Wedding Planner Interview

1. How many weddings have you planned -- beginning to end?

2. How many of those weddings were weddings of your friends and family (if she says none, she's probably being dishonest. All wedding planners start on the ground floor, and the ground floor is friends and family)? Can I speak to your clients?

3. How many contacts do you have in each vendor category? Include venues, caterers, photographers, florists, DJs, and officiants. Oh, and can you give me their names?

4. Are you on any venue's "preferred vendor" list?

5. Can I see photos of weddings you've done -- not photos of what you pulled from Pinterest and believe you can do. I want to see your work.

6. If you haven't done more than 10 weddings, tell me why I should hire you.

7. How long have you been doing this?

8. Sell me...why should I hire a wedding planner when countless brides say a DOC gets the job done at a fraction of the cost. What are you going to do for me that will allow me to relax (after working my full-time job) while you work in my behalf?

9. Do you have an assistant?

10. What happens if you have an emergency on my wedding day? Who will be at my wedding to take charge? What are the qualifications of that individual?

11. Have you taken any business courses or courses in event management? If so, where and when?

12. I do not want to set up my wedding, and I don't want my friends or family being recruited for set up. I also don't want to be involved in the breakdown and cleanup. Do you have a crew that can handle all of that?

13. Do you carry business insurance? If not, why not?

And that's for starters (and if she claims to be a floral designer as well as a wedding planner, run. Successful florists are too busy to plan weddings, and successful wedding planners are too busy to arrange flowers).

Some important notes:

Can she work with your budget?

Does she have vendor contacts/specific vendors she's familiar with or worked with?

Is she an LLP or business other than sole proprietor?

What's her experience; number of weddings, years, extent of planning and prep?

Is it a flat rate or percentage of budget?

How involved can she be/do you want her?

Will she attend vendor meetings with you or just arrange them?

Is dinner rehearsal included in coordination, or just day of?

How much in-person correspondence will you have?

What is included in the package you want? Or is it customized to you?

What's the refund policy, cancellation policy?

Are you working with solely her, or is the business with several planners or assistants?

What's the day-of timeline; when does she get there, what does she do, when is she done?

Hope that helps (I have experience with wedding coordinators).

I asked my planner questions specific to our situation. We live in California, but are getting married in Maryland near FH's family. We wanted to know how she would work with us not living in state. She provided the names of several couples she worked with in similar situations so we could read their reviews. It was also important to me that we only do business with LGBT friendly vendors, so she provided names of same-sex couples she's worked with and talked about how everybody she hires is LGBT friendly. If I could do it again, I would ask if she could work with our budget. FH is debt free and financially stable, so he went online and set a budget based on the average cost of a wedding. When we talked to her about budget, she went through different items line by line, asked us what we were okay skimping on, and then using industry averages and told us to expect to spend around $10,000 over our original budget. FH just wants to throw a good party without overspending, but if money were tighter, I don't know if we would have moved forward with her.

Great questions listed so far!!

I also asked my planners:

-Is wedding planning their full time business?

-What's the average budget for weddings you plan (just want to get an idea of the size of budgets they typically work with to see if I would be a good fit)?

-Have you planned any weddings at my venue, or in my town? (absolutely not a deal-breaker if they haven't - but a bonus if they have!)

Absolutely make sure to ask how long they've been in business, how many weddings they normally do in a year, and what their emergency backup plan is like @Centerpiece said!

Also my "just for fun" question I asked all my potential planners was "if you could make every couple you work with do 1 thing, what would it be?" For me it was a fun question that brought out their personality and was really insightful! One planner was all in on the first look for logistics and day-of timeline, another planner was really focus on personalized decor details. It gave me an idea of what they love to do!