Illy Goodall
- Nov 8, 2021

How Much Does A UK Wedding Planner Cost?

Good Morning Lovelies, how much does a wedding planner cost is a common question that many couples ask. It's your first question when you begin to think about investing in London Wedding Planner. Investing in a wedding planner does not cost as much as you think, we want to give you all the information you need to know when factoring this into your wedding planning budget. We may be biased, but it's definitely worth thinking about, so let's talk costings...

What does a Wedding Planner do?

Wedding Planners are one of the only suppliers that have full involvement with you throughout the wedding planning journey. From the very beginning when you book with us, right through to the very end and afterwards. What you are paying for is not only the time it takes for a wedding planner to plan your wedding, but the expertise and knowledge that comes from an experienced company. Wedding Planner Prices Packages UK are individual to each and every planner, there are many aspects involved that contribute to each companies pricing.

On average it takes around 250 hours to plan a wedding, if you didn't already know that, now you do. Sourcing Wedding Suppliers is an art on its own, it requires in-depth knowledge and experience to know what you're looking for. We ensure proper research is done, recommendations are chased and if we haven't worked with them before, we look through every single part of their contract to ensure it protects you. We do advise all of our couples to take out wedding insurance, however you cannot risk your supplier not turning up, which is why couples pay us to do it for them.

Contracts, admin, phone calls and site visits takes hours upon hours, if you're a couple with a busy schedule, we know you don't have unlimited time for all of this. Plus, it isn't always the exciting part of planning (although we love every aspect). Your Wedding Planner Fee will include all of this and be detailed in your proposal.

As experts in all types of weddings from purpose built structures, countryside marquees and dry hire spaces, we have many logistics we need to adapt to, to ensure everything runs smoothly and no details are missed out. Don't let that generator catch you out on a marquee wedding! Power and Water are the two things you definitely don't want to forget.

Experienced Wedding Planners should only take on a limited amount of weddings per year, to ensure they can dedicated their time to you and your wedding planning journey. The more luxury and higher your wedding budget, the more this will cost and those planners will take on a limited amount of weddings due to this. Why? Because they want to ensure that everything is dedicated to you.

Do I need to hire a Wedding Planner UK?

This is always a personal choice and comes down to the individual couple. We offer wedding planner packages that are customisable for our couples requirements. You will need to sit down and assess the pros and cons to whether hiring a wedding planner is the right route for you. Let's talk you through some of those here:

Pros

- You won't need to spend 250 hours planning a wedding, instead you can leave it to an expert and enjoy the fun side of planning your wedding.

- You have someone you can ask all questions relevant to your wedding, most people are getting married for the first time so don't know how to retrieve certain answers to questions they may have.

- You have peace of mind that someone is going to be there on the day, implementing your ideas and understanding everything that is going on. Think of it as your personal PA service on the day of the wedding, you won't need to think about anything.

- You don't need to negotiate with suppliers, a wedding planner will do this for you. They will be able to get good discounts for you due to the working relationship they have with these suppliers.

- You won't need to attend meetings or site visits if you don't want to, your planner does this all for you!

Cons

- You may not have the budget set aside to include a wedding planner.

- You may feel like you don't have as much involvement in the wedding as you'd like. This is a common thought process of many couples, but we work alongside you to ensure you have as much involvement as you want.

- You can't hand over full control. Part of having a wedding planner is so that we take the stress of administration and planning away from you. This can be difficult for some couples to comprehend and instead they will choose to plan the wedding themselves.

How much does the average wedding cost in the UK?

As a general rule, Wedding Planning in the UK is dependant on three things, experience, location and budget. Most Wedding Planners will work on a percentage basis, but some are known to work on a fixed fee when it comes to Full Wedding Planning Services.

- Percentage charged by UK Wedding Planners can range from 10% - 15% of your total wedding budget. As the budget increases, the logistics become more complex, which therefore requires more time spent on planning your wedding.

- Fixed fees are usually charged where a larger budget is presented, clients often request this when budgets go over £150,000. This is discretionary and up to the individual event planning company, however, please respect everyones pricing on this.

- Minimum fees apply to experienced wedding planners, as a general rule, the higher the minimum fee the more experienced they are. These really vary from £2500 through to £8000, sometimes even more. However, it is important to do your research, just because it says a higher fee on their website, doesn't mean they have been planning for years. Ask for testimonials, check their portfolio and ask them for "real weddings'.

- Location can come in as a factor. If you are enquiring with us for example, we are based in London and the South East of England, and you want to get married in Scotland, we will have to price in flights and accommodation. Search for planners in your area if you are looking for more competitive pricing, but the more experienced luxury planners will travel anywhere any everywhere as couples will pay to ensure they have them.

- At Illy Elizabeth Weddings we charge 10%-12% of the total budget, the reason why we have the variation in percentage is because naturally as the budget goes up, the fee becomes higher. As we have over 6 years of experience with planning wedding events, we charge a minimum fee of £4000. We also work on a fixed base pricing if the budget exceeds a certain figure, which we discuss with our clients on their free consultation call.

Pricing for On-The-Day Coordination or Wedding Day Management

Most Wedding Planners in the UK will charge a standard rate when it comes to On-The-Day Coordination or what some people call "Wedding Day Management". This is where you have planned your entire wedding and you simply require someone to execute your wedding day. The logistics when it comes to this service can actually be trickier at times, this is due to many factors. For example, if a supplier doesn't turn up on the day with the right electrical adapters, we work behind the scenes to sort this out for you. We do a run down 4 weeks prior to your wedding day and speak with all of your suppliers, however we have no control over the planning process prior to that. Most Wedding Planners will create a bespoke timeline for you, manage all suppliers and timings on the day whilst ensuring everything runs smoothly behind the scenes.

- Experienced Wedding Coordinators in the UK can charge a fee starting from £800, this is again dependent on location from the venue. It doesn't matter if your Wedding Coordinator has worked in the venue you have chosen before or not, we can execute a wedding just by turning up on the day.

- Multiple Day Wedding Coordination may be required when you have a marquee and need help with clear down, or simply have a weekend wedding event. Pricing will start from £1400 for the weekend, but as a general rule there is a day rate. You will need to factor in accommodation if we need to stay on-site, but again your Wedding Coordinator will talk you through this on your consultation call.

- At Illy Elizabeth Weddings our On-The-Day Coordination fee starts from £1200. This includes our travel to and from the venue.

Elopement Wedding Planner Services

There are lots of factors when it comes to an Elopement Wedding Planning Package, whilst we don't offer elopement packages here at Illy Elizabeth Weddings, there are many companies that specialise in this. Elopement Weddings have become very popular over the last few years, especially with more millennial couples. Elopement Weddings consist of just the couple and their witnesses, therefore these packages are a lot smaller. There are still logistics involved of course, as they tend to be destination weddings and are usually priced on a fixed fee basis.

- Budget and Location will be the two biggest factors when it comes to pricing. In general a fixed fee will apply for Elopement Weddings and start from £1000.

- Some Wedding Planners offer floristry services and extras alongside their Elopement Packages, it's worth asking about these if they aren't included on their website.

Hidden Fees

There are no hidden fees when it comes to Wedding Planning Packages. All of us are very clear on what we charge and this is clearly laid out in your contract with us. The Wedding Planning process is very much about trust and we like all of our couples to feel like they have clear transparency when it comes to our fees and costings.

Hiring a Wedding Planner

We'd love to hear from you if you feel like you would like a Wedding Planner to be a part of your experience. We hope that this blog post has given you all the information you need to get you started with finding the right Wedding Planner for you.