Highlights
- The Wedding Planning Business - A Competitive Environment
- A New Service Offering - Guest Engagement
- CalUp Templates for a New Service Package
The Wedding Planning Business - A Competitive Environment
At my first visit to Wedding MBA in November 2022, I repeatedly heard discussion of service pricing for wedding planners. As one long time planner described, there is not a huge barrier to creating a website and declaring yourself a professional wedding planner.
Often, inexperienced planners enter the fray with low & unsustainable pricing, putting pressure on pricing for the experienced planners. In this day of advanced website tools, it is difficult for a couple, hiring a wedding planner for the first and only time, to differentiate between a great experienced planner and a newbie.
As always in a local service business, true professionals have great references, compelling examples, and strong word-of-mouth marketing to keep their schedule full.
In relation to pricing, I have noticed a proliferation of service packages from wedding planners as they seek to create a well defined offering that fits a prospective client’s needs, and that can be delivered both professionally and profitably.
Well defined service packages are critical for setting client expectations, and for differentiating your specialty or focus vs. that of a less experienced planner. From time to time, I also see some very cool personalized touches specified in planner packages (I won’t give anyone’s secrets away) that help to differentiate based on service, and not price.
A New Service Offering - Guest Engagement
We launched CalUp with a goal of helping planners gain efficiency through improved coordination and communication with the wedding party and guests. We saw a big void in existing tools for this purpose. In early deployments, CalUp helped:
- Keep guests & participants fully informed to preemptively answer questions.
- Provide on-the-fly communication for participants in the event of schedule changes due to weather, transportation delays, late participants, etc.
- Enable controlled group and 1:1 communication and photo sharing.
Time and again, CalUp was useful in providing personalized, relevant information via the CalUp mobile app right to the fingertips of participants and guests, and photo sharing added a touch of fun.
However, we realized CalUp could help wedding planners build a new service offering and revenue stream around guest engagement, and further differentiate experienced planners from newbies. Below we’ve outlined some examples to help wedding planners consider how best to incorporate CalUp and Guest Engagement into their service offering.
CalUp Templates for a New Service Package
A CalUp wedding account can be set up in a matter of hours using CalUp Templates, or the CalUp Auto Create Tool, and is best completed in the month or two leading up to the wedding when the schedule is pretty well set and the guest list is near final.
In addition to a standard itinerary (title, date, time, place), CalUp event items can be customized with hero images, visual meet point cues, event detail text, website links, and pdf attachments. This lets the planner create eye pleasing events with all relevant information available to guests with the tap of a finger on the CalUp mobile app.
The communication settings for each event item can be easily customized to turn on or off photo sharing, group chat, 1:1 direct messaging, text & email reminders, and notifications.
Planners may offer services to their couple as follows:
- CalUp Wedding Setup and Itinerary Publishing
- On-Call Support for Real-Time Schedule Adjustments
- Pro-Active Messaging and Guest Engagement
The following table provides an example of how a Planner might price CalUp services based on Wedding with 100 Invitees and an itinerary of 10 events. As a planner becomes familiar with CalUp and builds a portfolio of events at various venues, less time is required to setup a wedding on CalUp.
Service Pricing & Example
The following table provides an example of how a planner might price CalUp services based on Wedding with 100 Invitees and an itinerary of 10 events. As planners become familiar with CalUp and build a portfolio of events at various venues, they become more efficient and proficient.
| Service Description |
$ Per Itinerary Item (10 Items) |
$ Per Invitee (100 Invitees/ Guests) |
Total Price |
| Full Service Package |
|
|
|
| CalUp Software Plan - Lily |
|
|
$ 70 |
| Setup/Publish/Manage Service |
$20 |
$1.00 |
$300 |
| Total (Software & Services) |
|
|
$370 |
The pricing above is a suggestion only based on a "standard wedding". Your pricing should be determined based on your billing rate, the level of engagement your couple requests, and the complexity of the wedding.
CalUp Setup & Management Timeline
|
Activity Description
|
Activity Timing
|
|
CalUp Account Setup.
|
2 to 11 Months Prior to the Wedding
|
|
Finalize itinerary with full schedule of activities defined with locations and timing (from couple or planner).
|
~60 days prior to the wedding (more if you want to include lead up events such as an engagement party)
|
|
CalUp Itinerary Setup - Wedding event itinerary, participant list import & grouping, and participant event assignments.
|
~30 days prior to the wedding
|
|
Use Email or your wedding website tools to notify your guests that CalUp will be used to keep everyone informed and updated (Sample email content is provided in CalUp Support).
|
Prior to publishing your itinerary (next step)
|
|
Publish Itinerary - Complete final review & publish with Calup Planner.
|
~15-30 days prior to the wedding
|
|
Pre-Wedding Review (make any final adjustments, add last minute RSVPs to events, etc.).
|
~1 week prior to the wedding
|
|
Adjustments and updates - if the schedule changes, or more information becomes available (i.e. the room number for hair and makeup activities, the arrival time of the shuttle, etc.) feel free to edit/re-send individual itinerary items. Guests will see the most updated information on the CalUp Wedding Guest App.
|
As Needed
|
|
Alert text messaging - for significant on-the-fly schedule changes or to specific individuals running late for key events.
Optional proactive messaging - feel free to message event attendees as desired (welcome message, parking info, transportation departure, etc.).
|
As Needed
|
Wrap Up
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. If you're interested in implementing CalUp into your planning business, our team are standing by to help get you set up. If you'd like to see how CalUp works, you can book a Free Demo with one of our team members here. Alternatively, if you'd like to try CalUp out for yourself, we're currently allowing professional planners and venues to get a Free Demo Account for a full year, allowing you to build example weddings for clients and test it out - you can request your free account here.