Wedding Planning: Finding the right planner
Planning a wedding is a huge undertaking, especially so when you have multiple days and multiple cultural considerations. Hiring a wedding planner can be a luxury, or an essential service - depending on your budget, your schedule, your personality, and the scale of wedding you want.
Not all planners offer the same types of services, and even within that not all give the same level of service. Understanding the differences between what is available can help you ask helpful questions and make an informed decision about what is right for you. By the end of this post, you should have a clear idea of which level of assistance will best suit your needs.
Vanessa & Sagar’s wedding weekend involved 5 venues and 3 modes of transportation! Though they had many fun ideas of their own, the help our team provided them in navigating the logistics, vendors, and overall aesthetics of each event was both necessary & appreciated!
Full Planning: From Start to Finish
Full planning is the most comprehensive service offered by wedding planners. If you're looking for someone to take care of every detail of your wedding—from the concept to execution—this is the option for you.
What can be included:
Wedding Design: Creating an overall color palette and design plan, ensuring that your wedding is aesthetically coordinated and invokes your styles, personality, cultures, & preferences - from invitations, to outfits, to the final decor.
Budget tracking: Maintaining your wedding budget, advising on your decisions to help you stay on track financially.
Venue selection: Researching and securing the ideal wedding venue, including coordinating site visits and managing contracts.
Vendor management: Curating the vendors to your specific needs and assisting in the booking process as well as managing the vendors from start to finish - caterers, florists, photographers, entertainment and more.
Timeline creation: Developing a detailed wedding timeline that includes everything from hair and makeup to the last dance.
Ongoing communication: Regular meetings and check-ins with you to ensure the wedding stays on track and reflects your vision.
Logistics and coordination: Handling all the details, including transportation, permits, and event flow.
Room Blocks & Transportation: Finding and securing rooms and arranging any necessary transportation.
Wedding Management: Being present on your day/s to keep the day running smooth
This service is perfect for couples who are either too busy to plan or prefer to leave the heavy lifting to a professional. With full planning, you can relax knowing everything is taken care of from start to finish.
This is highly recommended if any of these are true:
your total budget is 50K+ per event
you want to create that luxury wedding experience
you both are fairly busy with work, school, & other commitments
one or both of you don’t live or haven’t lived long in the city you are getting married in
you want your friends and family to relax and enjoy the fun with you
Full planning varies from vendor to vendor, pricing varies in the range of 10-15% of your total budget for an experienced planner.
At Kahani Events, we are hands-on with our clients, and handle all of the above and more to ensure you and your guests have the experience of enjoying a personal and curated day fully.
Menaka & Phu wanted a bright & fun day with nods to both Indian & Vietnamese cultures. We designed just that!
Design & Decor: Creating Your Vision
While full planning covers all the logistics, design focuses specifically on the aesthetic and creative aspects of your wedding. This is the option for couples who may feel confident in hiring a DJ or photographer, but they really want someone to help them create an aesthetic that reflects their desires and event flow.
What can be included:
Concept development: Crafting a visual and stylistic theme for your wedding, whether it’s vibrant, modern, natural, or elegant.
Design and decor: Selecting flowers, table settings, linens, centerpieces, and other decor elements to bring your theme to life.
Color schemes and ambiance: Helping you choose colors, lighting, and even the music that reflects your personal style.
Custom design elements: Creating or arranging for custom items like logos, invitations, signage, backdrops, and wedding favors.
Designers work with you to ensure that your wedding not only looks beautiful but also reflects your personalities and tastes. They focus on making sure every detail is visually cohesive.
This is highly recommended if any of these are true:
you don’t have a specific, detailed vision for the day/s
you don’t have time to find all the vendors that can curate your vision
Not every planner is a designer and not every designer is a planner! At Kahani Events our specialty is design. Design is included in our full planning package, but we also offer a standalone design package.
Partial Planning: Assistance When You Need It
Partial planning is a flexible option for couples who have already started planning their wedding but need professional assistance to take things over the finish line. If you’ve already secured the venue and a few vendors but need help with the remaining details, partial planning may be a good solution. Typically, most partial planning packages don’t include venue selection, caterer selection, design, and budgeting.
What can be included:
Vendor recommendations: Helping you find and book the remaining vendors you need.
Budget and timeline adjustments: Assisting with finalizing your wedding budget and creating a timeline for the event.
Logistics coordination: Ensuring all the moving pieces come together smoothly, including transportation, rehearsal planning, and event flow.
Troubleshooting: Offering guidance and solutions if any problems arise during the planning process.
Partial planning is ideal for couples who feel confident in their planning but want to ensure no important details are overlooked. It allows you to maintain control of your wedding while still benefiting from professional expertise.
At Kahani Events, our unique approach to partial planning is combining our design package with our management package. We also offer standalone consults for clients for whom design may not be a priority, but would like a bit more assistance than just management.
Photos: ZM Photography
Bali & Bridget were able to relax and truly enjoy their day knowing that they didn’t need to make last minute decisions and run around problem solving - our team directed all the vendors and handled any and all obstacles!
Wedding Day Management
Wedding day management may also be called day-of coordination, but day-of-coordination is a bit of a misnomer. To coordinate your day well, most experienced professionals start a couple months before your wedding to help you identify and complete any missing tasks, coordinate final vendor discussions, and manage the logistics and execution on the big day. This service helps everything run smoothly and ensures that a point person is present to make quick decisions and give direction to vendors.
What can be included:
Vendor management: Ensuring all your vendors show up on time and follow the agreed-upon schedule.
Timeline execution: Overseeing the timeline and making sure everything happens as planned—from the ceremony start time to the last song at the reception.
Troubleshooting: Addressing any issues that come up during the day without involving the couple.
Event coordination: Managing the wedding party, guests, and other important logistics like transportation and seating arrangements.
Point of contact: Acting as the primary point of contact for vendors and guests, freeing you from any last-minute questions or issues.
Wedding day managers ensure that you and your loved ones can enjoy your wedding day without being distracted by vendor questions, details, and logistics.
At Kahani Events, we book our wedding management packages 3-6 months before your wedding, and after an initial meeting we start assisting approximately 3 months prior to your day. As most of our weddings are 200+ guests, we typically have a team of 2 or more present for the day.
Learn about our various offerings here!
Wedding planning can be overwhelming - hiring a planner or a wedding manager early on can reduce stress and help ensure an enjoyable wedding experience. It also frees you up to focus on your own work, family, and enjoying the days with your loved ones as your wedding approaches. Whichever service you choose, remember that any wedding planner’s goal is to make your special day as easy and memorable as possible. So, think about your needs, budget, and how much involvement you can realistically have in the process—and pick the service and planner that’s right for you.