Last week was a weird week at The Modern Jewish Wedding
We took the week off for Shavuot! Clearly the moon cycle shifted, because, immediately following my favorite holiday, I found myself inundated with wedding planning requests.
Yes, I still plan the occasional event. It makes me a better blogger! I am able to keep up with trends to share, maintain relationships with the event community and further my message about how to plan excellent Jewish life cycle events! I love to plan Bar/Bat Mitzvah and do so under the business name, The Modern Jewish Mitzvah.
Usually, the question I receive the most is why do I need an event planner? (See this post for my answer to that question!)
But, last week the question changed! It was all about pricing! Was it to high, to low, or just right? We’ve pulled an oldie but goodie to answer your question.
My friends over at Yellow Umbrella Events wrote this post explaining how we figure out our fee structure.
“Today I’m going to set about to explain one really big part of what wedding planners charge for – the real time it takes them to plan and execute your wedding.
We’re going to use a real bride and these are actual details from a recent wedding.
Prior to the bride’s wedding day the Yellow Umbrella Events staff had:
- 2 visits with the stationer
- 3 visits with the caterer
- 4 visits to the venue site (that was 1 ½ hours away)
- 2 floral visits
- 2 band visits
- 4 different rental location visits
- 2 cake tastings (and 2 complete custom cake redesigns)
- 2 bridal gown consults
- 4 wedding dress fittings
- 1 dj visit
- 2 Videographer visits
- 2 Lighting visits
- 3 photographer visits (2 for actual shoots – engagement and bridal)
So far, I’ve only mentioned actual appointments to vendors. We haven’t even covered the 12 trips to Hobby Lobby for the various supplies , the 3 trips to the paper store, the last minute trip to Spec’s, welcome bag drop off to 3 hotels, and the 3 office visits we personally had with Sarah to update her on wedding details. Before accounting for anything else we’re already at 37 hours of meetings and over 30 hours of drive time going to and from these meetings – 67+ hours!
Our team spent 147 hours (yes, that’s the real number!) on the phone with the bride and wedding vendors, answering emails, tracking down supplies for the various wedding projects, booking hotel rooms, arranging transportation, assembling welcome bags, and overall wedding planning activities leading up to the wedding day.
Three staff members spent 1 hour assisting at the rehearsal, 3 hours setting up the décor at the rehearsal dinner location and 4 hours managing the rehearsal dinner and cleaning up afterward: for a total of 24 hours.
On the wedding day we had a staff of 5 that arrived at 8 a.m. to begin decorating the venue.
We arranged tables, linens and centerpieces, set china, hung chandeliers and draping from all the posts, decorated the dessert bar, coffee bar, stage and more, artfully folded napkins and tied every chair tie making sure the entire venue site was completely prepared for guests to arrive.
We managed all of the vendor activities, from load in to load out.
I was there for every whim and desire of the bride from the moment she arrived to the moment of the grand departure.
My staff took care of every guest question and need – including that last minute run to Spec’s for that certain brand of flavored vodka that they had to have right then and there. (My wedding day emergency kit is pretty stocked but it’s not that stocked!)
And then we did it all in reverse – yep, we cleaned it all up too! Basically, we were the first ones to arrive that day and the last ones to leave at 1:30am. Our staff made it all happen in a little under 90 hours that day.
Then it was all over! Just kidding – we still have the day after. The day after the wedding we returned the cake stand to the cake bakery, ran by one of the hotels to drop off the shoes one of the guests had left behind, picked up the wedding dress and tuxes from the bride and grooms hotel to take to the cleaner and returned the specialty rentals. This was the final 6 hours of wedding activities.
So let’s see: 67 hours for meetings and travel, 147 hours for pre-wedding activities, 24 hours of rehearsal activities, 90 hours of wedding day activities and 6 hours of post wedding day activities, for a grand total of 334 hours!
Beyond the hours worked there are hard fees involved – the 9 tanks of gas that went into my car for the driving to meetings and completing tasks, the cost of our staff time (I haven’t been able to convince them to work for free yet), various materials needed to complete various wedding related projects, and more. It all adds up.
This blog post was not intended to overwhelm you with the all the boring details of the business side of wedding planning, but to inform you of how long it really takes to make a wedding happen and why we planners charge what we do. Your wedding may be larger or smaller than Sarah’s wedding and take more or less time. Every wedding is different. But hopefully you won’t be shocked now when you have your first visit with your wedding planner and they explain their fees to you. Trust me, when you walk into your own wedding and your jaw drops because of how amazing it all is, and you never had to lift a finger, you’ll thank me!”
Thanks Cheryl (and YUE bride Sarah) for sharing these real stats with us!
Wedding (and Bar/Bat Mitzvah planning) is a real skill. It takes a special person to not get ruffled when the DJ is an hour late or the bus with the guests breaks down or the unknowing caterer substitutes ham for turkey on the deli platter at the luncheon (these are all real situations which have happened to MJW editor Michele)! Those aren’t tasks you want to do yourself or have your friends, mom (insert noun here) handling! You want a professional–who isn’t already in an emotional state–who knows exactly what to do!
Yes, we all get what we pay for! That professional event planner charges for his/her services! Don’t you charge for what you do?
