How to Find a Wedding Planner Near You, Without Losing Three Evenings on Instagram

We think we look for a wedding planner the way we look for a restaurant: look at the photos, read two reviews, book. Except that you will see a planner for a year, hand them your budget, and ask them to run your day while you dance. The choice deserves a little better than scrolling Instagram at midnight. Here is how you go about it when you start from the map.

1. Start from the area, not the style

The first filter is geography. An agency based within an hour of your reception venue knows the venues, the caterers that deliver, the florist who works on a Saturday in August, and the mayor who likes the town hall to be free by noon. That knowledge cannot be bought, it accumulates. A wonderful agency 400 km from you can do the job, but it will do it with your scouting, your trips and vendors it discovers at the same time as you.

On a map, that question takes ten seconds: you type your city, the map centres, and the list shows only the agencies around. Each listing says how far it travels. It is also where you spot the agencies that plan anywhere, useful if you marry far from home.

2. Read the services before the photos

Three terms appear on every listing, and they do not mean the same thing.

• Full planning: the agency takes everything, from choosing the venue to the last shuttle. You decide, they do.
• Partial planning: you already have the venue, the caterer, sometimes the photographer; they complete, negotiate, coordinate.
• Day-of coordination: you organised everything; they take over the file a few weeks before, prepare the timeline, and run the day.

If you already know what you want, filter on it right away. An agency that only does full planning will not take your day-of coordination, and there is no point writing to them.

3. Read the starting price as an order of magnitude

Many agencies do not show a price, out of habit or caution. Those that do are doing you a favour: “from €3,500” means that below it, there is no point. It does not mean your wedding will cost €3,500 to plan, nor that an agency without a price is more expensive. It is a floor, which saves you a first exchange for nothing.

4. Write to two or three agencies, not ten

It is the advice nobody follows, and the most useful one. Writing to ten agencies means receiving ten replies you will not all read, not getting back to the seven you set aside, and ending up choosing the one that replied first. Writing to two or three, with the same request, means you can really compare: the speed, the tone, the questions they ask you in return.

1. Write a single requestThe date or season, the venue or region, the number of guests, the overall budget, the package you are aiming for. Five lines.
2. Send it as isFrom each agency's listing: the form takes exactly these elements. The agency receives an e-mail and replies to you directly.
3. Compare the repliesThe one that asks you questions before sending a price is often the one that will listen to you for a year.
4. Meet one or twoBy video or over a coffee. You will know in twenty minutes whether you click.

5. At the first meeting, ask these questions

• How many weddings a year, and how many on the same weekend? (A planner running three on the same Saturday is not yours.)
• Who will be there on the day: you, or an assistant?
• How do you work with the venue and the vendors we already have?
• What is not included in the price?
• Can you give us two recent couples to write to?

What about reviews?

They matter, but read them as testimonials, not as a grade. A successful wedding depends as much on the couple as on the planner, and an agency with three sincere reviews is often worth more than one with a hundred four-line ones. The two recent couples you asked for at the meeting will tell you more than any star.