So you’re OFFICIALLY engaged and excited to plan your special day… Until the big, daunting question arises: what kind of wedding planner should I hire?! And what is even the difference between a wedding planner vs a wedding coordinator?
Well, you’ve come to the right place and we are so glad you asked!
In order to make the best decision for you and your future spouse, you’ll need to think about the amount of time, priorities, and budget you have for your wedding. Before we dive into these three factors, let’s first talk about the differences of a wedding coordinator vs a wedding planner.
What is a Wedding Coordinator vs Wedding Planner?
Clarifying the Basics – Wedding Coordinator
Typically, a wedding coordinator begins overseeing the planning process about 2-4 weeks prior to your wedding and focuses on finalizing all of the event details to ensure everything is logistically sound. Your wedding coordinator, in many ways, “takes the baton” and races to the finish line, executing the arrangements you have already made for your wedding day. A wedding planner, on the other hand, walks with you through the planning process, guiding you through design choices, supporting vendor selections, and giving you advice along the way. A wedding planner also coordinates vendors, manages the timeline, and handles wedding day execution for you, so you’re ultimately just deciding which level of service you need. Whether you hire a wedding coordinator or wedding planner, the person you choose will take the lead on supporting you and managing the vendor team on your special day! So it’s important you choose this person VERY wisely, booking someone who you FULLY trust and get along with. After all, you’ll be talking to them a lot, both during the planning process and during the wedding day itself.
Real Life Example – Wedding Coordinator
Here at JJE, our wedding coordination package allows you to stay on track with vast resources up until the point where we take over. Your JJE Planning Portal includes everything from invitation etiquette, to vendor recommendations, your month-to-month planning checklist, a gratuity guide, and more! Between the Planning Portal, initial planning meeting, and check-ins along the way, the majority of planning will be done by you, such as booking vendors, budgeting, and overall design. Rest assured that you’ll be fully equipped to handle the majority of wedding planning independently. You handle budgeting, booking vendors and overall design, until you pass the baton to us and we take over vendor communications in your 45-day takeover period. A wedding coordination package ultimately leaves the responsibility of leading the planning process to you. As we near your wedding date, we help finalize the timeline we made together and tie up loose ends to ensure everything is smooth sailing.
Clarifying the Basics – Wedding Planner
A wedding planning package, on the other hand, offers more hands-on support throughout the planning process. Depending on your needs and wedding vision, you may opt for a partial-planning package or a full-planning package. What partial planning means will vary widely from one wedding planner to another, so be sure to compare the details as you consider different planners. You should do this with any wedding planning comparisons, but it’s especially important for partial planning packages. A partial planning package provides couples with personalized guidance for 6+ months from the wedding, which could include support with budgeting, vendor bookings, event design, and/or other wedding logistics. Then there’s the highest level of support available: full service wedding planning! A full planning package offers a more hands-off approach for you, with your wedding planner handling ALL details and vendor communications on your behalf, from start to finish. Venue selection, aesthetics, entertainment, etc… you name it, a full wedding planner is there to support and handle all the heavy lifting.
Real Life Examples – Wedding Planner
For us at JJE, a partial-planning package gives you everything in wedding coordination, PLUS additional support along the way like budget guidance, monthly planning meetings, and an extended takeover period. We keep you on track with a fully personalized monthly to-do list, and generally make things easier even though you’re still handling the day-to-day planning responsibilities. A JJE full-planning package allows you to focus more on planning any details that bring you joy, and we’ll take care of the rest! Here, you have unlimited communication and meetings available to you from start to finish, and we take care of all the details from curating a vendor team that is a perfect fit for you to crafting an event design that’s fully custom to YOU and your wedding vision!
Determining the Best Fit for Your Wedding Planning Experience
Now that we know the difference of a wedding coordinator vs a wedding planner, let’s figure out which of the two would be a better fit for YOU, based on your time, priorities, and budget allocated towards your special day.
Time:
Wedding planning can quickly swallow you up in the details. It’s easy to blink, and suddenly your engagement season is gone and you never had a chance to enjoy it. Here at JJE, we strive to make the planning process personal and intentional while also allowing you to have more time to celebrate what matters most: your relationship! This is exactly why every tier of planning and coordination we offer is intentionally designed to provide you everything you need to actually enjoy being engaged. It’s just a matter of finding the package that fits your lifestyle, so you can be present as an engaged couple and not overwhelmed by planning your big day.
So what does wedding planning REALLY require of you? How much free-time does it actually take?
On average, a full-planning wedding package takes 400-600 hours for a professional wedding planner to plan, detail out, and execute effectively. And without the industry knowledge and experience?
That’s a hard number to measure, but the best estimate out there is that the average person needs twice as many hours to plan their wedding as a professional wedding planner would. While we can’t tell you the exact number of hours for YOU and YOUR wedding, we do know that it takes significantly longer to do things right and even then, we always see details that slip through the cracks. Whether you choose a wedding planner or wedding coordinator, both can save you a ton of time and will lessen the stress of trying to get the logistical details correct. Since wedding coordination relies on you to stay on top of the to-do list and deadlines early on, it does require a lot more work and time to ensure you aren’t falling behind. If you can carve out 15-20 hours per week to focus on planning your special day, split between you and any family/friends who are helping you, then wedding coordination may be a great fit for you! However, if you do not have much spare time, you may want to consider a more supportive wedding planning package instead. In addition to spare time, you also want to think about how far out the wedding is. The average hours needed to plan your own wedding can fluctuate if you deviate from a typical 12 month planning timeline, or adjust the overall scale of your event. If it is a shorter planning period, you may want to consider hiring a wedding planner who can quickly finalize all of the event details. However, if you have a longer engagement, wedding coordination will allow you to slowly work on planning your big day.
Priorities:
In addition to the amount of time you have, you also want to consider what your priorities are for your wedding day. When hiring a wedding planner or coordinator, you want to make sure that your priorities are heard, acknowledged, and incorporated so that your wedding feels personally tailored to you rather than manufactured. Some couples are indifferent to color schemes but care a lot about the food being served. Other couples enjoy incorporating their creative side through DIY projects. Whether you booked our wedding coordination or wedding planning package, one of the first questions we will ask is what your passion points for your wedding are. These are key details or moments that hold a lot of significance to you such as feeling beautiful, eating delicious food, dancing the night away with your favorite people, or anything else you want it to be. We circle back to these right before the wedding to see if anything has changed and to recenter on what really matters most to you after months of getting lost in the details. Truly, these passion points act like a compass for the JJE team because they guide us on how to build your timeline, recommend the vendors that best align with your priorities, and, most importantly, give you personalized advice during this special time in your life. Because let’s be honest, neither Google, nor Chat GPT, nor that viral TikTok video is truly offering advice that’s 100% tailored to you and your unique wedding day. We draw attention to these passion points early so that if you opt for a wedding coordination package, they can still act as your North Star that cuts through all the noise during your planning process, and help you stay grounded in what matters most to you until we take over. With our wedding planning packages, on the other hand, these help us make suggestions along the way that truly represent the two of you and your love story. For full planning, the passion points are also a great way to decide how involved you want to be in certain aspects of the planning process. Our goal is to fully get to know your personalities, preferences, and priorities so that on your special day, the wedding represents you so authentically that it feels like it couldn’t possibly belong to anyone else. That kind of wedding only happens by spending some time to understand what matters most to you so we can interweave these details through every aspect of your wedding plans.
Budget:
Keeping this in mind, it is also important to consider what budget you are working with. The average wedding in the U.S. runs anywhere from $40,000 – $70,000… and that’s just the Instagram wedding most couples point to as “nothing too extravagant”, “simple, with just the regular wedding stuff”. At JJE, we are big advocates for spending your money WISELY, not feeling pressure to go into debt just to pay for your wedding, and aligning your wedding budget breakdown with your individual values and priorities. Wedding coordinators are a wonderful option if you have a more limited overall budget, are comfortable managing the planning process independently, or your top priorities aren’t necessarily a zero-stress planning experience. When budgets and free-time are tight, some couples prefer to sacrifice the late-nights of vendor emails over downsizing floral design, and some prefer prioritizing this engagement season over the exact details of the wedding day. Neither are wrong, but it’s a question to truly ask yourself about your wedding priorities. Though you will be doing more of the planning legwork, remember you’re not just left to your own devices as long as you choose a wedding coordination package that’s actually built to support you where it matters most. For JJE, that means providing tons of resources and check-ins that support key points in the planning process along the way. If your priority is making time to enjoy being engaged and feeling fully supported by a wedding expert that knows the industry, a wedding planner is probably your best option to make your vision come to life.
One perk of choosing a wedding planner? We can help maximize your budget, aligning your budget breakdown to meet those passion points while also proactively avoiding common budgeting pitfalls like hidden fees you never expected, becoming venue poor, or generally losing track of your total anticipated spend.
Where Do You Go From Here?
Now that you have had a moment to reflect on your time, priorities, and budget for your special day, we’ll leave you here with 3 next steps to get back to enjoying your engagement era:
- Make a list of what you feel you will need the most assistance with.
- Where are you feeling most confident, and what’s overwhelming you at the moment?
- Is the support you’re looking for more aligned with a wedding planner or a wedding coordinator?
- From there, inquire with 2-3 wedding planners who feel aligned with YOU!
- Most companies offer both service options, but some specialize in one or the other. Triple check if they offer the one you want, before you submit that inquiry!
- If you are looking for someone who will personalize the planning process to you, then you’re already in the right spot. ;)
- Inquire HERE for more info on wedding planning or wedding coordination!
- Get back to enjoying engaged life!
- Planning a wedding can be stressful but it shouldn’t consume your life or steal your joy. Once this season of life is over, there is no getting it back… which is exactly why we’re SO passionate about choosing the right level of support for your unique wedding planning journey. Don’t be afraid to ask for help so you can soak in this special moment in your life!
By Selina Hanna, JJE Assistant Wedding Planner
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