On the surface, weddings are romantic, glamorous, and enchanting. Behind the scenes, though, weddings demand an unimaginable amount of hard work and dedication. Wedding planners, we get it: you deserve to be compensated for your hard work!

Can I increase my prices as a wedding planner?

Pricing your services as a wedding planner is no easy feat. Can I raise my prices? Why should I? When is it fine to do so? How will my clients react? When it comes to evaluating your prices and increasing your fees, the questions and concerns can quickly pile up. As intimidating as it may seem, making the right pricing decisions is necessary to succeeding in the wedding planning industry.

First things first: no, your clients will not run away if you raise your rates. Understanding that inflation is affecting all of our lives is the first step to having confidence in your pricing. Sure, your new prices may seem expensive now, but they will soon become the new normal to both you and your clients. The reality is the cost of doing business is no longer what it was when you launched your wedding planning business.

With every passing season, wedding planners also gain experience. Taking inspiration, honing in on your craft, and learning valuable lessons from each wedding you organise makes you better qualified for the next. Your prices and fees should reflect this.

Handling increasing demand, dealing with competitor pricing, and making your wedding planning business profitable are all the more reason to re-evaluate your pricing strategy frequently.

Meet Cindy Savage: a wedding planner who knows their worth

Cindy Savage is the founder of Seattle-based wedding planning service, Aisle Less Traveled. Cindy has been planning events since 1995. From stage management, to party organisation, to wedding planning—Cindy has done it all.

Year after year, Cindy unapologetically raises their rates to combat the increasing costs of running these events and, of course, to secure the salary they deserve. You get better at your job every year—why shouldn’t your pay reflect that?

We spoke to Cindy about why their pricing strategy is the way it is, and why yours should be the same.

V: Wedding planners often undervalue themselves—agree?

Cindy: Yes. I think we can trace this to being "women's work" and, as with everything in that category, there is an expectation that women will do it with no or minimal compensation. Yet event planning is consistently ranked as one of the most stressful jobs there is! It is a lot of work with a lot of pressure to get it right.

Planners can spend 40-50 hours for a service widely known as "day-of-coordination"—a term that grossly minimises the skill and time required and as much as 300 hours for start-to-finish wedding planning and design. But when you look around, you see the average spend on wedding planners reported around $1500, with planners charging as little as $300-500 for that 40-50 hour service. When you break it down, that's barely $10 per hour before expenses and taxes—which means those planners may not even net minimum wage!

This is not an entry-level job that any 16-year-old can pick up and do successfully on the weekends; it's a uniquely skilled profession that warrants considerably higher pay.

V: You raise your rates every year—why?

Cindy: I have raised my rates every single year that I have been in business (so 13 years and counting!)

Inflation absolutely affects us and all small business owners as well. Our expenses continually increase; we have to raise our rates in order to maintain the same standard of living. This has been especially true during COVID with the historically high inflation and we are seeing significantly higher costs across the wedding industry as a result.

Also, I think that people forget this is a career for us; like anyone, we want and should expect an increasingly higher salary as time goes on! Unlike being an employee in a large company, where there are new levels to be promoted to, as a wedding planner and the owner of my business, I started at the top. There is no title bump available to me, but I get better at my job with every wedding and so, I deserve a higher rate of pay.

What barriers have you had to navigate when increasing your pricing?

I really don't worry about what anyone else is charging. After thirteen years, I know that I am an exceptional wedding planner and, as many of my clients have told me, I am worth every penny. My only concern is that with rising inflation, the cost of having a wedding may become out of reach for all but the wealthiest people, which could limit the pool of potential clients and cause the market to become much more competitive.

What advice would you give a planner hesitant to up their rates?

I would advise them to really do the math! It's easy to gloss over the expenses we all have—a lot of which is monthly subscription software to make our businesses run. Maybe each of them is only $30-40 every month, but when you have email, planning software, invoicing/billing, client management, floor plans/design, timelines... it can add up to quite a lot if you aren't paying attention.

So, my suggestion is to go through a full year of expenses, figure out how much you are truly spending, add onto that how much you need to take home, and then add 30% for taxes. Then divide by the number of events you want to work in a year to get an average price you need to charge. It's not that hard to do, but many people skip it, instead looking around at what other people are charging and matching that. And then they end up undercharging (which devalues the rest of us), working too many events to make ends meet, and getting burnt out.

‍

So, next time you're due to evaluate your pricing structure, remember: you're worth it!