Wedding Hive Podcast

Essential Questions to Ask Before Booking Your Wedding Planner or Coordinator

• Wedding Hive

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Hiring your perfect wedding planner or coordinator requires asking the right questions to ensure they align with your vision and can execute flawlessly. We share listener-inspired tips for interviewing and selecting the wedding planning professionals who will be your biggest advocates on your special day.

• Share your vision and goals to ensure they're interested and can see what you're imagining
• For day-of coordinators, ask about arrival time, timeline management, and handling unexpected issues
• Confirm if coordinators handle setup/teardown or work hourly to avoid surprises at the end of your reception
• Ask potential planners about their experience, number of weddings completed, and venue familiarity
• Request references and client testimonials to gauge past performance
• Determine what planning packages they offer (full planning, partial planning) and what's included
• Verify who will actually be with you on wedding day if they work with a team
• Understand their fee structure, cancellation policies, and any potential additional charges
• Discuss communication style and availability during your planning process
• Check if they help with budgeting, vendor coordination, and design elements
• Confirm whether they include rehearsal dinner and post-wedding brunch coordination

Good luck finding your perfect wedding planning partner!


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Speaker 1:

Hey Queens, welcome back to another episode of the Daily Buzz. So today we are going to talk about questions to ask when you are looking to hire your wedding planner or your coordinator. This question came in from a listener, and so here are some great tips for that experience. First off, I think it's really important that you share your vision and goals for the wedding day with your person to ensure that they are interested and can see the vision. This person is going to be one of your largest cheerleaders on wedding day, so you'll want to make sure that they are on your team and you are confident with them. Also, you want to make sure you have a clear understanding of what they are doing. So a day of coordinator is somebody who comes in, runs the day. Here's some questions for this individual. Ask them how early they'll be arriving on wedding day. Will they manage the ceremony and the reception timeline? How do you handle any unexpected issues like weather, late vendors, any guest confrontations, anything of those pieces? You want to make sure that they're able to handle those things. Do they bring any emergency kits on wedding day and who is the backup if they are unavailable? Typically, day of coordinators are pretty hands off when it comes to the planning process, so they just come in and manage the day. You want to find out if they handle setup and teardown or if they are in an hourly rate in a sense, and if they are leaving during reception. Make sure you have that stuff pre-arranged and so you do not get a surprise at the end of the wedding day when you find out your coordinator is nowhere on site and you are left to handle all of the pickup.

Speaker 1:

Now, when it comes to picking your wedding planner, like I said, you want to make sure that this person is for you and they are all in on your wedding dreams and vision. Some questions to get to know them. Ask them how long they've been planning weddings, how many weddings have they planned or coordinated? Have they worked at the venue that you've chosen and can they provide any references or testimonials from past couples? You, as you know, you might have an amazing get to know you, but you want to see some of their client relations as it has gone through. The last thing you want to do is have to fire your planner.

Speaker 1:

Find out what kind of packaging they offer. Do they do full planning, partial planning, some of the stuff maybe you want to handle and so they wouldn't be needed for that. Maybe you want them to be a complete full planning service. Find out what's included in each of their packages and ask if they are available on your wedding date. It's also important to find out how many other weddings that they will be working around your date. Are they a company and so they handle multiple weddings, or is it going to be a smaller? Maybe you're the only one for the weekend, or at least the day, and then ask if they will be there on wedding day or if it is going to be someone else.

Speaker 1:

We had a really unfortunate situation once. I had a client who met with the owner. She was absolutely incredible. We loved her and then got stuck with one of the team members and it was not a good fit. So find out who is your person on the day if it is not them, and make sure that you two collaborate well.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to paying for your planner, you want to find out how much they charge, if it's a flat fee, if it's a percentage, hourly or a combination. Find out what their cancellation and refund policy are and if there are any additional fees. You should be aware of travel fees overtime. Another piece of it you want to find out how they communicate and what their best form of communication is. Some planners take certain days off during the week, so you want to have an idea of what that looks like ahead of your planning process, if it falls on the same day that you might be off and doing your wedding planning.

Speaker 1:

And then also find out if they help with budgeting and they keep track of payments to vendors. This is probably going to be extremely helpful because budgeting is such a difficult topic and you want to make sure that they are confident in that. Find out if they have worked with any vendors that you're considering, if they have those vendor lists. Also find out if they're good with design and decor ideas. If they're going to create that timeline, you want to make sure that they are planning all of the pieces that you are needing assistance with. Last thing I would suggest is finding out if they cover just wedding day or if they also include assistance with your rehearsal dinner and your post-wedding brunch, if that is something you are considering. So that is your daily buzz today. Good luck.