
And what are the usual packages that you should expect? The old adage of “how long is a piece of string?” rings true with this because there truly isn’t a definitive price guide to work from for a wedding stylist. We come in all sorts of different sizes, styles and offerings. Most are the designers of wedding theme and are essentially the interior designer of the wedding world – they’ll create a visual brief of your ceremony and wedding reception, and then get things pulled together with external wedding decor vendors. In this scenario the norm is to charge the following:
Simple and quite effective because all the visual and decorative work is being designed and managed by a professional, that way you can purely concentrate on enjoying your engagement and wedding planning.
As much as I understand the need for “wedding styling packages” as it simplifies the entire process of choosing a “packaged look” for x amount, and it makes it easier for the business owner to set their P&L knowing how much each package’s COGS is and their respective profit. It really makes sense for the wedding stylist to show you a portfolio of looks, call it “Diamond”, “Gold” or “Brass”, and price it up as event decoration packages or even ceremony packages that you get to choose from. You know exactly what you’re getting, because they’re set looks, and there’s little guessing of what is created for your wedding.
These wedding styling packages can make your research easier because you’d have multiple tabs opened and you’re comparing prices and inclusions. There’s just one thing that has always confused me about this approach, as convenient as it is – these are set looks and inclusions but not all weddings are the same and they shouldn’t be treated like set pieces to be done and re-done. Yes I’m being controversial because some of my peers have this business model.
I am a strong believer that the wedding starts with love so why not create it with all the love there is. As much as I respect my peers in the industry and recognise the rationale behind having wedding packages for styling, it really should be tailored to what you’ve always wanted and not what the stylist can do or has in stock. This is not to say that packages are a bad thing, or any lesser, it just isn’t me. Or what my brides and grooms want.
And when you do come to me, the entire process of designing the style of your wedding is tailored to you.
That’s a high level overview of the things I would have to factor in when pricing a wedding styling service, and as you can see there are so many moving parts that it isn’t necessarily possible to have set looks and set wedding styling packages.
There’s no real science or set formula for the work I do because, I’ll be honest, there are so many factors that I like to introduce in designing the style of a wedding, or any event for the matter, that it is impossible to have a set price. Even when couples ask me to re-create some of the works done in the past I tend to offer to re-imagine it slightly.
Ok so let’s break down how I calculate my wedding styling pricing, without giving specific figures of course:
It’s not my goal to create set packages for wedding styling because I feel this is not the direction for the business that we are in. I strongly feel that if we were to then the business would gravitate to a “can of coke” (to use my previous analogy) and each wedding would just be a product rather than a service – and that is wholly against the vision Bailey and I had set out years ago, and the values my team and I hold for one of the most important and special day in a person’s life.
I’ll refer back to “how long is a piece of string?” because I have girls who spend around the $5k mark and others waaaay over that and it all comes down to how much of an impact you would like and what type of setting have you dreamt of? It’s no easy select A or B or C and that’s what it costs.
I hope that clears things up for you, and should you love to still engage with me then I’d love to hear from you! You can reach out by click onto the button below