It’s time for a reality check, friends: your business isn’t profitable if you’re just paying yourself the leftovers. Today, I’m diving deep into WHAT you are doing that is eating away at your profit (hint: it’s in the title of this blog post and it has to do with your wedding planning packages), and what exactly you should be doing instead. If you are looking to grow a profitable wedding planning business, keep reading (because that’s kind of what I’m known for around here!).
Wish you could just snap your fingers and have your wedding planning package problems solved? I have the next best thing with my Ultimate Guide to Wedding Planning Packages that SELL. You’ll learn exactly what I know about creating wedding planning packages that are attractive to your ideal clients (and have them sign your contract and swipe their debit card–no negotiation required).
The Biggest Problem with Copying Your Competitor’s Wedding Planning Packages
Before I dive into why adding too much to your wedding packages is a bad thing, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: your competitors. How did you create the wedding planning packages you have? Did you copy them for a competitor? Maybe then you chose to add a little more or charge a little less? How’s that going for you?
The biggest problem with copying your competitor’s wedding planning packages is that there is no way to guarantee whether or not they’re profitable without looking at their tax returns.
Copying your competitors’ packages is not ethical, and it’s also just not a good business idea. Most wedding planners are grossly undercharging, undervaluing their services, and offering way too much for their clients. While I’ll be the first person to tell you that you absolutely should care about your clients, I also value you as a business owner. You deserve to grow a profitable business with purpose. How can you make sure you’re doing that if you’re looking over your competitor’s shoulder to see what they’re doing?
Why Adding Too Much To Your Wedding Packages is a BAD Thing
Ok, now let’s talk about why adding too much to your wedding packages is a bad thing. That’s why you’re here, right? Chances are, especially in times like these (when the economy is a little bit soft and less people seem to be booking weddings across the board), it can be tempting to try to increase the perceived value of your wedding planning package and the easiest, most obvious way to do that is to just “include more”.
I’m here to tell you that that is actually a big mistake and you do not need to offer everything and the kitchen sink in order to get booked.
Trust me, I’ve learned this the hard way. Let me share just 3 reasons why!
1) It gives clients room to remove stuff they don’t want or need
Everything you include in your packages? Make sure it needs to be there. For example, you may have something like “wedding rehearsal planning” that your couple wants to remove to save a few coins but you can confidently tell them that because you think a rehearsal is important to the overall success of the day, it’s not optional. On the other hand, if you throw in a lot of bells and whistles, like “welcome bag assembly”, and your couple isn’t doing welcome bags, it’s a lot harder to tell them that they don’t get a discount.
2) Ton of extra work that burns you out
There are a ton of reasons that you may feel burned out as a wedding planner, and this does not need to be one of them. When you create wedding planning packages that include “everything”, you set yourself up for a ton of extra hours of work (whether that’s unlimited access and meetings, assembling DIY projects on the wedding day, or even stuffing wedding envelopes).
3) Feels overwhelming and confusing to clients as they shop around for options
Your couple doesn’t want to break out a spreadsheet and a highlighter to try and determine which wedding planner is including “more” (and that’s not why you want them to pick you either!). By keeping your packages simple (while still including what needs to be in there), you actually make it easier for them to understand and take away some of the mental energy friction that happens when they are trying to digest 85 line items.
The Easiest Places to Start Upselling From Your Wedding Packages
So if right now you’re thinking, okay, Candice, but what do I do? My packages aren’t selling. I am trying to increase the perceived value. Couples are nickel and diming me. Don’t worry. I have three easy things you can REMOVE from your current packages (which you can then upsell to clients once they book if the services are desired!).
This list doesn’t stop here, though; you can have options to add on anything from additional planning hours to rehearsal dinners and post-wedding brunches. The choice is YOURS.
Channeling Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank to say: if bookings are slower right now, it’s a LOT easier to sell to current clients than existing ones. So make sure you are leaving something to sell them!
Venue Research
Listen, how often do you have couples book a venue before they book the planner? If you’re like most of the wedding planners that I talked to, it’s about half the time. And the truth is that finding a venue is a ton of work. So if you are including that in your full service and design package, that means that you are going to have a lot of couples ask you if they’ve already found their venue, and do they get a discount? I can practically see the money flying out of your account, friend!
The second reason I think you should offer this as a separate service is that for couples that are on the fence about having a planner, this service gives them an opportunity to trial your services at a lower rate. After they work with you to help find their venue, itis likely to be easy to upsell them to full planning, partial planning, or, at the very least, wedding management or day of coordination (if you choose to offer that service).
If all of that sounds good to you, but you’re not quite sure what a venue research service should include, make sure to grab my playbook on creating a venue research service here.
Wedding Design
I don’t know when it became normal for design to be included in wedding planning packages. It can and absolutely should be its own service (or if you’re including it in full planning, at least charge for it!).
So many of the incredibly talented wedding planners and designers that I work with feel unsure about charging design as a separate service because they haven’t been professionally trained, or they don’t feel like they have enough experience. If you’re feeling imposter syndrome, you’re not alone. But the truth is, it is a TON of work. So, if you’re working with clients who are investing a large amount of money into their design/rentals, consider removing the design elements from your planning packages and billing for them separately.
Wedding Rental Service
Third, and finally, let’s talk about wedding rentals. I’m not kidding when I tell you that my total revenue almost doubled after I started offering wedding rentals. And the best part is? It’s just a way to get paid more for what you’re already doing. Managing rentals for your clients is a HUGE convenience and stress-saver for them, and so they will be GLAD to hear that you can take this off their plate for them (especially if you are helping with design). You can learn exactly how I created and executed this service for my own clients here!
Nothing Should Be Unlimited
Now that your wheels are turning and I’ve hopefully convinced you that adding too much to your packages can be a bad thing, let me just put the final nail in the coffin when it comes to “unlimited” anything. Offering “unlimited” services such as revisions or consultations can seem like a generous approach to customer service. However, as a business coach specializing in the wedding industry, I’ve seen this backfire too many times to ever recommend it as a “value-add” strategy.
A little tip from someone who has been in the industry a long time? Create packages that protect yourself from clients who will take advantage. No “ideal client” will need unlimited meetings, and if they do need more time, you can make an exception at your own discretion. I just cringe when I see the words “unlimited” in a contract!
You Deserve to Run a Profitable Wedding Planning Business
I hope you can see why adding too much to your wedding planning packages can actually be a bad thing, and I hope you also feel encouraged and reaffirmed that you deserve to run a profitable wedding planning business. It can be so hard, especially in years when bookings seem low. But the truth is, low years ARE normal, and I don’t want you to panic, change everything about your business model, burn it all down, and add a ton more work for yourself until you ultimately quit and go back to the corporate job you were dying to escape from.
If you want more guidance like this from a wedding planner who has been there through the up, down, and “figuring it all out years”, I would love to welcome you inside The Planners Playbook membership. Sign up for the waitlist here and you’ll be the first to know when doors open (and steal some pretty incredible bonuses too!). Doors open soon!
Explore More Wedding Industry Resources
- How to Start a Wedding Planning Business
- Should You Offer Wedding Weekend Planning Packages? Here’s The Truth.
- Creating Wedding Planner Packages for Your Business: How To Find the Best Way To Position Your Offer
- 6 Things You Need to Include In Your Wedding Planner Pricing Guide
- Here’s What Every Wedding Planner Needs To Include In Their Wedding Design Proposals
- Wedding Planner Pricing: How Much Should You Charge As A Wedding Planner? Learn How To Figure Out Your Price
- Pricing Mistakes You Can’t Afford To Make In Your Business As A Wedding Pro
- 6 Ways Wedding Planners Leave Money on the Table
- 5 Ways to Make More Money As A Wedding Planner
- Why Honeybook Is The Best CRM for Wedding Planners
- How Much Does It Cost to Become a Wedding Planner?
- Wedding Planners – Should You List Your Wedding Planner Pricing Packages On Your Website?
- Day of Coordination: The Pros and Cons as a Wedding Planner
- How To Sell Your Wedding Planning Services: The 7 Stages Of The Sales Cycle
- 5 Contracts Every Wedding Planner Must Have To Be Legally Set
- How To Get Wedding Clients When You’re Just Starting Out
- Are Your Wedding Industry Sales Down? Here’s How To Figure Out What’s Wrong
- 9 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your Wedding Planning Business
- How to Book Destination Weddings And Elopements In Your Wedding Business
- Why You’re Not Attracting The Right Clients and How to Fix It
- How To Become A Wedding Planner With No Experience
For More Wedding Planner Business Secrets Follow Me On Instagram
You might see the highlight reel and think ending up here was always my plan all along but you’d be wrong.
Like any good career, there have been lots of pivots and hiccups, and lessons that had to be learned the hard way.
Not seen here? The time…
- I forgot to add chairs to a rental order and ended up footing the $2,000 bill
- A client sat across from me crying that I ruined her wedding because her parents table had a low centerpiece
- I had to borrow $4,000 from Grandma Vera to make payroll, because I didn’t pay attention to my numbers
- About a hundred “dream clients” hired a different planner than me and I felt like an absolute failure
- I cried in my car before a wedding because I was completely and totally overwhelmed with the amount of responsibility on my shoulders (OK, maybe I did this more than once)
- My seasonal launch of The Planner’s Playbook completely bombed and I felt like my entire business was falling apart
…and roughly 700 other moments I’ve chosen to leave off the highlight reel.
So if you’re at the messy, nothing’s-working stage right now? Just know that if you have been to one wedding in your life, you are starting with more experience than I had.
I’m getting ready to embark on an exciting new chapter that I cannot wait to share with you… it’s big, and scary, and I’m sure in another few years I’ll have a lot more lore to share… but in the meantime…
Cheers to all the ups and downs I’ve experienced over the last 19 years!
And a special thanks to the photographers who made a lot of this lore possible: @c10ike @allanzepedaphoto @stevedepino @withincreative @robertandkathleen @thebrandedbosslady 💜🫶🏼😘
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
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