How does any of this even work? Answers to some of our frequently asked questions!  

Do I even need to hire a wedding planner?

People ask me this all of the time and the answer is, it depends. Do you want your mother, sister or best friend to be running around checking the tables and making sure your florist and DJ have showed up and have everything they need? Do you want your bridesmaids arguing with the caterers over the way the buffet is set up? Or dealing with wiping down all of your chairs because it rained earlier in the day and now they are all wet?

The biggest regret I have from my own personal wedding day is that my best girlfriends, as wonderful as they are, and my dearest beloved mother, spent the majority of my beautiful day working. I wish I had not taken on so much myself, so my loved ones could have enjoyed my day more with me. 

Can you plan your wedding all on your own? Of course. But, do you want to? And should you? Those are the questions you should ask yourself. How much time do you really have to devote to planning your big day and making sure your vision is brought to life? 

I know weddings are expensive, and when you look at your budget you are always going to gravitate towards cutting the things that you feel like you can do yourself. But, I always try to explain to my couples that a wedding planner or coordinator is so much more than a vendor. They are an extension of you and your wishes on your big day, they make the difficult decisions so you don't have to and fix the problems you will never hear about. 

How does your pricing work?

My pricing is based off of the needs of each event. Some packages have minimums, which I explain more thoroughly below in my floral pricing question, but it's absolutely impossible to quote a flat rate across the board for special events and weddings because each client has a different need. I have a flat hourly rate for consulting work, but would never want to charge clients that hourly rate for an extended planning time frame, for example, a year or more that we often spend planning a wedding together. 

Some events are for 15 people 15 miles from my house, whereas some weddings are for 180 people and take a plane, a train and an automobile to get there. So pricing varies. If you would like more information on pricing please feel free to email me! I provide pricing and a one hour consultation free of charge for potential new clients! 

I also quote a flat rate for most events for my time, or services, and then give you an estimated price on rentals and decor that I expect you to need to spend to reach your ideal vision of your day.

What if I just want suggestions on a few vendors?

I offer a solution for that! I offer wedding consulting packages where I meet with you for a set number of hours based on your needs at a rate of $75 per hour, up to ten hours. If you need more than ten hours of assistance, it will likely make the most sense to get you set up for a partial planning package. 

This option is great for couples who just need a little help getting started in the right direction. I can help you put together a to-do list and timeline for your big day, or suggest vendors and decor ideas. It's up to you and what you feel you need for your big day. Email me for a quote based on your needs for your big day!

How does floral pricing work?

One of the biggest questions couples have for me is how floral pricing works and why it is so expensive. This is a tough one because I think when people search for pricing on wedding flowers, there are a lot of different numbers floating around on the interweb that don't take into account a lot of factors that we face here in Alaska. This is a lot of information, but it's always my goal to be as transparent

I always tell clients looking to have 75+ people at their wedding that shipping alone on their flowers could be close to $500-$750 to anywhere in Alaska. So right off the bat, something that would cost you a wholesale rate of $1,500 in Seattle or Portland, would cost closer to $2,000+ in Alaska. And that doesn’t even take into account labor and overhead.

If you have a budget in mind I would rather know that and design florals for you that work within your budget. If you’re flexible on specific florals that always helps as well. A good example is that if you are married to peonies (pun intended), then that can drastically change your floral budget based on the time of year it is. For example, peonies, when available locally, can be found for around $3-4 per stem. When I order them from out of state, they can run $7-12 per stem. So you can see how that would add up quickly, and that’s before I have even touched them, unpackaged them, processed them (twice), and then arranged and transported them before even beginning to install them at your wedding.

How much will my wedding cost?

I get this question all of the time and I think that sometimes couples think vendors are being intentionally obtuse when you ask this question. But, the real truth of the matter is that you couldn’t hold up a grocery bag at a store and ask a store clerk to tell you how much it’s going to cost. It depends on what you put in the bag.

Full transparency though, most of my clients have wedding budgets between $40,000 and $50,000 for weddings of 75+ people. And budgets oftentimes do reach the $80,000 - $100,000 range for some of the weddings featured on my social media. Particularly for destination weddings where everything is hosted and for weddings of 150+ people clients I work with typically have closer to that latter range if they want all full-service vendors from full planning, to multiple weekend events, to videography, to photography, a DJ and live music, to full catering etc.

What you select for your wedding bag will be different than another couple’s wedding bag. This depends on guest counts, vendor choices, vision, and execution. I am happy to share categorical averages at the beginning of the planning process if you have a rough number of guests outlined. Still, I never guarantee that a proposed budget is accurate until we have discussed and decided on all of the following:

Design vision

Number of guests

Venue location for ceremony and reception

Catering

Transportation

Floral Vision

Housing and hotel room blocks etc.