What does it cost to hire a wedding planner? It is question wondered by thousands who are considering using one. Many may think the answer to the question is something that they don’t want to hear, like maybe $5,000. But in reality, the cost to hire a wedding planner can range from just a few hundred dollars to a couple thousand. This is not to say that there aren’t wedding planners charging $5,000 or more, but there are more ‘affordable’ wedding planners out there than those that aren’t, especially since most of them target their business towards people with average budgets. Still, when determining what it costs to hire a wedding planner, you need to have a full understanding of the way they charge. These methods include: a flat fee, by the hour or based on a percentage of the wedding budget.
Wedding planners that charge by a flat fee are probably the easiest to deal with in terms of budgeting. You know exactly what to expect. Whether you pay $10,000, $20,000 or $100,000 for your wedding, their fee will always stay the same. However, since they are not getting a percentage of your wedding budget, they may charge higher for their services. You will have to figure out if this price is better than other wedding planners who might be charging other ways. If your wedding budget is relatively low, you might do better going with those charging based on the wedding cost, depending on how high the flat fee is.
Speaking of which, this leads into the next common method through which wedding planners charge: percentage-based. The most popular figure wedding planners tend to use for this method is 10%, though it can vary depending on the specific wedding planner you decide to work with. Anyway, the problem with this is obvious. If your wedding involves a large budget, your wedding planner expenses will be costly too. But then again, if your budget is that large to begin with, it probably won’t hurt to pay the wedding planner their due share.
Finally, wedding planners charge based on the number of hours they work. This is the worst method for you as the consumer. Since you are not physically there with the wedding planner, they could quote any number of hours as a basis for their fee. In fact, even if a wedding planner tries to work quickly, there’s still going to be a tremendous amount of hours involved in the process… maybe even overtime causing him or her to work on the weekends. Indeed, if you do hire a wedding planner that charges by the hour, make sure they have strong references and/or they can give you an accurate guess as to how many hours they will need to work on your wedding.
In conclusion, the ultimate answer to the question "What does it cost to hire a wedding planner?" is: it depends. Granted, even with the variance that occurs among payment methods, most wedding planning services will still be relatively low, especially considering all the work the wedding planner has to do to get the wedding to commence.