At this point, I’ve written a lot of blog posts about making more money as a wedding planner. Making data-driven pricing decisions, following a Profit First model, and even just sharing marketing tips to help you generate more leads, are all ultimately written to help YOU grow a profitable business with purpose. And I’m proud of the posts I’ve written! But today, I’m taking it even FURTHER. I’m sharing 3 ways you can make more money PER wedding (without raising your prices or lowering your expenses). I’m talking about more cash in the bank here! If that’s what you need right now, keep on reading.
And if you’re also feeling like you’ve been doing everything right but still aren’t seeing the growth you expected, make sure you read my post on why you still feel stuck even when you’re doing everything “right.” It’ll help you understand the deeper shifts behind building a profitable, sustainable planning business.
Why should you raise your revenue per wedding?
There are a lot of ways to make more money as a wedding pro. Just off the top of my head, I’m thinking:
- Affiliate Income
- Selling digital products/templates
- Offering mentoring to other wedding pros
- Selling online courses
- Offer “one-time” planning calls for couples
And heck – if you’ve spent any time on TikTok lately, you may even be thinking about starting a dropshipping business or selling something “print on demand” on Etsy. Please tell me I’m not the only one getting flooded with those.
But today’s post isn’t about any of those things. Instead, I’ve focused on ways you can raise your revenue PER wedding. That way, you can make more money without booking more weddings or adding a whole other revenue stream to your business (which is almost always more work than you think it will be – trust me!).
#1 Separate Venue Research from Full Planning + Design
One of the first steps to making more money is to go through your current wedding planning packages, and then figure out what you are including that is “non-essential” and then offer it as an “add-on” service instead. For most of the wedding planners I coach, venue research falls into this category!
Storytime: I still remember the first time someone told me they had already found a wedding venue, so could I remove it from the full planning and design fee. It felt like the question hit me like a ton of bricks realizing that 1. I was going to make less money on this wedding now, and 2. How had nobody ever asked me this before? I knew right away I did NOT want that to happen again. I remember sitting there thinking “How much is venue research really worth?”
As you can imagine, I had two thoughts again:
- It was a ton of work so likely worth a significant chunk of change.
- On the other hand, the higher I valued the service, the more I had to deduct from my fee.
Naturally, I’ve learned a lot since then (and that’s why you are here right?). If you want to make more money per wedding without raising your prices, I highly recommend offering venue research as a separate service from your more comprehensive packages. While you are revamping your packages, look at what else you can remove from your current planning packages and consider offering them “a la carte” too.
If you are looking to start charging for venue research in addition to your full-service planning and design fee, I go into detail about the process here. I even include swipe files so you can start selling this new service immediately.
And by the way? Even though I’m talking about this service being something you “add on” for full planning clients, you could also offer it to couples who don’t feel like they need a wedding planner yet, too. Once they get a taste of working with you, there’s a good chance they will want you to guide them through the rest of the wedding planning process too! And let’s be honest – it’s a great way for YOU to get a taste of working with them too.
#2 Start Managing Your Couple’s Rentals
This strategy is HIGHLY profitable, and a great way to make more money per wedding without raising your prices. Again, this is a way to make more money from the work you are ALREADY doing for your couples. Don’t you want to get paid for it?
I’m going to break down a little more about “what it is” so you can start to think about ways you might want to implement rental management in your own business, but if this is something you plan on pursuing, I highly recommend you grab this Playbook where I outline the Wedding Planner Rental Revenue strategy. This ONE tweak has made me thousands of dollars in extra revenue (PER wedding!). It felt like it literally doubled my revenue overnight.
Here’s the short version of this powerful revenue-generating strategy:
In the simplest terms, managing your couple’s rentals makes YOU act as the rental company, and you act as the intermediary between your couple and the rental company. In most cases, your couple will pay you, and then you’ll pay the rental company. Obviously, there are ways to maximize the amount of money you are getting back, but that’s the essence of it. You “manage” the rentals, and therefore you’ll get paid a commission or fee for that work. You’ll need to require your planning couples to book through you, and you’ll likely want to open a separate bank account too. Before long, there will be a lot of money flowing in and out of your account.
And since rental management involves a ton of repeat communication like quotes, updates, confirmations, this is one of the best areas to start using AI in your wedding business. If you want help creating email templates that match your exact voice, read my post on how to train ChatGPT to write like you. It’ll save you so much time while keeping your communication elevated and consistent.
Want more? Inside my Rental Revenue Playbook, I share:
- Step-by-step guide on how to sublet rentals and make money off tents, tables, linens, lighting, and everything in between without carrying any inventory of your own
- Example rental invoices you’ll send clients
- How to establish relationships with rental companies and secure discounts
- How to pitch high-end rentals to your clients
- Rental policies swipe files to protect your business
It’s over 50 pages, so it’s a smidge more than I can include in this blog post!
#3 Add Partial Planning Hours to Day of Coordination
Raise your hand if you’ve been guilty of giving your day of coordination clients free advice because at the end of the day, it makes your job easier if they get it right. While I’m not going to tell you to stop doing that (I don’t want you walking into a shit show on the wedding day), instead, I want to encourage you to start offering to add partial planning hours to your “wedding management” service. You KNOW your couples will use them, and this can be a great way to make more money per wedding.
And if you want to educate your couples more efficiently (without spending hours crafting the perfect email), you’ll love my post on ChatGPT prompts for wedding pros. It includes scripts you can use to set boundaries, answer repeat questions, and communicate clearly, without doing extra unpaid work.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you’ve heard me say that the only thing partial about partial planning is the paycheck. That’s NOT what I’m talking about here. I’m not talking about offering to help with specific tasks or taking on a partial planning role. I’m talking about setting an hourly rate and offering packages of 5, 10, or 20 hours that couples can use as they need throughout the planning process. This way you are ensured you are paid for your time!
If you are in the process of revamping your wedding planning packages, I’d be doing you a major disservice if I didn’t tell you I’ve done all the heavy lifting in The Ultimate Guide to Wedding Planning Packages. If you want to structure your wedding planning packages in a way that will help you make more money per wedding easily, it’ll be the best money you ever spend.
A note about upselling your current clients
I just want to add a quick note here – while you can offer partial planning hours to couples at ANY time in the planning/management process, the other two strategies should likely be implemented with NEW couples moving forward. I’m not suggesting that you go back to your current clients and restructure your packages to make more money. I’m sure you already know that, but this blog post wouldn’t feel quite complete without this disclaimer.
BONUS: Are you pricing yourself well as a wedding planner?
Listen, I promised to share three tactical ways to increase your average revenue per wedding, and I have, but the business coach inside of me has GOT to ask: are you sure you shouldn’t be raising your prices?
If you are curious how much you should ACTUALLY be charging as a wedding planner (and what factors go into deciding on a price – and hint, your “worth” did not make the list), I have one last guide for you to consider. If you’ve priced yourself “a little less” or “a little more” than your competitors, and are ready to actually take a deep dive into your numbers and make sure your business is PROFITABLE, I highly recommend grabbing a copy of my Pricing your Planning Packages for Profit Playbook.
While raising your prices is NOT the only way to make more money, throwing spaghetti at the wall and choosing a random number is not the vibe either. And despite what you might think, I actually DON’T always recommend you raise your packages. I talk about that inside the playbook, too!
Want more advice in your wedding planning business?
You’ve found your business coach. My membership, the Planner’s Playbook, is THE place for wedding planners who want to grow a wedding planning business they love (with a lot more ease than reading random articles on Google). Inside, you’ll get:
- Monthly deep-dive playbooks
- AI Tools and shortcuts
- Group coaching calls and Q&A
- Guest training and masterclass
- Strategy workshops
- A community of planners who GET IT
I’d love to welcome you inside! Sign up for the details and join us for our next coaching call here.
If you’re also ready to streamline your backend even further, make sure you read my guide on how to use ChatGPT in your wedding business. It’s one of the easiest ways to save hours every week and operate like the elevated CEO you’re becoming.
Explore More Wedding Industry Resources
- Wedding Planners – Should You List Your Wedding Planner Pricing Packages On Your Website?
- How to Stand Out in a Crowded Market: Creating a Website for Wedding Planners That Get Results
- Want to Book Better Clients? Stop Marketing and Improve Your Client Experience Instead
- Wedding Industry Branding: How to Create A Recognizable Brand in the Wedding Industry with Brand Strategist Nicole Yang
- Should You Increase Your Price? How to Know When It’s Time to Raise Your Rates
- 8 Steps to Spring Cleaning Your Wedding Business
- How to Book Your FIRST Client as a Wedding Planner
- How To Build Your Portfolio As A Wedding Planner When You’re Just Starting Out
- Elizabeth McCravy On How To Create A Knock-Out Business Brand And Website
- Top 5 Blogging Tips For Wedding Pros in 2023
For More Wedding Planner Business Secrets Follow Me On Instagram
I’ve come to realize that many of us want to have a village, but we don’t recognize that we have to be a villager first.
My friend carla @c10ike is one of those rare exceptions and I want to introduce you to her!
When I started my planning business, I had no contacts and no real idea what I was doing. I was so green it makes me laugh to look back on it now!
And somehow, I got lucky enough to be taken under the wing of this incredible woman who showed up for me then when I was a little baby business owner, and has kept showing up ever since in more ways than I could possibly count.
She’s taught me so much over the years, and I don’t mean in the traditional sense of teaching someone something. She simply lived her life, and I paid attention.
She modeled what it means to be a friend.
A sister.
A daughter.
A wife.
A mother.
A business owner.
A boss.
I learned generosity by watching her be generous.
Compassion, connection, leadership… none of it came from advice. All of it came from the way she carries herself and the way she treats the people around her.
She has taught me more than she will ever know by the sheer act of living loudly and joyfully in every corner of her life.
I am so lucky to call her my friend. So lucky to be one of the many, many people she has been a villager for.
Carla thank you for letting me grow up right beside you. I love you. 🤍
DAY ONE // WPI Spring Retreat 💜
This was our first real day together! The theme of this whole retreat was refinement, so we wasted no time getting into it on Day 1!
The women shuttled up to my home, walked through the gate to mimosas and the biggest hugs, and got their welcome totes filled with goodies I curated from female owned businesses that were mostly local!
Then we settled in, did some tapping to manifest all the answers we needed for the week, courtesy of our very own @ashley.peraino (who couldn’t join us this year, but was SO THOUGHTFUL to record a video for us!)
I opened with a talk on complexity, discernment, and self-trust (today’s podcast episode, BTW) simplifying your business and actually trusting yourself to lead what’s left.
From there the room took over. We had three incredible member gives: @c10ike on trusting your creative instincts, @ininkweddings on refining your creative POV, and @welldressedevents on generating real revenue through Google Ads (it’s giving… LEADS 😉).
In between we had small group discussions, hot conversations about where instinct and POV are out of sync, a homemade Caribbean lunch, and an afternoon of poolside snacks and conversation.
This is what the WPI room looks like. A talented group of women who came with one big business question and spent day one getting closer to the answer while having fun and getting their brains stretched!
All these gorgeous moments captured by our retreat photographer + my business bestie @c10ike 💜💜💜
Do it or delete it.
I said this recently to a coaching client, and now it’s sort of become our mantra inside WPI, because almost every business owner I know has a to-do list with 47 things on it (the same 47 things that were on last week’s list, and the week before that).
They don’t get done. They just travel from week to week collecting guilt, and that guilt somehow makes it even harder to get anything done at all.
After years of coaching women through this, you start to realize that most of those tasks don’t actually have dire consequences if they never happen. They just feel important because they’ve been living on your list rent-free for six months.
I want you to look at your to-do list right now and choose.
You do it… meaning you do it right now or at the very least put it on the calendar with a real deadline.
You delegate it… but only if it’s actually worth someone else’s time, not because you’ve been avoiding it and want to make it someone else’s problem.
Or you delete it… and I mean actually delete it, not shuffle it to a “someday” list where it will haunt you until 2027.
The guilt you feel about your undone tasks won’t go away if you magically “get more productive.” Instead I want you to see it for what it is: a list-curation problem.
What’s one thing you’re deleting today?
PS: I can confidently say these @aritzia sweatpants are 10/10
Syd from @ininkweddings spent $$$$ on a rebrand... and a year later, her gut told her to do it again.
She listened, and that’s how Messy Luxury™ was born.
The Behind the Brand series is BACK on the podcast, and this episode is one of my favorites yet. I’m excited to introduce you to Sydney Meyer (AKA ya girl, SYD) – a talented, vibrant, and dynamic wedding designer / planner based in Austin but serving clients worldwide.
I’ve been coaching Syd inside WPI since 2022, so I’ve had a front row seat to her evolution.
I’ve gotten to watch her build an iconic brand from the inside out, and it’s been one of the great joys of my coaching career. I’m so excited for you to hear her journey and some of the interesting twists and turns she’s encountered because boy, are they RELATABLE.
In this episode, we get into:
- What inspired her to start In Ink
- Why her first rebrand still didn’t feel right and how she knew
- The rock-bottom moment that forced her to build a business for HER, not everyone else
- How she trademarked Messy Luxury and turned it into the most recognizable design philosophy in Austin
If your business doesn’t feel like you anymore or if you’ve been searching for your unique creative POV, you’re going to LOVE this week’s episode!
Drop MESSY LUXURY in the comments and I’ll send you a link to listen!
A special shout out to all the photographers whose images reflect Syd and her great work: @alicialeighphoto @anastasiastratephotography @fallonstovallphoto @lightasgold @natalienicolephoto @haleyfolkman.photo @c10ike
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