Is a wedding planner worth it? An honest comparison

This is the question we are asked most, and the honest answer is not always yes. Here is the breakdown.

What a wedding planner actually does

• Sets the budget and keeps it from drifting
• Sources and negotiates with every supplier
• Develops the concept and holds the visual direction together
• Builds the timeline and the run-of-show for every team
• Rehearses the ceremony and prepares contingency plans
• Manages the wedding day from load-in to load-out
• Solves problems on the day so you never hear about them

What it costs in Thailand

There are three common models:

• **Day-of coordination**, ฿25,000–60,000, starting about a month out
• **Partial planning**, ฿60,000–120,000, covering the parts you do not want to handle
• **Full planning**, from ฿120,000, or 8–12% of the total wedding budget

When it pays for itself

• Total budget over ฿500,000 — the savings we negotiate usually exceed the fee
• Both of you work full time and cannot visit venues during office hours
• You are having both a Thai morning ceremony and an evening reception in one day
• The wedding is out of town or a destination wedding
• More than 200 guests

When organising it yourselves makes more sense

• Fewer than 60 guests at a venue that already has a full operations team
• You are using an all-inclusive hotel package
• Someone close to you is genuinely free and genuinely good at coordination
• The budget is very tight and you accept that you will be solving problems on the day

The part people undervalue

What you are really buying is not coordination. It is being fully present at your own wedding — never taking a call from a supplier, never walking off to check whether the flowers arrived, and never being the person who has to make a decision when something goes wrong.

If you would like to know which model suits your wedding, get in touch. We will assess it for free, with no cost and no obligation.