How Much Does a Wedding Planner Make? Wedding Planner Salary Revealed

Inside this episode, I'm breaking down my formula for generating a realistic idea of your earning potential, in your location, with your career experience, and availability. YASSSSS GIRL!

Here's what you can expect…
1:39​ - #1 The importance of setting goals 
2:10 - #2 National Averages
3:00​ - #3 Month of / Day Of Price Formula 
5:00​ - #4 Full Planning & Design Formula + Flat Fee Explained 
8:34 - #5 Starting With Day Of / Month Of Coordination
9:45 - #6 Typical Planning Business Expenses
10:45 - #7 Planner Salary Formula Revealed

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Are you interested in joining the Chancey Charm Planner Lead Generation Program? Learn more + apply here: https://www.chanceycharmweddings.com/wedding-planner-referral-program-application/

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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....

Transcript

Hi Welcome. My name is Sarah. I'm the founder of Chancey Charm. We're a national wedding planning and design firm with planners located across the country. We've been in business for well over a decade, and today I'm excited to answer a question that I get a lot inside of my planner academy. So I've hosted a planner academy. 2014, proud to say that over 6,000 planners are a part of that community receiving emails from me every week in education. And I love it. I love helping new and established planners launch and grow their business, their team, their mission, their vision. So one of the most popular questions I get all the time inside of the academy is how much does a wedding planner make? Especially, this is really, really, When people are first diving in, and I remember, you know, being new to planning and talking to planners that were successful in my mind and kind of saying like, well, how many weddings are you doing a year? And kind of trying to figure out like what was normal what was sustainable and how much they were making so that I knew kind of what the. Ceiling or you know, really what I could expect for my family, uh, from this business because while I love wedding planning and while I love surfing clients so much, I really felt called to it. I also wanted to financially contribute to my family and. My husband wanted me to as well. So nobody wants that hobby. That doesn't make any money, so we don't want that for you either. We, I really, really want you to be able to know kind of what you're getting into if you have this question, if you're trying to set goals. I'm super passionate about goals because early on in my career, I saw a pattern of burnout in the industry that was startling for me. I saw failed marriages. I saw. Distress and stress anxiety because people didn't know, again, what to expect, what kind of goals to set. Um, there were kind of hamsters on a wheel. Enough was never enough. I don't want that for you. I want you to fill some clarity about this. So I pulled up some numbers, kind of trying to figure out on the internet what the internet was saying. A planner would make And so what I found was that the knot.com said that you would. 1700, it would be a, an average wedding planner rate. Shutterfly said 1800 and Loverly said 3000. Wedding wire says couples plan typically spend at least 1500 on planning with full planning running around 3000. To be honest, I think that these averages are pretty low. Um, I do think that you can charge more for the than this for your services, but I'm also coming at this from a very realistic perspective of I. $300 for my first two weddings that I did for day of coordination or month of coordination. So there's no judgment here. This is a judgment free zone, And um, so when I was new in planning, kind of how I would think about it, and this is how I coached my new planners when they were launching new locations and diving into planning was an average month of. It takes about 30 hours. So let's say you're working at Starbucks, making $10 an hour and you're gonna work 30 hours, how much would you make? Let's try to make that $15 an hour for you as a planner. So really we started with low expectations to just get in the door to get some clients booked. And a lot of people don't like that. I'm gonna say this honestly, cuz planners are like, well, we all need to stay to industry standards. But when you're new and you're just trying to get experience, You shouldn't be charging as much as someone who has 10 years of experience. So my goal was to make more than I was making in my job, which I was working in marketing events at Chick-fil-A, also getting paid hourly. And I also looked at the broader perspective of could I get this wedding published? So could I generate new leads with this wedding or. Could I make some really great vendor connections and get a great review from this wedding? So there's more than just the dollar amount that I was getting with those first weddings. And that is something I love to share with planners because I think it's so important. Um, but that said, I do think that the numbers that are being, that are out in the internet are pretty low because we like to start. Our full planning and design, at least at $4,000, and a lot of our month of clients are paying 2000. We are located in bigger cities and that does matter. So Chancey Charm is specifically located in a lot of really big cities like Atlanta, New York, dc and that's because we specialize in destination weddings and clients that are finding us online. And so we are able to charge more than someone who is located in a rural area. So you know, you, again, you have to be realistic. I think it's always great to kind of do some digging in your area and find out how much other planners are charging. That's gonna help you really know. Not the Internet's numbers, but your numbers. Just some food for thought. Um, when you're doing full planning and design. A lot of planners might to charge between 10 and 20% of the overall wedding budget for their services or, or 10 to 15. Uh, again, the internet versus kind of what I've heard, it's always different. Um, but 10 to 15 we kind of stuck between 11 and 12% for full planning and design. Um, and you know, a lot of planners like doing this percentage model because if the budget increases, they're gonna get paid. We actually kind of work backwards in this, uh, aspect. At Chancey Charm, we like to charge one upfront, flat. So this can be dangerous because basically when we sit down with the client at the beginning of the consultation process and we're trying to figure out how much we're gonna charge, we really have to be educated on the true cost of what they're looking for in their wedding with vin, local vendors and venues. So if we're sitting down there telling us they have a $30,000 budget, but they want a. You know, outdoor reception ceremony where they're gonna have to rent a floor, they're gonna have to rent bathrooms. They want a film photographer, which is always more expensive. All these things. Then in my mind, I'm saying this is not a $30,000 wedding. And so what I'm gonna do during the consultation proposal process is I'm gonna try to educate them on the actual cost of the wedding they want, and we're gonna charge, you know, 12% of that actual. Cost of what the wedding they're looking for, um, is gonna cost, and they can push back on that. They can say, you know what, Sarah, we actually cannot spend $90,000 or a hundred thousand dollars in this wedding. We are gonna have to stick to $30,000. Okay, well, let's kind of redo the budget and then our pricing will be fit into that budget accordingly. Now again, we do start our full planning and design at 4,000. So that is a minimum, even if they have a lower budget. To protect ourselves because we know how much work is gonna go into full planning and design. So we charge the upfront flat fee. And the reason why we do that is because I never want a client to feel like we are trying to increase the budget as we plan with them. I wanna have so much trust with our clients, so having a flat fee, in my opinion. Really helps set the stage for, we're in this together. We've done the consultation, we've got an idea of what you're looking for. We created a great budget, our prices in that budget. Some planners will say, I don't wanna create a budget before they sign the dotted line. I say, I've already done a bunch of work to get them to this point. I wanna get them over the finish line. I wanna get that contract signed. I've signed a lot of really, Budget, weddings and big proposals with this method of going ahead and making out the budget based on my knowledge, putting my fee in there, explaining their services, explaining our value in this process, and then we start on the same page and we're working together to make sure that we keep costs in line with what they're envisioning or you know, we're getting them what they want and we're not doing it manipulatively so. That's my soapbox for the day, guys, on the upfront flat fee for full planning and design. But kind of take that into consideration as you start thinking about, okay, how much can I charge? How much can I make? What's your target? Target client? How much are they spending on their wedding? This is gonna affect how much you're making, especially in full planning and design. So, Some food for thought is that there are planners out there that just specifically focus on day of or month of coordination. Why would they do this? Well, they do this because it is and can be a little bit less time consuming and stressful because essentially you're helping a client wrap up their wedding planning and you're getting them through that wedding day. So it's a smaller time commitment, like I said, about 30. As opposed to full planning and design, which is a lot more meetings, a lot more walkthroughs, a lot more emails, a lot more calls, and it just is a lot more work. So if you're a planner who's new and you're kind of trying to ease into this cuz you're still teaching or you're a full-time mom, you know, full, uh, full planning and design might be something you work towards. And starting with day of and month of might be a great idea for you. That's what I did. It also helped me get vendor connections. It get published and it kind of ease into things. So really, really recommend that. But if you're doing that, you have to know your earning potential is going to be less because you're only able to charge, let's say, 1500, 2000, 2,500 for, you know, your day of services until you get more experience. So what money is gonna be going out in your business? Well, as a wedding planner, you have this money coming in and there's gonna be money going out because every business has expenses For me, my marketing and website costs are my largest expense. Um, if I wanna invest in myself, which I have over and over again, paying for education, getting your business registered, paying for insurance, um, little tidbit there. I have professional liability and general liability insurance. Happy to share those contacts. Uh, you know, message me on this video, uh, shoot me an email. Um, those things are important to have, to have a legitimate business where you're protected personally. So, and then if you have people day of helping you, employees, so you know, there is money going out, I don't feel like it's, uh, a large percentage of your money going out if you're managing your expenses as well. However, it is something to take into consideration. Setting aside some money for taxes. Um, so anyways, I wish that I could just give you like, Hey, this is how much a wedding planner makes, but really what I'm gonna challenge you to do in this video is to think about. What kind of weddings you wanna do, where you're located, what's your target client spending on their wedding? So feasibly how much you can charge for your services, the services you wanna provide, month of or full planning and design, and. What kind of market you're in, what are the average planners, uh, charging in your area or new planners charging in your area? And then how many weddings can you do in a year while remaining sane? So just a little to throw it out there, because again, I appreciated it when people were honest with me as a new planner, but I actually, um, taught to a planner who I felt like was extremely successful and she was doing 15 full planning and design weddings a year. That is a lot of. That's a big commitment. That's a really great number to keep in mind if you're new and when it comes to day of, do you wanna do one or two weddings a a month? That's a great number to keep in mind. And so kinda work through these things and you're gonna be able to come to a really healthy idea of what is gonna be possible for you to make every year as a. Um, inside my academy I do a lot of teaching planners how to launch with the right marketing techniques so that they have a lead flow that allows them to reach their goals. I'm a marketing, uh, Google nerd and so I love talking about that. I love talking about the planning and logistics too, but this is kind of my sweet spot. So I hope that this provided some clarity for you where you are in your career and in your location, and I would love for you to check out the academy and join me in my Facebook group.