Having a solid wedding planner contract is an essential element to becoming a successful wedding planner. Why? It’s because a good wedding planner contract protects the interests of both yourself and your clients. No client in his or her right mind would spend hundreds of dollars on a wedding planner’s services without being protected by a contract. Conversely, entering into non-contractual agreements places the wedding planner at risk of not getting paid. So, how can a wedding planner go about making sure they are using the best contracts available? The answer involves using sample wedding planner contracts. As the namesake indicates, sample wedding planner contracts provide pre-existing agreements new wedding planners can use as a guide for creating their own. To find sample wedding planner contracts, wedding planners can: search for contracts in a template form, use wedding planner software or find sample contracts from specific companies.

The first type of sample wedding planner contract one can have access to may come in template form. How does a sample wedding planner contract in template form work? Basically, it is just a wedding planner contract that is editable. A wedding planner replaces the existing information with their content when prompted. To find these types of sample wedding planner contracts, a person should check online stores selling templates, especially those covering contracts. If money is a concern, and they have Microsoft Office, they can find free template-based contracts through the website associated with Office, (which is Microsoft Office Online).

The next venue through which a person can find sample wedding planner contracts is wedding planner software. The format in which the contracts come in will depend on the software package a wedding planner is using. For example, some software suites will provide a separate file holding sample wedding planner contracts. They aren’t meant to be edited, but they can still help serve as an aide for creating new ones. Then there are software suites that will allow a person to review sample wedding planner contracts through a software wizard. With the software wizard, the wedding planner creates their own contract as they are reviewing the sample ones. Lastly, there are the template-based contracts, which have already been discussed. These templates can either be designed for use in Microsoft Office or within the wedding planner software itself.

Finally, you can find sample wedding planner contracts through websites associated with specific wedding planner companies. An example is Dream Maker, whose website, (Wedtahoe), contains a sample wedding planner contract. The contract is meant to be reviewed by potential clientele, but newbie wedding planners can learn from it as well. Again, they cannot copy it, but they can still get an idea of what is involved with a basic wedding planner contract.

In conclusion, several methods are available for finding sample wedding planner contracts. The easiest and perhaps the cheapest is finding templates that work with Microsoft Office. But if you’re looking into wedding planning software, you might find that it may include sample wedding planner contracts as well. Then there’s the option of looking up sample wedding planner contracts on other websites, but remember this alternative is only useful for referencing purposes. Either way, once you have found an appropriate method for finding sample wedding planner contracts, you’re well on your way to using them to help form your own.

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.