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You just got engaged and now you are thinking: should I hire a Toronto wedding planner to help me with my wedding? Statistically speaking, only 19% of couples will hire a wedding planner. And why not more? Pretty much most of the time the answer will be “because wedding planners are expensive and I want to save that money… I should be able to do it myself.”
First of all, wedding planners need not be expensive. True, there are some that may quote you $10,000 to plan your wedding but these are the “celebrity” planners who cater to the elite few with unlimited budgets in Toronto. And no matter what industry you are talking about from cars to homes to fashion… there will always be the “high end” vendors/options for the 1%. But many an experienced Toronto wedding planner is extremely reasonable so just do your research and get a few quotes. Many are offering very fair rates. The average wedding in Canada takes approximately 250 hours to plan. For that average wedding, many planners will charge less than $3000 to work with you for what is often a year or more, which works out to the equivalent of you paying $12/hour to your planner for their work and expertise. That is only a couple dollars more than minimum wage!
Then don’t forget that your Toronto wedding planner can save you money in a lot of areas! I had one very budget-conscious couple hire me last year. Using my relationship with the venue they selected, I was able to save them $10 per person on their wedding reception cost. That doesn’t sound like a lot but $10 is really $13 per person after HST and gratuity. And when we are talking about 250 guests, that totals a savings of $2500! Which happened to be what my fee was for their wedding! On top of that I was able to negotiate savings on their flowers, their cake and their photographer that added up to around $1500 more! So they actually saved a net of $1500 on their wedding by “hiring” a wedding planner! Needless to say they were quite happy with their decision. Of course there are no guarantees on the amount of money you will save… for example, if you really want a venue that is in high demand (e.g. Casa Loma) they are less likely to offer you discounts (as they have the attitude that if you don’t book them someone else certainly will) but more often that not, we are able to help.
In addition, the advice your Toronto wedding planner will offer is also going to be geared towards saving you money. For example, they can advise you that instead of paying $15 per person for the late night dessert buffet, that the rule of thumb in the industry is that you budget for only 60% of your guests. Again, for a 250 person wedding that amounts to 100 people who likely won’t be eating (many people will have left by 11pm such as the elderly or ones with families and many people are health conscious and won’t be eating much dessert) which after HST and gratuity amounts to almost $2000 in savings that the venue may not have brought to your attention!
So these are just a couple of examples on why hiring a Toronto wedding planner makes good financial sense not to mention the priceless amount of stress reduction you get from having a professional at your service.
