Roanoke Wedding Planner Guide
Congratulations on getting married!
Hi, my name is Emma, I’m a professional and certified wedding planner here the Roanoke Valley.
One of the MOST important things that you can do for yourself is invest in a wedding planner or wedding coordinator.
These are people that literally help guide you through the wedding process, help save you money along the way and literally take the stress OUT of your wedding planning process.
I have developed a guide for couples getting married in and around the Roanoke Valley and Southwestern Virginia.
How many people choose a wedding planner for the wedding?
According to Forbes and an 18,000 wedding survey they did, roughly 26% of couples went and hired a wedding planner, coordinator, or designer for their wedding day.
Hired a Wedding Planner for the wedding?
Why choose a Roanoke wedding planner, to begin with?
Wedding planners are designed to help manage, oversee, plan out the day and provide you peace of mind that your wedding will be taken care of the right way.
“Wedding planners help couples successfully plan their wedding day and see that everything runs smoothly.”
Some things that they do include:
Save you money booking vendors
Plan out your wedding timeline
Manage your wedding vendors
Take the guesswork out of planning the wedding
Before we go any further, there is a difference in a wedding planner, wedding designer, and coordinator.
Planners and coordinators are much the same, although wedding coordinators are usually for shorter, day-of planning, and designers take things a step further with actually designing the overall look of your day with flowers, décor, and much more.
Wedding Planner ($-$$$)
Usually a wedding planner takes on more of the full experience of the wedding from start to finish
Wedding Coordinator ($-$$)
A coordinator will do much the same a planner will, although typically they take on shorter wedding projects like just day-of coordination
Wedding Designer ($$$-$$$$)
A designer is more complex and typically much more expensive. They take on the planning, coordination and they also design the wedding day with a theme or sometimes colors. They’ll use décor, flowers, tables and chairs and the like.
Should I hire a planner for the ‘Day-Of’ or hire for a full-service plan?
It depends.
Usually, day-of coordinators will simply manage the day that you’ve planned out, and rarely will they create the schedule, although some do with the costs.
I want you to think about it this way.
Would you do your own taxes then take them to HR Block to have someone else file them after you did all the work?
Some would, but most wouldn’t.
They’d hire the tax professional to actually do their taxes to get them the biggest refund possible.
Well, wedding planners are much the same way, they can help oversee the day or they can take control of your planning and help every step of the way.
We recommend that you hire them for the long haul.
Are there benefits for wedding vendors to have a planner?
Yes, in fact.
Planners of all types are there to help guide vendors throughout the day’s events and that makes it much easier for them to go about our day.
In addition, should there be an issue, maybe its time related, maybe something is amiss or perhaps someone’s not doing something right, the planner will be there to help correct it and make it like it never happened.
Can Roanoke Wedding Planners REALLY Save you money?
Most times, they do. I say most times, because it really depends on the planner.
If done correctly, you can save an average of 5-20% of the entire wedding budget, although 10-15% is more likely.
“A good planner can save you five to 10 percent on your wedding, so sometimes it can come out where it’s an even wash.” - April Chantel
On average $34,000 that’s upwards of $3,400 in savings.
See, planners have a benefit that couples don’t with regards to other vendors, they bring other wedding vendors repeated business.
Joshua Gabrielson, a wedding business owner himself, owning 5 other brands in the region gives discounts to planners that bring him repeat business, “I’d gladly give a planner a bit of a discount for their clients if they’re bringing us repeated business each year and many vendors do just that.”
Couples, unfortunately, don’t typically have the luxury of providing us repeat business, so they’re less likely to give a discount.
Planners will market to vendors like Gabrielson and that saves them from buying advertising and marketing plans, thus saving a bit of money.
“We can usually pass the savings to their clientele and that can add up! I’ve seen wedding planners that have saved couples several thousands of dollars, more than the cost of the planner”, said Gabrielson.
It really depends on the planner and who they have good connections with.
What Should We look for in a Wedding Planner?
We recommend that you find someone with a great reputation, someone that’s done many weddings and someone with positive reviews.
Planners will sometimes provide value-added things like an emergency kit for your wedding day or linens for your reception.
Wedding planners don’t need to be ‘certified’ as that’s mostly uncommon in our industry, it doesn’t hurt to have a certification from a 3rd party organization, but that simply means they courses and passed it, not from a college, typically.
Okay, we like the idea of a wedding planner, how much should we pay for someone?
Well, that’s a great question.
On average, the ‘day-of’ wedding coordination will run you about $1000-$2000ish in SWVA.
Full-service planners are going to start at about $1,200 in our region and they go upwards of $2,500, some extend into the $5,000+ range.
Most couples within the region tend to spend on average, $1,500 for a planner like myself.
For wedding designers’, we only have a couple and they can range into the $10,000 mark with lots of goodies like floral centerpieces, special linens, and tableware too.
We recommend that you hire a planner for the length of your engagement, 9-16 months typically. Having them along for the long haul will put you in a much better position and plan on spending $1,500-$2,000 for someone with that level of involvement.
Usually, you’ll get a set amount of hours that he or she will work with you each week, and the service is usually worth more than what you fork out in the front end.
Is there anything we should be on the lookout for with wedding planners?
Stick to the main ones and you should be fine.
There are a couple of operations in our region that I don’t recommend although I will not say who they are, just stick to the list above or research them beforehand and you should be good.
I would make sure that they are insured for liability purposes, otherwise, we think you’d be fairly good at choosing any one of them.
Finally, can you give me any secrets or tips about wedding planners?
Well, the one thing I can tell you about most vendors in the wedding industry is that they work hard.
For the most part, wedding planners will work far more hours than you book them for, they often will have file folders of information for your wedding day, everything from your wedding vision to details of the timeline and the like too.
No two weddings are alike and no wedding planner (no vendor for that matter) will be cookie-cutter, so expect a personalized touch with a wedding planner or manager.
Our final piece of advice is to bring your vision to the planner with images, notes, likes and dislikes on paper.
You may not know 100% what you plan for the wedding day, but bring a good starting point for the professional and communicate with them what it is that you want for the wedding day.
