers usually pay both. BDC quotes its own term loan rates on application.

The right choice is usually the top two, because the money at risk is small and the alternative is launching later, closer to the season, with a shorter winter to cross.

What not to spend on before the first season

Design inventory. Branded signage. A photographer for your own site before you have weddings to photograph. A software subscription with features for a ten-planner firm. Any of these can be bought from the first season's balances.

An honest review of wedding planning equipment is worth reading before you buy a single item on this list, because most of it turns out to be unnecessary in year one.

The federal description of the occupation at U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Meeting, Convention, and Event Planners is a useful sanity check: nothing in the list of duties requires an office, a showroom or a warehouse. The business runs from a car, a phone and a printed timeline.

Two more items belong on the do-not-buy list. A second coordinator hired before you have a season of bookings, and a booth at a bridal show that costs more than your first three deposits.

Regional shows such as the National Bridal Show in Toronto quote booth prices on application, so ask before you reserve. Client management tools such as HoneyBook and Dubsado run roughly $20 to $40 a month, which is a first-season expense at best.

Both convert working capital into things that do not run a wedding. If you want to know how to earn your first wedding planning client without either of those, the gate-by-gate approach costs nothing but time.

Common questions

Is there a typical startup figure for this trade?

Yes, a range rather than one number. A coordination-only launch in a mid-size Canadian market typically lands between $1,500 and $4,000 before the first wedding. Full-service launches land between $8,000 and $25,000.

Your figure moves with the kit you already own, your province's insurance market and your launch date. Price the table above and you will have your number in a week.

Should I borrow to fund full-service planning from the start?

Borrowing to fund a service you have not yet delivered once is the highest-risk combination on this page. Coordination first, funded from savings, then partial and full planning from earned balances.

There are 7 things about wedding planning startup worth your time that matter more than the size of the opening balance, and the order you do them in is one of them.

What about grants for new businesses?

Search official federal and provincial sources rather than any site that charges to help you apply. Most programs are aimed at other sectors, and a legitimate government program never asks for a fee up front.

Futurpreneur Canada is a loan rather than a grant, and it publishes up to $75,000 for founders aged 18 to 39, split between a $25,000 Futurpreneur loan and up to $50,000 from BDC. In the US, SCORE offers free mentoring through its SBA-affiliated network.

Do I need to register for GST/HST before I have any revenue?

No, not until you cross the small-supplier threshold, currently $30,000 in taxable revenue over four consecutive calendar quarters. Some businesses register voluntarily to claim input tax credits. That decision depends on your expenses and belongs with an accountant.