Fee Structures for Wedding Planners – Part Two

This particular form of charging used to be very popular in the late 90′s. Is it still popular now? Good question. In an age where couples are much more savvy and have access to allot of information via searching on Google it is harder to justify this pricing method.

Charging a percentage of overall budget is quite simply setting a percentage amount that you will charge as your fee calculated from your client’s total budget. So if your client came to you and said my budget is $40,000 and your set percentage was 10% then you would be charging your client $4,000.

This all seems great in theory, but in reality not many couples will come to you with a set figure for their budget. For the most part their eyes will glaze over when you mention the word and it is often something that they haven’t even discussed. They know they need money to pay for the wedding, but until they start getting into the nitty gritty of planning it they don’t really know or understand exactly how much it is going to cost them.

On the flip side there are of course couples who do have a budget figure in mind, but as we all know these things have a way of fluctuating and therefore what starts out as $40,000 budget could end up as a $45,000. Now that is great for you as you will earn an extra $500 with this format. It isn’t however, so good for the bride and groom as they will not only have to find the extra $5,000 they have spent but another $500 on top of that for you.

There is another problem with this format and that is whether or not you are being honest in your client’s eyes. Will your client every really trust that your recommendation to go with certain suppliers, services or products be because you want to increase their budget or because you really think it will be best for their wedding? Can you see the dilemma?

As I said at the start I don’t think this is the preferred method of charging anymore for planners, but it is still an option so it wouldn’t be fair to discount it altogether. If you do decide to go with this structure then my advice would be to set a minimum amount that you would accept as your fee otherwise you could find your client dropping their budget dramatically leaving you with very little.

Let me give you an example of what I would do if using percentage of overall budget. Think about writing a clause into your contract that states your commission fee is 10% of the client’s total budget or $3,000 flat fee, whichever is the greater. This way you have covered yourself for the eventuality of the client dropping their budget below $30,000 and potentially doing allot of work for a very small fee.