As you can see from the mood board above this really is quite a stunning theme with some fabulous pastel colours to choose from. It almost has a vintage feel to it and yet is also light, airy and modern.

What are your thoughts on this emerging trend?

Today we are continuing our series on how to charge as a wedding or event planner.

Hourly Rate

This form of charging is great when you are only doing a small portion of the wedding planning. There are many couples who are quite prepared to do some of the work themselves, but are really looking for a helping hand and some guidance in certain areas. Some of the most popular adhoc areas that can be charged using an hourly rate format include:

• Venue Finding Service – this would usually include a consultation with your client either in person or phone/email to ascertain the venue requirements. A recommendation of 3 or 4 venues would then be presented to your client and a form of introduction to the venues. Depending on your package you may also offer to take your clients to the venue on a site inspection but this would normally be done in a package price rather than by the hour.

• Supplier Recommendation – this would usually include a consultation with your client either in person or phone/email to ascertain the suppliers required and then an agreed selection would be presented to the client and introductions made by you to the client & supplier.

• Theme creation and Inspiration Board – this would usually include a consultation with your client either in person or phone/email to ascertain your client’s vision for their wedding day. From this you would then create an ideas file for your client with an inspiration board which they would then use going forward in the design of their wedding. This would not include the design itself.

• Hourly Consultation – some brides simply want to have a planner available to consult with but do the majority of the planning themselves so an hourly rate is ideal for this as you can charge for each consultation when and as they happen.

• On the Day – this is a particularly popular area of planning that some planners specialize in and put together appropriately priced packages for. However, you can also charge by the hours for this as there is alot more work involved in this than first meets the eye and you want to account for the work you will do prior to the wedding day itself.

This list is certainly not a complete list but does cover the most popular items that might be charged by the hour. Obviously it is not practical to charge a client by the hour when planning the wedding from start to finish as you will price yourself out of the market, and your client won’t accept the quoted price. But, this form of charging works very well for those clients that like to know exactly what they are being charged for and want to budget up front with an explanation of hours worked.

Let’s look at an example. If you have agreed to meet with them three times in person and also put together a supplier recommendation list this might add up to 10 hours of your time including travel. Therefore an hourly rate would be a good way to go. Most planners will charge between $50 – $100 per hour dependent upon level and experience. Let’s say you are charging $75 per hour, some clients would rather see the following:

10 hours @ $75 per hour

rather than

$750 for the bronze wedding planning package which might be the other way of charging for something like this.

Next week we will look at the final format for charging which is the Set Fee.

This question has been asked time and time again so is a really good one to address here on our blog. As a wedding a supplier, planner or designer you are are the expert and not the client. Would you go into a hairdressers and ask them for their hair dye and then go away and die it yourself? No you wouldn’t because part of the reason you go to the hairdressers is that you are paying for their expertise, artistry and talent. So why should it be any different as a wedding supplier?

Let me give you some examples of what I mean.

You have recommended a band and DJ for a wedding and the client loves the band but wants to bring in their own DJ to keep the cost down. This rings alarm bells immediately as the reason you have suggested this particular combination of band and DJ is because they work together all the time and make for a seamless event where the entertainment is concerned. If the client insists on bringing in their own cheaper DJ you open yourself up to all sorts of problems including set up issues, timing issues and generally a lack of knowing how the band or you as a planner work, so ultimately you lose control.

I find in most situations like this you do best to take the time to explain to your client why you are making this recommendation as I have above. You are also perfectly within your rights to remind them why they hired you in the first place – because you are an expert in what you do. Would they question what their accountant tells them? Probably not because they aren’t the expert. You will find that most clients will respond well to this and respect you for reminding them of this

Percentage of Overall Budget

The Wedding Industry Awards took place on Wednesday 18th of January and both Zoe and I attended as representatives for the UK Academy of Wedding and Event Planning (UKAWEP) and what a night it was. The venue, Cafe de Paris, was fantastic and was opulent and visually appealing with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling and cozy booths with velvet interior around the dance floor. It had a real Moulin Rouge feel to it which thrilled me as I have just come back from a mini New Year break in Paris, so this was very apt for me.

The event itself seemed to go off without a hitch and was very well organised. We were welcomed by staff at the top of the stairs and pointed in the right direction whereupon we were served a glass of champagne. As this was a cocktail event with canapes being served throughout the evening there was much mingling and networking going on as the elite of the wedding world came together to celebrate the industry.

As there were Regional Winners from each category in attendance the dance floor area had been set up in regions to allow easy networking between those that knew each other whilst the close proximity to other regions allowed for new friendships to be formed.

The room was buzzing by the time Damian Bailey, the man behind the awards, took to the stage to start the formalities of the evening. Each category was introduced by Sarah Hewson, Sky News Presenter, who looked stunning in a green cocktail dress and gave us a behind the scenes glimpse of her life as a Royal Wedding Correspondent.

The quality of the entries for each category was extremely high and in some cases led to the judges awarding a ‘Highly Commended’ to entrants in some of the categories. Of course the category we were most interested in was that of Best Independent Wedding Planner, as this is the area we hope to see one of our students in next year. This honour was taken out by the very talented Jane Riddell and her company Planned for Perfection. We are hoping to do an interview with Jane over the next week and talk to her about her award and what she feels it takes to be a successful planner.

Another category that was of interest was that of Best Wedding Coordinator within a Venue and this award went to Michele Jetzer of Riverstation and we would like to extend our congratulations to Michele as well.

As I said it was a wonderful evening and we would like to congratulate Damian and his team on a fantastic effort for the first in what we hope will be many more Wedding Industry Awards evenings. We are looking forward to next year and for those of you looking to enter the 2013 Awards click here to be kept up to date on what is happening. To finish things off here is a happy snap of Zoe and I having fun at the Awards!

Some photos sourced from Pinterest

Interview with Course Consultant, Christine Kerr

Christine: Sonia, I am absolutely blown away by the stunning images you have styled in the theme of Twilight and featured on your blog, ‘want that wedding’   I read that what you wanted to do was create something beautiful to inspire Brides, whether they were a Twilight fan or not.  I have to admit to not being one of those people who have been caught up in the Twilight craze, but your shoot captured my imagination.  It is stunning and tells a story.

Christine: So, let’s go back to the beginning.  Can you tell us a little of your story and what you are looking to achieve within the industry?
Sonia: I guess this all started for me whilst planning my own wedding, I realised that it was something I was really interested in, particularly the styling. After our wedding was featured in Cosmo Bride, various friends kept telling me I’d make a great wedding planner so the idea started to blossom and I decided to go for it. I came across your wedding planning, styling and design course and the styling and design aspect really appealed to me. I am in the early stages of the course as I’ve also set up a wedding blog which takes up quite a bit of my time.

Christine: As someone who is not working professionally in the industry just yet, this shoot is a spectacular achievement.  Getting suppliers, of this calibre to work with you has obviously helped you to bring your vision to life.  How did you go about putting your dream team together?
Sonia: I have a twitter account @wantthatwedding and I follow lots of people in the wedding industry, I knew I wanted the shoot to look high end so spent time looking into the suppliers I thought could help me achieve that look. I also worked with a couple of suppliers that I used for my own wedding day as I knew how good they were and what they were capable of.

Christine: How did the creative vision for this shoot come together?  Did you create a story, a mood board, brainstorm with your team?  Can you give us an insight into the creative process?
Sonia: The creative vision came together bit by bit, I had this amazing vision in my mind and I would picture each part of ‘the wedding’ I ‘Googled’ my ideas to see what I could find on the internet, I took inspiration from various things I found along the way. After an idea was formed I would contact a supplier I believed in and share my vision, I knew that I needed to trust the talents of the people I was working with, it definitely became a collaboration. Eventually, everything just came together. I did email mood boards to key suppliers so they could understand the kind of look I wanted to achieve.

Christine: Do you have a background in styling/interiors?
Sonia: I have absolutely no experience in styling apart from planning my own wedding; I had a very strong vision for that too.

Christine: What is next for you?
Sonia: I’m not sure really, I definitely want to finish the course and see where that takes me. I would also like to develop the wedding blog and would love to continue producing and styling wedding shoots. Here is a link to my latest styled shoot - click here It featured on Rock n’ Roll Bride

Thank you for your time Sonia.  It is an absolute pleasure to share your success with our readers.  We look forward to watching your career blossom.  
Christine Kerr

]]> http://www.eventexperts.com.au/general/interview-with-academy-student-and-wedding-blogger/feed/ 0 http://www.eventexperts.com.au/general/polka-dots-the-hot-trend-in-weddings-for-2012/ http://www.eventexperts.com.au/general/polka-dots-the-hot-trend-in-weddings-for-2012/#comments Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:07:30 +0000 Kylie Carlson http://www.eventexperts.com.au/?p=2699

Newsflash – the next hot trend for wedding and event design is polka dots and I for one love it. There are many different takes on the wonderful polka dot, but my favourite is definitely the fifties red and black theme. There is something so avant garde about this theme and it works so well. Another great version is the black and white one which is completely retro and works in well with a vintage theme too.

Remember you heard it here first – polka dots are going to be big this year.

1. Ready To Spark – Lara McCulloch Carter
2. Wedlock Mag Blog – Jayne Hallock
3. Wedding Market News – Julie Albaugh
4. Wedding Business Today – Chris Jaeger
5. The Wedding Marketing Blog – Andy Ebon

You can never stop learning and the blogs above will help you to keep up to date and ensure you are already ahead when you launch your business.

This week our featured mood board takes another look at Pantone Spring 2012 colour collection and this time we are looking at Sweet Lilac. I just love this colour from the purple family. It is refreshing and so easy to incorporate into events from the colour of bridesmaids dresses to the overlays and chair covers. It is absolutely stunning when paired with silver but can look just as good together with white.

For those that aren’t so into the strong colours such as Cabaret or Tangerine Tango then this is perfect.

As part of our plan for Event Experts in 2012 we will be running a theme through each month and the theme for January is Pricing Your Services. Our last blog post, Kickbacks in the Wedding Industry, looked at whether or not it is ethical to receive kickbacks and if so how they are used. Today we are looking at the first of four ways in which you can charge clients for your services and that is the Set Fee.

The Set Fee is an interesting one as it requires the planner to know their job very well and have an excellent understanding on just how many hours work will be required of them for a particular client. I would generally not recommend it for new planners as in most cases it is at the beginning of a business when you greatly underestimate how long it till take to do things. It is also quite common to leave out many smaller things such as costing in phone calls to clients, time spent reading emails, tying up loose ends with suppliers, postage, couriers etc. All these things need to be included within your costing for a particular client. It may not sound like much, but very quickly time mounts up and before you know it you will have spent over 5 or 6 hours reading emails from just one client. It is not until many are at least 6-9 months into their business that they start to think about things like this, and scarily enough in too many cases, never at all. This often leads to much undercharging to a point where the planner doesn’t actually make any money at all.

To run on a set fee you really need to have a good foolproof way of calculating your costs and outgoings and this only comes through trial and error.

Of course like everything there are always pros as well as cons and the pro here is that both the planner and the client know how much they will receive and be charged. This is particularly good for the nervous client who wants to know exactly what the cost of the planner will be, so it is all there in black and white. Of course this also works in reverse and allows the planner to know exactly what they will be earning and allows them to budget within their business accordingly.