Module 2
Vendor Vetting System
Workbook + templates
RFP templates, a shortlist scoring grid, the eleven questions that expose a bad vendor, and reference-check scripts.
Full-service planners charge$12,000–$25,000Most of what they’re selling you is a process.Here is the process.
The Wedding Planning Suite — budget architecture, vendor negotiation, and a 14-month build sequence. Built with Planner Name, who has planned 140 weddings.
Get the Suite — $147
Live Google Sheets model + 8 workbooks. Not a PDF.
Founding price. It rises as copies sell.
Instant access30-day guarantee, keep the filesSecure checkout
“We cut $6,200 from catering with the negotiation scripts alone.”
Things your guests will not notice — Favors, Chair covers, Chair sashes, Table numbers, Card box, Guest book, Aisle runner, Cake topper, Custom cocktail napkins, Signature-drink signs, Seating-chart display, Welcome sign, Ceremony programs, Escort cards, Per-seat menu cards, Centerpiece height variations, Bathroom baskets, Sparkler send-off, Hashtag signage, Ring box, Garter, Flower-girl basket, Ribbon wands.
Your venue’s “all-inclusive” package isn’t all-inclusive.
Here are the 11 costs it leaves out.
| Line item | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Service charge on food & beverage18–24%, applied before tax | $2,800 |
| Sales tax on the service chargeYes, tax on the fee | $340 |
| Cake-cutting fee$2.50 per guest | $375 |
| Corkage$20 per bottle you bring in | $600 |
| Vendor meals8 vendors × $65 | $520 |
| Overtime$500 per hour past contracted end | $750 |
| Chair upgradeFolding → chiavari, $8 each | $1,200 |
| Linen upgradePolyester → cotton, $24 per table | $360 |
| Dance floor & stagingRarely included in the room rate | $900 |
| Security & parking attendantRequired by most venue policies | $450 |
| Ceremony site feeCharged even when on-site | $1,500 |
Not in the quote$9,795
For a 150-guest wedding. Every one of these is negotiable or avoidable — if you know to ask before you sign.
There are 9 line items your guests will remember.
There are 23 they’ll never notice.
Most couples fund them equally.
9 line items that show
Default allocation. Tap any line for why.
23 line items that don’t
Rendered small on purpose.
- Favors
- Chair covers
- Chair sashes
- Table numbers
- Card box
- Guest book
- Aisle runner
- Cake topper
- Custom cocktail napkins
- Signature-drink signs
- Seating-chart display
- Welcome sign
- Ceremony programs
- Escort cards
- Per-seat menu cards
- Centerpiece height variations
- Bathroom baskets
- Sparkler send-off
- Hashtag signage
- Ring box
- Garter
- Flower-girl basket
- Ribbon wands
Lovely. Nobody will remember them.
Hard cap, all 23 combined8%
“We cut favors, chair covers and the welcome sign, put $2,400 into uplighting, and three people asked who our designer was.”
See where your money should go.
A working slice of the model. Change anything — it recalculates as you type.
Not ready? Get the full 32-line breakdown by email
Every one of the 23 capped items with its individual ceiling, plus the printable version — sent to you, built on the numbers above.
“I ran my numbers here at 11pm and bought it before midnight. It was the first time the budget felt doable.”
$52,000140 guests · tier 2 city
Allocated $52,000 across 9 items. Largest: Food, $11,500. Cap on everything else: $4,150.
- Food$11,500
- Venue — the bones of the room$10,750
- Photography$5,400
- Bar — quality and openness$4,500
- Focal florals$3,900
- Music & entertainment$3,900
- Attire$3,400
- Lighting$2,950
- Paper & typography$1,450
Cap — all 23 low-impact items$4,150 · 8%
$371 per guest, all in.
Get the full model — $147All 32 lines, live in Google Sheets, plus the other seven workbooks. 30-day guarantee.
The night they talk about for a decade.
Bar, music, lighting — three of the nine. The Suite tells you exactly how much each one gets.
I asked 34 wedding planners what they’d cut from a $60,000 wedding.
They all named the same five things.
“Favors. Nobody takes them. I've watched $1,200 of custom candles go into a trash bag at midnight.”
“Chair covers. If the venue's chairs are ugly, rent chiavaris or change venues. Covers make it look like a hotel conference.”
“Flowers on every table at the same height. Do three tall, the rest low, and put the difference into the arch that's in every single photo.”
A planner’s first move isn’t picking colors. It’s building a budget model.
Nobody shows couples that model, so we built it.
- 8modules
- 1live model
- 40annotated contracts
- 200+negotiation scripts
- 14month critical path
Module 1 of 8
The Impact Allocation Model
Live Google Sheets model
Enter budget, guest count, city and priorities. Get a line-by-line allocation across the nine items that show — and a hard cap on the twenty-three that don't.
Impact Allocation Model
ABCDModule 3
Negotiation & Contract Vault
Workbook + scripts
Where leverage actually exists — off-peak dates, minimums vs. per-head, bar structures — and the red flags in every contract type.
Module 4
14-Month Critical Path
Sheets + printable
Dependency-ordered, not chronological. What blocks what, and the four decisions that must happen before month three.
Module 5
Design Direction Kit
Workbook
A cohesion framework and the vendor brief template that gets you what's in your head instead of what's in their portfolio.
Module 6
Guest Operations
Sheets
List tiering, RSVP tracking, room blocks, and seating logic that handles the two families who can't sit together.
Module 7
Production Run Sheet
Sheets + printable
Day-of timeline with vendor call times, point-person assignments and a contingency tree for rain, lateness and the missing best man.
Module 8
Communication Templates
Workbook
Every vendor email you'll send, in order — plus the one for 'we're going in a different direction.'
Delivered as a live Google Sheets model plus eight working documents. Not a PDF.
Why a working planner put her name on it.
“I put my name on this because it's the exact process I run for clients who pay me $14,000. The budget model is the same one on my laptop. If you can't afford me, I'd rather you had this than a Pinterest board.”
$2,800caught before signing
“The hidden-cost list caught a $2,800 service charge our venue hadn’t mentioned in the quote. That one line paid for the Suite nineteen times over.”
$11,800vs. the cheaper planner
“We got quotes from two planners — $14,000 and $16,500. This was the process, minus the person. We hired a day-of coordinator for $2,200 instead.”
$3,100moved from florals to lighting
“I typed in $45,000 and it told me I was over-spending on florals by $3,100 and under-spending on lighting. Our photographer asked who did our lighting.”
Before
$52,000, spread evenlyVenue$8,300
Food$7,300
Décor & florals (every table)$7,300
Photography$4,700
Bar$3,650
Music$3,100
Attire$3,650
Paper, signage, favors, extras$6,250
Rentals & upgrades$4,700
Lighting$1,050
Allocated
$52,000, same totalVenue — the bones of the room$10,750
Food$9,100
Focal florals$6,350
Photography$5,400
Bar — quality and openness$4,500
Music & entertainment$3,900
Attire$3,400
Lighting$2,950
Paper & typography$1,450
Everything else, capped$4,150
Free tools tell you what to do.
Nobody tells you how much to spend.
| Feature | The Knot / Zola | Full-service planner | The Suite | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Timeline and checklist | ✓ | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Budget model that recalculates | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Where to cut without it showing | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hidden-cost audit of your venue quote | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vendor negotiation scripts | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Contract red flags, by vendor type | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Someone to run the day | — | — | ✓ | Hire day-of: $1,800–3,500 |
| Whose side they’re on | The vendors’ — they’re the advertisers | Nobody’s | Yours | Yours |
| Cost | Free | Free | $12,000–25,000 | $147 |
What buyers did with it — Struck the cake-cutting fee — Boise, Moved to a Friday, saved 18% — Sacramento, Negotiated corkage to $0 — Chicago, Cut the second bar, added a raw bar — Newport, Caught a missing overtime clause — Tulsa, Dropped 40 guests, kept the venue — Kansas City, Traded chair covers for uplighting — Savannah, Talked the venue into vendor meals — Boulder.
Spend where it shows. Skip what nobody sees.
This is what the Suite is for.
You don’t need an $18,000 planner.
You need what’s in their filing cabinet.
| Full-service planner | $12,000 – $25,000 |
| Day-of coordinator | $1,800 – $3,500 |
| The Wedding Planning Suite | $147 |
The Suite — all eight modules$147Live allocation model, vendor vetting, negotiation vault, critical path, design kit, guest ops, run sheet, templates.
Add the Contract Vault+$37Forty real vendor contracts, annotated line by line with what to strike. Offered at checkout.
Add the Personalized Build+$97Your model built to your city, guest count and priorities, plus the editable design kit. Offered after purchase.
This is for you if
- You’re planning a $30,000–$100,000 wedding
- You’re 4–18 months out
- You don’t have a full-service planner — or don’t want to pay $14,000 for one
- You’d rather know the numbers than guess at them
Skip it if
- You’ve hired a full-service planner (send them this instead)
- Your budget is under $15,000 — the model still works, but allocation gets tight; the guarantee covers you
- You want someone else to do it. Hire a day-of coordinator, and use this to brief them
What happens in the next sixty seconds
- 1. Pay with StripeCard or Apple Pay. Thirty seconds.
- 2. Check your inboxWithin a minute: the live model link and all eight workbooks.
- 3. Type in your budgetThe first full allocation takes about four minutes.
Questions
Is this just a PDF?
No. The core of the Suite is a live Google Sheets model — you type in your budget and it recalculates. Seven of the eight modules are working documents you fill in, not chapters you read. The PDF-shaped parts are the printables (run sheet, critical path) meant to be pinned to a wall.
“I expected a document. I got a model that recalculated the second I changed the guest count.” — Jordan A., Minneapolis
Why not just use The Knot or Zola? They're free.
Use them — they're good checklists. But their customers are the vendors advertising on them, so they will never tell you what a florist's margin is or which line of a venue contract to strike. This does.
Will it work for my budget and my city?
The model is built for $25,000–$120,000 budgets and adjusts venue and catering weight by city tier. Below $25,000 it still works, but the allocation gets tight and the guarantee covers you if it's not useful.
I've already booked my venue. Too late?
No — the venue is one of nine line items. The other eight, plus the hidden-cost audit of your existing contract, are where most of the savings live anyway.
What if I hire a planner later?
Then you'll arrive with a budget model and a vendor shortlist, and you'll pay for fewer hours. Several planners we interviewed said they wished every client showed up like this.
Refunds?
Thirty days, no questions, and you keep the files. If it didn't change how you're spending, we don't want the money.
Planners charge $12,000 for the process. Here it is for $147.
Get the Suite — $147
Founding price, 500 copies. 30-day guarantee, keep the files.