Many of you probably saw the article in Event Solutions magazine back in January in which, WIPA (Wedding Industry Professionals Association) released a white paper report titled, “Debunking the Myth of the Same-Day Planner”.  You should definitely check out both the article and the white paper, but basically, WIPA recommends the use of the terminology, “Wedding Director” instead of “Day of Coordinator”.  I’m really grateful that a professional association finally addressed this elephant in the room for Wedding Planners.  Now if wedding media would get behind us on this, maybe we could educate brides on why true “Day Of” service isn’t a good idea, and while we’re at it, let’s talk a bit about the true value of our services…but I digress.

I agree wholeheartedly with the report and WIPA’s move to clarify roles.  Most interesting to me was that in the article, the founder of WIPA, Joyce Scardina Becker, CMP, talked about how there is really no such thing as a “Same Day Planner”, and using an excerpt from her book, Countdown to Your Perfect Wedding, she goes on to clarify what a “day of planner” really means:

Services starting a minimum of 30 to 45 days before the wedding as follows:

• Review all vendor contracts
• Inspect the ceremony and reception sites
• Develop a detailed timeline and floor plans to be send to wedding vendors 2 weeks prior to wedding
• Prepare a separate, abbreviated wedding party schedule 2 weeks prior to the wedding
• Reconfirm logistics with all vendors
• Oversee wedding rehearsal and be on-site the wedding day

She also says that providing these services requires 30 – 45 hours of the planner’s time, and that brides should expect to pay $3,000 – $6,000 for a qualified professional.

I do not disagree with Mrs. Becker’s conclusions at all.  In fact, I think she is spot on, and I really appreciate the frame of reference on the price range.  I do however, suspect that many of us are including much more in the way of our “Day Of Services” or “Month of Services” especially in terms of hours spent working with a client, but also in terms of the number of tasks that we include.  And I’m guessing that a more accurate price range for this service is  $1500 and up, depending on your market and other circumstances.  After all, it is supposed to be the “budget” option for brides, right?

For instance, I don’t mention this to clients, but I track the total number of hours I work on each wedding, and on average, I spend between 50 & 60 hours working with a “month of client” of FAVOR Events.  I am very thorough and I would not feel comfortable at all decreasing the services that I offer.  I actually require a minimum of 5 weeks involvement because I have tried getting involved in a shorter time frame in the past and I was less than pleased with the end result.  I don’t cap the number of hours I spend working with a client, although I do limit the number of vendor appointments and site visits that I include.  My Month Of Coordination 2011 pricing ranges between $1,300 and $2,200 depending on factors such as:

• I charge an additional $500 if I am directing the ceremony due to the additional time I spend preparing for that and the fact that I then need to have an assistant planner at the reception site overseeing set up. 
• I include one additional planner for weddings over 100 guests (usually), and two additional planners for weddings over 200 guests and so on. 

Each potential client receives pricing based on their circumstances, which we carefully review in the initial consultation.  Call it semi-custom pricing, if you will.

Having said all that, I wonder where other planners are in the way of inclusions and pricing for “Month of” or “Wedding Director” services.  Do you include more services than Mrs. Becker recommends?  Are you charging less than she recommends or are you in the price range that she mentions?

And finally, does reading the information from WIPA make you want to change your service inclusions and pricing?