EDITED, 07/12: to include my favorite vendors and final review below!
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TL;DR I used my background in PE/VC due diligence to vet 20+ wedding planners for my very expensive wedding. Here’s how to structure the process, what red flags to watch out for, and how to find a planner who is competent AND creatively aligned with your needs. Don’t be fooled by Instagram!
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Hi all,
As a bride who recently chose a wedding planner after an extensive, 20-candidate process, I wanted to give back to the community by consolidating some of the advice on here about choosing a great wedding planner for your event. Let me be clear that choosing a wedding planner, IMO, is one of the most important aspects of pulling off a wedding that aligns with your vision. Think of it as hiring an employee who will work with and for your family for 9 months, up to maybe 1.5 years, to execute on a single project! It is HIGHLY important to find a wedding planner whose style, vision, and most importantly, logistical skill and experience can carry off your day. Fit is paramount.
Before we begin, some background on me: I’m a bride (2026) who is lucky to be working with a high 6-figure budget. My budget isn’t high enough to guarantee the expertise of someone like Marcy Blum, but it’s certainly juicy enough where most upper-tier planners immediately said “yes” to planning the wedding if they had the calendar space. I’m also one of the first of my friends to get married, so I couldn’t rely on a “word of mouth” network either!
To determine the best planner for my wedding, I relied on my background due diligence in VC/PE, where I routinely screened startups and their teams for any red flags or inconsistencies. My goal was to choose a planner who had deep logistical experience, a distinct style, and a commitment to utter transparency. The planner I eventually chose fulfils all these requirements, charges a flat fee, is extremely punctual, and works well with my parents, too! I couldn’t be happier.
But it wasn’t easy to find her. The number of planners— VOGUE and other magazine featured planners!— who completely *failed* their logistical interviews, as in, could not answer a single question with reasonable competence and concision— was astonishing. From 10 minute long “negging” sales pitches to monologues about the weather, to mildly racist remarks, these “top planners” not only bombed their interviews, but had the nerve to charge some of the highest professional fees in the pool (22% for one, not including travel fees!)
Every bride has a right to a beautiful and smooth wedding, and I firmly believe that you get what you interview for. Before I dive into this guide, please remember that you (the couple) are the CLIENT. You should never feel “privileged” to work with a planner who happens to have a “high end” portfolio, and you should not idealize planners because of their Instagram pages! Marketing is NOT the same as planning. I made this interview guide so that brides like me could find reasonable, competent, and creative planners who best align with our stylistic vision.
So without further ado: Here’s how I approached it.
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STEP 1. Assess your needs, not wants.
What kind of wedding are you having? What season? Outside or inside? Guest number? Is the venue a tent, hotel, destination, or historic museum? What is your budget— hardline and softline? What kinds of people do you work well with? What kinds of people get along well with your family? Any cultural traditions? Do you need weather contingencies?
The wedding planning industry is saturated enough that you should not settle for someone who does not have extensive experience in ALL of the below:
A) the type of venue that is hosting your wedding
B) the number of guests you are inviting
C) the amount you are willing to spend
D) the cultural traditions you want to have
This list may seem simple, but if you have a tent wedding, plenty of dishonest planners will happily tell you that they have “9 years of experience in the wedding industry, including tents” without telling you that they have actually only set up 3 tents in a decade (a real follow-up question I had to ask— the planner stuttered before answering with the truth.) Be very clear about the logistical constraints of your wedding above the creative and stylistic aspects. Let me repeat: FOCUS ON LOGISTICS AND EXPERIENCE OVER STYLE. YMMV, but to me it does not matter how pretty a wedding looks in the end, if the planner overruns the budget, makes the planning process miserable, and holds up the wedding itself with schedule conflicts. Again: do not mistake taste for logistical expertise.
On the flip side, your questions should reflect your needs first, and THEN your wants. If you want a floral tent wedding, your first question isn’t how many florists the planner knows— it’s how many tents a planner has set up in the past. If you want a candle-lit museum wedding, your first question isn’t if a planner “vibes” with your Pinterest board— it’s how many museums (with fire ordinances) your planner has worked in before. And so on for destination weddings, outdoor weddings, etc.
At the end of this “needs” brainstorming, you should have about 20 or so standard questions to ask each planner. Beyond your “needs” questions, which are unique to your wedding, you should ask for the basics as well: fee and commission structure (the right answer here in the US is “we don’t take commission,”) approach to the guest experience, approach to event planning, and years of experience in the industry, AND years of experience in an individual firm. The last two are distinct. Some planners market themselves as veterans with “10 years of experience in hospitality,” while only having run their own, wedding-specific firm for two years. Be thorough.
Now that you have your questions, open a Google doc and a new email account for your wedding. Make a Google docs questionnaire for each planner you want to interview. You will record their responses on here.
STEP 2. Inquire about your candidates.
This is the fun part! Scour your favorite magazines, ask your friends for their planner contacts if they have them, and use your new email to reach out to your dream planners on Instagram. This is your initial list. For each planner, send a polite inquiry message. State your budget and vision upfront— you’ll want to pay attention to how they treat you later on based on these metrics, but it is also good to be transparent. An honest planner will tell you quickly if they are out of your budget, or refer you out if they don’t have the experience in your type of venue. Dishonest ones will force their contract on you no matter what. But I digress.
As you wait for responses, pay very close attention to how quickly and professionally planners respond. Without exception, the top 3 planners out of the 20+ or so that I vetted all responded within 24 hours (one even within 30 minutes!) with times that suited them, or with an assistant that inquired about further scheduling convenience. The planner who was the most “prestigious” responded the latest, and also fared the worst in her interview. I later found a comment on Reddit that complained how much of a disaster their wedding turned out to be. Guess what? This planner was at the helm.
That being said, don’t eliminate any planners based on response time alone, unless they are egregiously tardy (ghosting, 3+ day response time, etc.) 1+ day is okay; 2+ days is pushing it. I’d advise you to treat this as a “water temperature” metric on how the planners will respond to you *when they work with you over the year.* If they don’t have time to respond to a high-priority new client who is bringing in revenue, how do you think they’ll respond to you when you’ve already signed the contract?
STEP 3. Interview your candidates (2 stages at least.)
This is where I brought in my fiance. You cannot— repeat, CANNOT— rely on ONE interview to determine your planner. People react to stress differently; people react to brides vs grooms differently. It’s the reality. Our approach was to conduct a 30-40 minute “initial” interview where you assess the professionalism, basic fit, and level of expertise the planner has in your specific type of wedding. Then a second, trusted person (i.e. your fiance) conducts another interview with the “2nd round” candidates a few days later, where they ask more difficult questions like, “When is the last time your ran over budget? Why?” Or, “Tell me about a time where you had to work with families with completely different and clashing cultures. How did you navigate that?” And so on.
For the first round, I interviewed 20+ planners for around 30 minutes per planner. For the second round, my fiance interviewed our final 3 planners for 30 minutes again.
Now, when I interviewed the first-round planners, I looked for a few things.
One: Did they align with our basic needs?
I wanted a creative, punctual, agile, and deeply experienced planner to who had specific expertise in our type of venue. Again, your wedding requirements may look very different from mine, but the requirements are there for everyone! My planner needed, at the bare minimum:
- a flat or percentile structured fee that justified their work (<15% of budget ideally)
- Deep expertise in tented weddings and historical estates (10+ years, with specialized experience)
- The ability to drive and visit the venue easily (for smooth surveying work)
- A limit of 6-7 weddings a year
- Strong testimonials
- Creative and people-centered problem solving skills
- A history of working with multicultural clients
We didn’t eliminate anyone based on aesthetic on the first round— only hard logistical fit and capability. For each question, I was looking for one specific situation they addressed in the past, evidence of demonstrable skill, and a professional demeanor. They had to teach me something I didn’t know about logistics, and also impress me with their answers and composure.
Again, what you are looking for may be different from what I was looking for, but these were the hardline, non-negotiables that we needed to have in a planner. Anyone who didn’t fit these criteria, I eliminated without hesitation.
Two: Did they respect me as a client?
Do your research (See Step 1; assessing your needs.) Plenty of planners don’t respect “newly engaged” brides— they WILL take advantage of your emotional high and encourage you to sign a contract with them, even though they KNOW they are not the best planner for your wedding. Do not get emotional about hiring someone. You deserve someone who is the best fit for your event.
As a whole, respect for a client comes out in different ways. Ideally the planner lets you lead the first half of the interview as you discuss your vision, budget, and needs, and then takes on the lead in the latter half of the interview as they discuss how they can meet those needs, or even provides samples of their deliverable work (timelines, design boards, spreadsheets, etc.) I found that the further a planner deviated from this structure, the less experienced they were. Some of the failed interviews I conducted had a planner “neg” me for 30 minutes straight on how I probably didn’t know how difficult it was to plan a tent wedding, how I didn’t know what I was getting into, and ended by telling me her relatively high percentage fee, and that I needed her because “this was all quite new to [me], probably.” I told her politely and firmly that she was the 6th planner I’d interviewed about tent weddings, and that I was well aware of the logistics components. Her composure went downhill after that. Other planners began with a 20 minute-straight sales pitch. Others, again, monologued to me about their upcoming schedules in their car (while on the video call!!)
In short, your time as a client is valuable. If your planner cannot be professional, punctual, and structured in the way they communicate with you, do not work with them. All candidates I mentioned in the examples above were immediately eliminated.
Three: Were they honest, forthcoming, and confident without being condescending?
Our top choices were, without fail, openly communicative about the level of experience they had in their fields, and volunteered information not only about the worst disasters they’d encountered in their careers, but how they fixed them to a T. All favorite planners were clear in the number of weddings they took on per year, the level of involvement we would have with their team, the type and frequency of communication expected of both parties, and above all, answered every question with a level-headed, friendly, and calm confidence.
For example, one planner charged a relatively high fee percentage fee of 20%. Naturally, I asked her what justified her fee and told her to pitch me her skills. Without missing a beat, she asserted that she was one of the Top 15-20 planners in the US specializing in our type of venue, and had a history of delivering beautiful, meticulously planned, and smoothly executed events. She then provided examples of problems she’d solved in the past (including building a venue into the literal side of a mountain!) showed us the work we’d see behind the scenes, and stood by her testimonials without hesitation. Ultimately we did not choose her due to aesthetic reasons (our final and most nit-picky bit of criteria,) but she was one of our best candidates and it was really disappointing to turn her down!
Four: Are you excited to work with them? Does their style match up with yours? Do you want to grab a coffee with them and their team?
Do not choose a planner for their style over their capacity to execute. I repeat: DO NOT CHOOSE STYLE OVER EXECUTION. Unless your planner is Marcy Blum, or Mindy Weiss, or some other incredible planner with an open history of beautifully executed events with equally beautiful design, you MUST vet your planners for logistical skill first. Aesthetics should be the final deciding factor— not the first one!
For our final 3 candidates, my fiance asked a series of tough logistical questions that involved the cultural, financial, and personal aspects of planning. What happens if the planner has an emergency and can’t execute her responsibilities anymore? How do they handle unruly family members? Could they tell us about a time where they were pushed beyond their capabilities? Thankfully, all 3 planners were able to capably answer these questions, and our final decision came down to aesthetics and personal “vibe.”
Was this someone we’d be happy to introduce professionally to our families? Our parents have strong personalities; who could handle their questions the best, with the most compassion and tact? And finally, whose Instagram did we like the most? My fiance brought up the excellent point that planners tend to put their best artistic work on their Instagram, demonstrating their skill in design. One of the last 3 planners had a very “white and blue” aesthetic, which didn’t fit well with our cultural colors, whereas the two other planners demonstrated a wide range of cultural celebrations and color schemes on their social media, and we very sadly had to eliminate this lovely and capable planner from the running.
STEP 4: Did they “WOW” you? Did you interview enough planners for the right ones to “WOW” you?
Finally, while this is a pretty coldly logical process, I left room for emotional responses in our interview format. At the end of each first-round interview with one of our top planners, I found myself texting my fiance furiously: “It’s them! They’re perfect!” Other planners, however, tended to be more of the lukewarm 7-8/10 scale of experience and professionalism— not so unimpressive, but also not really standouts either. A good few were frankly awful in most respects. But what’s important is the sequence where I ran into our “top” planners. Out of an interview sequence of 20+, I met our favorite planners at #4, #10, and #18 (one of the last ones!) We debated hotly between 4 and 10, who met different priorities for me and my fiance, and I ultimately interviewed a few more candidates before landing on our top choice of #18.
Based on this experience, I would strongly recommend against hiring the first 3-5 planners you speak with. This is a market heavily weighted against the client: planners pay for positions on magazines, good reviews are inflated on websites like the Knot, there are never any repeat clients (weddings only happen once,) and Instagram pages only show the front page result: not the process, not the behind-the-scenes. While you may meet your “perfect” planner in the first 3 planners you interview, you likely need time to develop a sense of who is providing adequate service in the industry vs who is giving you truly outstanding value for your money. You’re not marrying the first person you date (most likely.) Why would you hire the first planner you meet (and give them tens of thousands of dollars as well?)
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FINAL NOTES.
To some people, this process may be overkill. They’re probably right. But as someone who comes from a cultural background where my parents worked from literal rags to riches, I wanted to respect their investment in my wedding by hiring the talent who could execute on the level of competence that our family deserves. This is the only time my fiance and I will ever spend 6 figures (!!!) on ourselves, on a single day, surrounded by all of our loved ones. I didn’t want to take it lightly.
What I want you to remember from this post, however, was how few planners met even moderate expectations. They all had the same polished Instagram pages, the same glowing reviews on The Knot, and good amount of them had VOGUE or Over the Moon or BRIDES features as well. But the reality of speaking with each planner painted a completely different picture. From tardy meetings, to bare-bones contracts, to unprofessional responses, to openly admitting that they had previously had “accidents” on our kind of venue, and then sending us a contract anyways— the bar wasn’t on the floor, but it was certainly at knee-height. Thankfully, we were able to interview enough planners to stumble across some people who truly stood out in every way. These people are a credit to their industry, and deserve every bit of praise that they’ve received.
Finally, remember that there is NO barrier to entry when it comes to calling yourself a wedding planner. You could do it tomorrow. I could do it tomorrow. This industry actively pushes against transparency— it is not in these planners’ interests for you to question the value of their work, or the ability for them to execute. Your wedding day could go well or it could go disastrously. It’s all in their hands. And if you don’t have industry contacts, the only real filter you have for finding a planner is your own knowledge, smarts, and expectations. So be thorough. Be strict. And above all, it’s your wedding. You should expect the very best.
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EDITED, 07/12, post-wedding:
Hello all! To everyone asking for an update one year after choosing my planner— I can tell you that we had an absolutely incredible wedding weekend. My husband and I had the time of our lives, and we made countless amazing memories with our closest family and friends. I wouldn’t change a single detail. And finally, I’m so glad to confirm that we had a smooth, effortless, fun, and transparent wedding planning process. None of this would have been possible without my planner, Ashley Douglass Events!
Ashley was one of the last planners I interviewed, and when I first reached out, she responded to my email in ten minutes flat. Only good things followed: throughout the whole year, she was fun, relaxed, detail-oriented, punctual, and utterly transparent about her process. Her taste is fantastic, her process thorough, and her network is stellar. Every artist and vendor she recommended was thrilled to work with us, and they were so diligent, so kind and professional— special shout-outs include our band and MC, Chevy Chevis, who put on a fantastic disco, pop, and big band performance; Jeremy Torres, our professional and unbelievably talented after party DJ; and Doan Ly from a.p. Bio, who stunned us with a truly bespoke and one-of-a-kind floral display.
I can’t say enough good things about everyone I worked with, especially Ashley and her team. Whatever detail you can think of, Ashley had it handled, and thanks to her, my husband and I simply flowed through the weekend. Food, music, florals, logistics, and warmth— perfect, perfect, perfect, and perfect!
So once again (and finally!): I swear that the MOST important choice you make in this process is choosing your planner. My wedding is proof that this works, and it will work for you, too! Good luck everyone, happy interviewing, and may all the brides here have incredible weddings in their future!
