Is Hiring a Wedding Planner Worth It?

Hiring a wedding planner represents a significant financial investment, often several thousand euros/pounds that could go towards other aspects of your celebration. So it's only natural to question whether you really need professional help or if you're just paying for something you could handle yourself.

So, is hiring a wedding planner really worth the associated investment?

The short answer? It depends entirely on your budget, timeline, and how much you value your sanity during the planning process.

This isn't about whether wedding planners are lovely people (they generally are) or whether planning can be stressful (it absolutely can be). This is about whether spending that money makes financial and practical sense for your specific situation. 

So let’s not waste any time and get straight into the details.

The Reality Check: What You're Actually Paying For

Wedding planner fees in France typically range from €3,000 to €10,000 for full-service planning, or 10-20% of your total wedding budget. That might sound like a lot, but here's what you're actually getting for that investment.

Firstly, you're paying for someone else's time instead of using your own. A typical wedding requires around 100-150 hours of planning time. So, if you're a professional earning €30+ per hour, the opportunity cost of doing it yourself starts to add up quickly.

Of course, you’re not just paying for somebody else’s time, you're forking out for expertise. Experienced planners know which suppliers offer the best value, can spot potential problems before they become expensive mistakes, and often secure better pricing through their established relationships. That in itself is often worth far more than the hundreds of hours they put into bringing your wedding vision from a mere idea into a reality.

Lastly, if you’ve never done this before, the hidden costs of DIY planning can catch you off guard. There's your time (which has value, as we’ve discussed), potential mistakes that cost money to fix, and the stress factor that might affect your work or relationship during the planning process.

Remember, this is supposed to be one of the best days of your life. Do you really want to get so stressed about bringing it altogether that you can no longer enjoy it? 

When Hiring a Wedding Planner is Definitely Worth It

If you're planning a destination wedding in France, it’s fair to say the value proposition of hiring a wedding planner becomes much clearer. Local knowledge, language skills, and established supplier relationships can save you countless headaches and potentially thousands of euros in mistakes.

This is especially true if you’re a busy professional who has to travel frequently for work or put in long hours at the office. If that sounds like you, you might find trying to coordinate wedding suppliers and managing timelines nearly impossible.

Larger weddings with substantial budgets (€30,000+) also benefit enormously from professional management. As the costs and the scale of a wedding go up, so does the complexity. With larger celebrations, there are simply too many moving parts and too much at stake to wing it.

Other common scenarios where wedding planners tend to be worth their weight in gold are those on shorter timelines. Generally speaking, anything being planned in under 12 months (and certainly those under six months) benefits from professional support (even if it's not a “full” planning service). 

Planners are great at fast-tracking those supplier bookings and, due to economies of scale and sheer experience, can compress timelines in ways that would be difficult to achieve on your own.

When You Might Be Better Off Going DIY for Your Wedding Celebration

Smaller budgets (under €15,000) might struggle to accommodate planner fees without compromising other priorities. If the planner's fee represents more than 20% of your total budget, you'll want to think carefully about the trade-offs.

If you have less than 50 guests, you can often manage complexity levels, especially if your chosen venue takes care of a lot of requirements, such as catering, accommodation, and technical production. When you only really have to plan aspects such as getting your guests to the venue and choosing where you want your ceremony and reception, it all becomes more manageable (even if you’re doing it from abroad).  

Of course, there may be planning enthusiasts among you who genuinely enjoy the process of researching and coordinating everything. We’ve met some couples who found the planning process rewarding rather than stressful. So if you love spreadsheets and have plenty of time, DIY planning can actually be quite satisfying and certainly makes you feel more “involved” in the event. 

Of course, if you’re local to your chosen French wedding venue, then you may already have an idea for who you want to use as wedding suppliers and have stacks of recommendations from friends and family. You’ve also got much less in the way of unknowns if you’re familiar with an area and you can plan much more easily than if you live thousands of miles away. 

Making the Decision: Key Questions to Ask Yourself

When it comes time to make your decision, there are some questions you could ask yourself to make sure pursuing a wedding planner is the right thing to do for your specific celebration.

Firstly, can you afford a planner without compromising other wedding priorities that matter more to you? If hiring a planner means cutting your guest list in half or eliminating your dream photographer, it might not be the right choice.

Something else to ask yourself is, do you genuinely have the time and energy to take on project management for something this complex? 

Wedding planning isn't about picking pretty things like wedding décor. It's more about coordinating timelines, managing contracts, and solving problems as they arise. And when things get tricky and you’ve committed to DIY planning, it can be hard (and potentially expensive) to change course. 

If you're planning your wedding from abroad, can you realistically manage supplier communications, site visits, and logistics from a distance? The practical challenges multiply significantly for destination weddings, and without someone on the ground to sort them out, it’s a potential recipe for disaster. 

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, how important is stress reduction to you during this period? Some people thrive on detailed planning, others find it overwhelming. There's no right answer. It’s just what works for your personality.

If you want to bask in the glow of your engagement and have someone else handle all the key details, a wedding planner is the way to go. If you want to save money and be more personally invested in the process, then the DIY route is probably better suited to you. 

Is a Wedding Planner Worth the Investment for Your Celebration?

There's no universal right answer to this question. A wedding planner can be an excellent investment that saves you time, money, and stress. They can also be an unnecessary expense that doesn't add meaningful value to your specific situation.

The decision comes down to your personal circumstances: your budget, timeline, stress tolerance, and the complexity of what you're planning. 

A UK couple planning a 150-person château wedding in France will likely find a planner invaluable. A local French couple having a simple 30-person celebration at a familiar venue might find DIY planning perfectly manageable.

What matters most is being honest about your capabilities, resources, and priorities. If you decide to hire a planner, our guide on how to choose a wedding planner can help you find the right fit. We’ve also curated and compiled a list of the best wedding planners in Southwest France based on our industry experience to help you narrow down a list of candidates.  

And if you're going the DIY route, that's perfectly valid too. If you need recommendations for wedding suppliers or professional wedding event production services, we’re available to walk you through who or what you might need based on your event details. Give us a call today on +33 (0)7 66 43 02 11 to discuss what you have in mind, and we’ll do our best to help and provide you with a no-obligation quote for our wedding production services.