5 Things To Include In Your Wedding Planner Contract | Wedding Planner Contracts

Inside This Episode:
1:15 - The mistake I made with contracts
3:00 - How to get contracts without hiring a lawyer
4:50 - 5 Things To Include In Your Wedding Planner Contract

Read The Post: https://www.chanceycharmweddings.com/5-things-to-include-in-your-wedding-planner-contract/

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Disclaimer: This video does not contain legal advice, and the counsel of a legal professional is highly recommended before putting content into action. By watching this video, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service found via the Chancey Charm website. 
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Disclaimer: Occasionally I do share an affiliate link in my content, via social media posts, the blog, my e-courses, emails, digital downloads, youtube videos, and the site. This means that if you click a link and purchase a product, I receive a little bit in return. This allows me to keep creating quality, free content. But, please know that I only share things I absolutely believe in! I also occasionally share a product I received for free in exchange for a review.  Again, the review I share is absolutely my own, and I only share products I believe in.

Disclaimer: This video does not contain legal advice, and the counsel of a legal professional is highly recommended before putting content into action. By watching this video, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service found via the Chancey Charm website.  Chancey Charm LLC offers no representations, warranties or guarantees verbally or in writing regarding your wedding planning, wedding weekend/day, earnings, business profit, marketing performance, audience growth or results of any kind. Chancey Charm LLC does not guarantee that you will get any results or

So, you want to learn how to become a wedding planner?
Breathe a sigh of relief. You’re in the right place.  A proven process + supportive community for anyone wondering how to become a wedding planner who gets paid, published + personally fulfilled.

Free Launch Guide 👉  https://bit.ly/34ybGTl

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Disclaimer: Occasionally I do share an affiliate link in my content, via social media posts, the blog, my e-courses, emails, digital downloads, youtube videos, and the site. This means that if you click a link and purchase a product, I receive a little bit in return. This allows me to keep creating quality, free content. But, please know that I only share things I absolutely believe in! I also occasionally share a product I received for free in exchange for a review.  Again, the review I share is absolutely my own, and I only share products I believe in.

Disclaimer: This video does not contain legal advice, and the counsel of a legal professional is highly recommended before putting content into acti...

Transcript

 Hi friend, my name is Sarah. I'm the founder behind Chancey Charm. We are a destination wedding planning company with planners located across the US and in Europe. And today I am really excited to share with you a little bit of wisdom and insight after 12 years in the industry on contracts for wedding planners and some things that we include in our.

That I feel like are really valuable and I just wanna share them with you because I wish I'd had 'em in there for the last 12 years. Just to give you a little bit of history about Chancey charm, uh, we have served well over 800 happy clients. We've gotten published well over 200 times, might be two 50 now, and, um, just super grateful for the business I have.

Super grateful for the team I have. I've had well over 36, maybe 40 something planners under my brand at different times, and so what's kind of happened is I've realized the importance of. Contracts, , uh, and not just any contract, um, in my planning career. And so really excited to share some insight with you about that.

Um, a little bit about my contract history. When I started Chancey Charm, I was bootstrapping everything. I started with like $300 and not very much experience , and I thought I don't really need to, um, hire a lawyer to write a. I'm not even sure that templates were a thing back then. This is really long time.

I'm totally dating myself, and so I just thought I'll just write my own contracts. So I did. I wrote my own client contracts. Epic mistake. I left. I honestly just held my breath for so long because I left myself open to so much liability for just even an accident at a wedding. Um, I also just didn't have clarity in my contracts on what would happen if a client needed to cancel or anything like that.

Um, I also didn't have contracts with my team, which that was the most painful mistake because. , as I've learned with, you know, over 40 women coming and going in Chancey charm. It's not always personal, you know, sometimes it is, sometimes someone's like, I just don't think we work well together. That feels a little personal.

Um, but a lot of times it's just a season of change for them. So their family is moving or they're moving, or they don't wanna be a planner anymore or. Whatever is going on. And so what happens when you don't? Or they're, they're launching their own business. I had a lot of women launch their own business and so excited for them and they've done really well, and it's exciting to see that.

So what happens when there's not a great contract between you and your team members, if you ever wanna grow your team, is that then there's also a lack of clarity on what transitions look like, and that's when things can get really messy and hurtful and emotional. And I don't want that for. . So my first bit of advice is to make sure you, you get contracts for your clients first, and then also for your team.

I actually found a really amazing lawyer, um, who has just really graciously created an incredible template site, and she specifically had a contract for planners working with other planner. And I found her on Pinterest and her name's, uh, engaged Legal. The, the company's name is Engaged Legal, and I just love her.

I've now use her contracts every day. Uh, with my team, uh, our con our.  team uses her contracts with their clients and I'll, I'm gonna drop a, I have a code for a discount for her contracts. Um, but what a blessing. What a blessing. That really wasn't available when I started Chancey Charm is having contract templates available.

Cause it's a lot cheaper than hiring someone to do a client contract. Cause I've also done that and so, , like I said, I've gotta coupon code. I'll drop it below the YouTube video and the blog post, I'll put it in the, uh, show notes for the podcast. And so, um, really encourage you to look at her site. Really encourage you to use that coupon code.

If you're interested in getting a professional contract for your business. Um, a really great savings there. I mean, you can save as much as like $75 with those keep coupon codes. So, Really cool, um, partnership there. Just really thankful for Caroline and for her wisdom and the difference it's made in the sanity, it's given my business.

Um, but today, like I said, I really wanna dive into some things that we include in our contract. So I've, you know, got the client contract, the professional template, but I also realized, um, , I think, you know, the, the covid, the pandemic kind of  made everybody realize a lot of things about their business, a lot of holes in their business, um, ways to improve it.

We all had a lot of more time on our hands to improve our business, so, One of the things I did was I got some wisdom from others who had also been in the creative industry for forever on some things that we can include in our contract that just provide further clarity for our clients. So in, you know, the contract templates, you're gonna find a.

The protection of liability and cancellation clause now, and just all, you know, services and all those kind of things, which is great. But I actually include a couple of different things at the very bottom of mind that I really think are valuable, especially for planners because again, when this is in writing, when it's in black or white, and actually these things we're going to also include in our little welcome guide.

Um, it's just really important, um, to clarify with clients and set. So that they're happy, their expectations are met, and you also have sanity and boundaries in your own life. Um, because I want that for you. I want freedom and flexibility for you in your business and with your family. So the things that I include are business hours.

So we have, you know, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Thursday. Friday through Sundays by appointment only because of course we, how often have weddings  Friday through Sunday that we're busy with. So, you know, a client really needs to, you know, not expect us to be answering our phone on a Friday. Um, but Monday through Thursday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM So we, we have that written down.

Um, We have written down that all meetings must be scheduled at least 72 hours in advance and 24 hour notice is required if you need to cancel a meeting. This is, again, just so you don't get that text at 10:00 PM at night that's like, Hey, can you talk tomorrow? Because that can really, honestly, Dr. Just drain you and run your business in the ground, um, because you need to be able to schedule appointments.

Block time to do certain things in your business, let's say social media or, you know, you're working on hotel blocks or whatever, and not have that interrupted, you know, two hours beforehand. Um, we also have, you know, how to work, how the best way to work with us and, you know, because keeping up with all the details of a wedding can be really tricky, especially when communication is made via, you know, multiple channels like text message and email and

So we, you.  ask our clients to communicate with us via email, and I planner so that everything is in writing. It's not a text message on our phone. And really that's just to protect them as well so that nothing falls through the cracks. . Um, and then finally, uh, we have, you know, how to get started with us.

And basically that just sets the expectation that within a week of them paying the deposit, their aisle panel will be set up. So they're not expecting that.  as soon as they sign the contract . So, um, oh, and then finally I have payments. You know, just a reminder that, um, we're gonna be collecting payments.

We collect payments often through Honey Book. Some of our planners collect payments through Aisle Planner, but, um, just having that in writing, once again, it's already somewhere else in the contract. , obviously payments are important , so we just include that as well so that they know like, okay, that I'm gonna be paying via honey book.

I'm gonna get a reminder from Honey Book, and that kind of thing. Just setting that expectation. So again, these are seemingly really simple things that might even be listed on your website, but I believe that including them in the contract sets expectations. Protects you and it's just another step towards, yeah, that clear communication.

And like I said, we actually have a welcome guide. I have a, a template for that inside of my launch bundle. And in the welcome guide we also include this information. So we're, you know, really trying hard.  to communicate with our clients about how we are going to be working together, and I think that that's really important.

I think that that's been a really fun add to our contracts. Again, highly recommend you get a contract template from a professional like engaged legal, but that you also consider adding a couple of these little tidbits to the end just to further clarify with your client. So I hope and pray that this information.

provide some inspiration. Maybe it's an inspiration. You need to get that professional contract, get yourself protected. Know that that investment, which again, is really minimal compared to hiring someone to scrap from scratch, create a contract for you, but getting a professional template, making it your own, and, um, getting that peace of mind with clients and with your team to move forward in a healthy way.

I hope. This inspired that and that it also inspired you to include those boundaries and client expectations as well, just to, um, have the very best wedding planning business you can have. I'm reading for you, Fred.