Wedding planner selection

Are you asking about a wedding planner vendor (person who helps you plan)? Or a wedding planning book/guide?

If asking about a vendor, I recommend this for any vendor that you hire: choose someone who is in your budget, who will cover the specific tasks that you need help with, whose work you like, and who you feel you connect with/would genuinely like to work with! Meet with them in person or over the phone/video chat to get an idea of who they are and how they work, and also ask them questions to help determine if they're the right person to help you.
If asking about a book or a guide, check out The Knot! They have a checklist and budget tool online, and they also have a book you can buy (in case you prefer something tangible to bring with to appointments) that has things such as color options to help you determine which colors you like paired together, lists of questions to ask potential vendors, sheets where you can write in vendor contact info (so it's all in one place), forms to compare various vendor/venue options, etc.

View Quoted Comment Hi Lisa. I appreciate the response. I’m talking about a vendor haha. I’m looking for full wedding planning service and I’ve talked to a few but a lot of the services seem the same. So part of me is like should I base it off reviews & cost. Some have been in the business 7 years and seem to provide a lot but have no reviews. Then others have a lot more reviews. Doesn’t help that I’m indecisive haha

View Quoted Comment For sure check out reviews! Factor in reviews from multiple sites (Wedding Wire, Google, Yelp, The Knot, etc) as well as cost. It's easier to look at options in smaller groups, rather than a list of 100 available wedding planners all at once. Come up with a list of "must have" services, and "nice to have" services, and narrow it down to 3-4 vendor options that offer at least your "must have" services in your budget. Schedule an individual meeting with each one of those options, and decide if you feel strongly about any of them. Did any of their responses to your questions concern you? Or was there one who really stood out and made you feel reassured? Do they have any policies that make you nervous? Does one include more services than another for the price? If you find one you really like, book them and stop looking at planners! If you don't feel strongly about any of them, find another 3-4 that you'd like to meet with, and repeat the process.

I'm also trying to research wedding planners as well! So I completely understand what you are going through. I've created a word document to compare/contrast what each one offers.

I kinda skimmed through the the WW vendor section but the 5 star only ratings on everyone seemed really sketchy. Especially since many say theire less than stellar reviews are removed. So I read through Yelp and Instagram instead and found a bigger variety. If you type in "yourcityweddingplanner" on Instagram you can see real weddings and links to their websites where you get to see what they do/offer and go from there.

For us, we do not want an inclusive venue or someone to plan everything so we just show up as guests. It's important that they offer month-of services to tie up loose ends. Also those bring a team rather than one person doing it all.

Do you already have a venue? You can ask them for recommendations! We started with a venue, and they gave us a list of recommended vendors, including planners. That way we know they’ve worked the venue and know how to handle events there really well. From there I stalked their social media’s to get an idea of what their events look like and FH is an excel nerd so he made a comparison chart of included services and pricing. We picked things that were important to us (ie a decor inventory to save us from having to buy and transport or rent a bunch of decor since it’s a destination wedding, someone to help us with accommodations for guests, etc) and narrowed it down to 2, then arranged video “interviews” with our top 2 and it was a super easy pick after talking to them which one we “clicked” with more! Ask lots of questions, thoroughly review pricing and what exactly is included, and just get a feel for whether or not their personality works with yours, since you’ll be talking to them a LOT!