We know it can be hard to know where to start with planning your event – here’s answers to our most commonly asked questions
Services
THE TOTAL PACKAGE
Event management, design, styling, florals, hire & stationery
SIGNATURE STYLE
Event design, styling, florals, hire & stationery
THE HIRE STORE
Styling, décor, linens, tableware, furniture, props & more
‘Alicia is phenomenal. She has a natural flair and obvious experience and love for her work. There were so many ‘wows’ from our guests’
Sylvia Pacan
Planning
What does an event planner, designer & manager do?
An event planner, designer and manager is responsible for the entire concept, creation, curation, coordination, execution and evaluation of an event. This includes responsibility for the event budget.
They are the glue that binds all the stakeholders together, including the client, vendors, guests and our event team.
This is the same whether your event is a wedding, a corporate event or a private celebration.
And for corporate events, they also need to understand how to effectively manage and market a brand, including achieving brand goals.
We offer all of this within our Total Package Service.
What do wedding planners do?
In our world, a wedding planner’s role is very similar to that of an event planner, designer & manager, though typically we don’t have full budget control of every aspect of the day as the couple will often manage key aspects themselves – for example gowns and heels, suits and shoes, hair and make up. Or they may have already selected and booked some of the vendors they wish to work with before we’re locked in.
However, managing the budget is a vital part of your wedding, and it makes a lot of sense to get someone with many years of experience on where to splurge – and where to nip and tuck – to get you the best value out of the dollars you are investing.
Typically, we will help you develop the concept, deliver a fully realised design brief including everything from stationery to florals, and leverage our industry relationships with other vendors to choose the best ones for your brief and your budget.
It means your day runs smoothly, as do the months leading up to the day, so you’re left to just enjoy the process and making lifelong memories.
How much time does it take to plan a wedding?
Naturally, this is a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question, but what we can tell you is that it’s always much more time than you think.
We’ve taken on several clients where they started planning it themselves, and then realised it was taking precious time away from enjoying spending time together as a couple, or with their kids, family and friends. Not to mention the stress it was causing and taking a toll on what should otherwise be a joyous time — their engagement.
But to answer your question, our weddings take us anywhere from the equivalent of a week to three months full time. This is collective hours across all members of our team and across the entire scope of the wedding.
Styling & florals
Do you do flowers as a standalone service?
We do all the florals inhouse for each of our The Total Package or Signature Style clients, but not florals just on their own.
Do you do wedding flowers, including bouquets and buttonholes?
Absolutely yes as part of our The Total Package or Signature Style services.
We’ve already engaged a florist, can we work with you to do styling?
With our own in house floral team, and beloved and very large cool room, we are only able to take on styling clients who also engage us to do the florals too. Trying to tell another floral team what to do and how would be awkward to say the least, so we stand firm on not doing this. As we do all the design work in house, it also means we’re able to respond swiftly to unexpected changes and make budgets work effectively no matter what curveballs we’re thrown.
Love all those floral images you are seeing on our website or our Instagram feed? All our own work. It’s one of our absolute passions.
I have no idea what kind of style I want, can you guide me?
Oh so much yes. This question lights us up so much, because it means we get to style the event based on who you truly are, rather than your Instagram feed.
When you give us full creative power, we unleash our most outstanding, unique and extraordinary styling and create a style that is unmistakably yours.
On the day
How many people will be on site at my event?
We hand-pick out team for the day based on all we are doing for you. It could be two or three or it could be 28. And of course while we do a lot in house, we are not caterers, so if that is a service we’re taking care of for you for example, there will be the caterers and their team there too. And so on. One thing you don’t have to worry about is who is taking care of what. That’s what we’re there for.
What happens if we need to postpone for any reason?
Thanks to COVID, we’re all over this (a bit too much practice and experience for our liking!). Our terms and conditions will guide you through how all this works – but more importantly, so will we, after stepping to help you navigate whatever challenges you are facing.
‘Every moment of your event is thoughtfully built to tell a story that’s unmistakably yours’
Alicia Larriera
Cost
How much does a wedding planner cost?
A wedding planner’s charges will vary greatly, depending on the range of services you’re wanting taken care of, the complexity of the brief and the number of events around your big day. Is it to be local? Interstate? Overseas?
Typically, when you engage someone to plan your wedding, you’re asking them to take all the work you would otherwise have to do, and do it for you.
This means they invest a significant amount of time, backed by significant experience, and this time and experience needs to be paid for.
Unlike many planners, we do not put a mark up on anything we bring in for you like the wedding cake, photographers, musicians or caterers.
And nor do we strike up deals (big ick factor) with vendors to give us a cut in return for referring work to them which we keep, and don’t pass on to you.
We keep it simple by chatting with you about what you’d love, establish the parameters and scope of what you need us to take care of, prepare a detailed event management proposal and quote a fixed fee to deliver on all.
Upfront, honest, transparent, ethical. It’s how we like to roll.
What does an average wedding cost?
Average. Is there a more depressing word in the English language? And there’s nothing average about you is there?
Putting the total cost of every wedding which took place in a year and dividing it by the number of weddings which took place to come up with the “average” cost is meaningless. Completely meaningless.
We’ve curated weddings with a guest list of 10 that came with a larger budget than one for a wedding with 200 guests. Or because one couple had no wedding party compared to another with a wedding party of 14, although guest numbers, venue, style and budget were similar, the couple with no wedding party had significantly more florals on their head table because – well no wedding party of many bouquets to include in the mix.
Whilst we refuse to engage in discussions about what is the average costs because of all of the above – essentially meaningless – what we can do is discuss authoritatively with you the range of budget you may need based on what you’d love.
And that’s the best sort of cost discussion to have – open and honest, based on what you’d love. And from there we can work back if needed with suggestions of how to nip and tuck if needed.
How do we obtain a quote?
Easily.
The Hire Store – dive in, choose what you’d like and add to a wishlist, and we’ll get an itemised quote to you pronto.
The Total Package & Signature Style – send us an inquiry here so we have the basic details we need to get things started – including checking our availability for your event date.
We’ll make a time to chat with you, get to know what you have in mind, obtain a thorough brief and put together an event management and styling booking proposal.
Before you know it, that proposal will be on the end of your email.
Once you’ve received the proposal, signed and booked, we can really get stuck into the work required to design your event in fine detail, on budget and on time, delivering not only line by line itemised costings for all, but design boards, time lines, detailed budgets and more.
This could take weeks or months of work, depending on the scope of your event, but know we go all-in with our work to deliver first class events.
Think of us as your dedicated event architects. And that’s why an event planner, manager & designer can’t completely design your day for free (and we think hiding those costs in other charges and pretending to be free is another very large ick from us).
Corporate events
How much experience do you have with corporate events?
We’ve done so many we’ve lost count. If it helps, our very first events were for AMEX and Coca-Cola, and since then we’ve worked with so many well known brands, companies and Government departments including Commonwealth Bank, NSW Premier’s Department, Arnotts, Product of the Year, Saatchi and Saatchi and Bennelong Restaurant.
How do we know our brand is safe with you?
Understanding, safeguarding and elevating your brand is a vital part of who we are and what we do. With more than two decades of expierence , we’ve finely tuned how we brief, and we’ve been entrusted with everything from top secret brand collateral to projects not yet launched to the public.
Hire
How extensive is your hire range?
Our commercial warehouse covers 1200sqm of floor space. We haven’t calculated the amount of footage the to-the-ceiling racking affords us – but it’s a lot.
It’s a bit like walking the aisles of your favourite homewares and furniture stores, only there isn’t just one style. So it’s better. So much better.
It’s hyper organised, brimming with thousands of different lines available for hire. At last count we were nudging over 1,000 different table top sized candleholders, candlesticks, lanterns, votives, vases and other floral vessels. Not 1,000 in total. 1,000 different lines with multiple numbers available for hire.
