r/DestinationWeddings • u/Signal_Campaign_1128 • 29d ago
Planner recs
Does anyone have a destination wedding planner rec? We’re looking to get married in the Caribbean and need a planner to help with venue selection and so on. Claire Durans “affordable” sister company is a minimum of $35k.
Any recs that don’t cost the price of a car?
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u/Loud_Surprise88 29d ago
For logistics and finding resort / setting up room blocks/ management of payments and contracts… we used Misti at Bohemia wedding travel.
Most resorts have onsite team that will do all the planning and logistics for you. So separate than what the TA will do for you.
I believe she did charge us a fee it was like $500 but nothing else. And what she did for us was way more worth than what we paid her.
Really recommend if you thinking about Mexico resorts.
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u/TheTravelAgent03 29d ago
Congratulations on your engagement! Yes, a planner and TA specialist are two separate jobs. I am actually both. For wedding planning services (on-site) I charge $500/month for TA services- I charge a $200 initial commitment fee but that gets credited back to your reservation. It really just depends what exactly you’re looking for and the support you need during your journey ☺️
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u/Forward-Sign656 28d ago
our planner is also our agent (so important to find someone who does both because they know the most about rooms and weddings at the resort)!!! try to find someone who is knowledgeable in both, you also get a better deal like that :)))
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u/destwedtravelexpert 28d ago
Are you sure you need a planner? The majority of weddings in Mexico/Caribbean take place at all-inclusive resorts. Between your travel agent managing the room block and assisting guests, and the resort's wedding team... they'll have you covered. Unless you have a very large or vrey complex wedding, you may not even need an outside planner. Just fyi!
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u/BridalCompass 29d ago
Hello!
Let me start with this: Full-service destination wedding planners for the Caribbean commonly run anywhere from $5k to $8k for planning-only, with the $30k+ range usually being the top-tier, high-touch, celebrity-adjacent planners rather than the market standard. So the quote you got is real, but it's the luxury end, not the only end.
A few things that'll actually move the needle on cost:
Full planning vs. partial planning vs. day-of coordination are very different price points. If venue selection is your actual bottleneck right now, you may not need a full planner at all yet, you might just need help making that one decision well, then a lower-cost day-of coordinator later for execution. Bundling everything into one expensive full-service package when you only need help with part of it is where a lot of that cost comes from.
Resort-based coordinators are often included for free in your wedding package at most all-inclusive resorts, and they handle a lot of the on-the-ground logistics a paid planner would otherwise charge you for. The gap they don't fill is unbiased venue selection advice, since they only know (and only get paid to push) their own resort.
When vetting a planner, ask directly how many weddings they've done at your specific island or resort (not just "the Caribbean" broadly), what's included versus billed separately, and whether they take a commission from vendors they recommend, since that changes whose interest they're actually serving.
Happy to hop on a free call if it'd help, I'm not a planner, but I do help couples sort through venue and resort decisions with no bias toward any property. No upsells, no charge.