Frequently Asked Questions

Wedding planning is so personal. Not only do you want a wedding planner you connect with, but you need a wedding planner with the specific experience and skill set for your specific wedding. Some weddings need planners who have stronger logistical skills. Other weddings need stronger designers. You'll be carefully and thoughtfully paired with a planner from our team whose experience and approach is custom tailored for you. Your wedding planner is chosen based on where you are in the planning process, your communication style, your event needs, your venue choice and a number of other details. You will be paired with a team member who specializes in your region, who has the specific skill set and experience to create an amazing planning experience for you starting from day one. As we mentioned, we are a team, and the entire team is here to serve you! It is one of the benefits of choosing YPB. You not only will have a dedicated planner specialized in the needs of your wedding, but you also have the collective knowledge earned over the past 15 years. Our team approach also means that you and your planning needs are fully covered regardless of disaster, sickness, etc. Your wedding will have an on-call team member who is fully up to date with every detail of your wedding being paid to wait at home, just in case there is an emergency day-of. You only get one chance at this day. You are in good hands with YPB! We hope you will consider us for your wedding planning needs. Our years of experience, client dedication, knowledge of the PNW, resources like our Client Portal, and vendor relationships are all guaranteed to make the planning of your wedding that much easier! Speaking of planning Portal, meet BABS! Meet BABS (2.0) - Brainy and Bountiful System for Wedding Planning - Watch Video

You don't have to have a venue or a date to book us! In fact, these are things we can help you with. With our industry knowledge and professional expertise, we can help you find the perfect venue while keeping your priorities and your budget in place. Our Venue Series blogs show some of the venues we've been to and loved, but you can also search any venue on our blog to see photos from weddings we've helped coordinate and design. Our Venue Hunt add-on service is a series of meetings where we use our 15+ years of experience to recommend the best based on what you are looking for. This can be added onto an existing package, or as a standalone service: our Ask A Planner Venue Hunt and Consultation Service. You will be guided and supported through the booking process by discussing pros and cons and the budget implications of each choice. You'll also have the peace of mind knowing that a professional is reviewing contracts and ensuring that your venue choice is the right choice for you based on what you are looking for. Because every venue is going to have a specific set of needs from your planner, we wait to place you with your Lead Planner until you have a date and venue. We don’t want you to choose your date based on your planner's availability: we want you choosing your date based on what works best for you and your families.

Custom, custom, custom - that’s our motto. Know that our packages are customizable and you are welcome to add on meetings or services at any time! The included number of meetings are outlined in our Services page and vary per package. Common uses for extra meetings include: an extra planning meeting to organize your progress or change of design an extra rental meeting for rental design and logistical expertise an extra venue walkthrough to chat through ideas early in the process Still curious? Just ask! We're happy to guide you through extras in a consultation. We offer the following meetings in all of our packages: FIRST MEETING - where we get to know each other, talk about budget, vendor priorities, general direction and outline your next steps RENTAL MEETING & COORDINATION - where we discuss your rental needs based on your vision, existing venue inventory, catering needs and more, ideally in a rental company showroom. WALKTHROUGH MEETING- where we meet with you and your caterer at the venue to walk through logistics, create your floor plan, and go over any questions/concerns about the space FINAL MEETING - where we discuss the final details, confirm your rental orders and send you into your wedding week stress-free as possible!

One of the best perks of any planning package with YPB is that you start working with your Planner or Coordinator from day one! You can always reach out with questions, concerns, or needs as they come up. Support is always just a call, text, or email away! While the actual number of meetings will vary with each package, your planner will be in touch regularly with updates and next steps. Additionally, your planner will also be reaching out to your vendor team regularly with planning and timeline updates. Ensuring you and your vendor team feel supported throughout the process is our number one goal.

It is our sincere hope that your venue DOES have a venue manager. Venue Managers (or venue coordinators) are such an important member of every vendor team. However, there is a common misconception in the wedding world that the role of venue coordinators and wedding coordinators overlap. While both have essential roles to play for a smooth wedding day, the reality is, we do very different things. Venue Coordinators will ensure that the venue is ready for the event. They will ensure things are clean, temperatures are comfortable, and that contractually promised equipment is available and ready to go. Venue managers let vendors into the space, answer venue related questions and solve venue related problems. As wedding planners/coordinators, our job is to turn your vision into a reality. Doing so involves budget support, recommending vendors tailored to your needs, education about vendor contracts (what to expect so there’s no surprises), and logistical expertise for creating timelines and floor plans that reflect the day you want. And when necessary, it includes respectfully and passionately advocating for you when there is a vendor issue. (or venue issue) To do these well, without bias, without conflict of interest, it is my core belief that every couple should have an independent guide, resource and advocate during the planning process. The easiest way to differentiate the two is to remember: Venue managers work for venues, wedding planners/coordinators work for the couples. You deserve someone looking out for you!

We are not the type to throw surprises at you, and transparency is important to us! The truth is, we don't make any profit off of travel - we charge a travel fee to cover the exact cost of the travel, and 100% of the money goes to our planners who are traveling. When we are traveling to a venue more than 30 miles away from one of our offices we charge a travel fee. Our mileage fee is set by the IRS and every cent goes to our team to cover their time spent driving as well as the gas and wear and tear on their car. When we are traveling to a venue more than 90 miles away from one of our offices we charge an overnight fee. That fee covers the mileage reimbursement, cost of hotel, and cost of employee meals since being away from home means they will be eating meals out. If your venue is more than 150 miles (one way trip) from one of our offices , an Extended Travel Fee of $100 per Team Member working Day Of will be added. This Fee goes fully to the YPB Team Members working the event day of as a bonus for taking the extra time to drive out of their region. We always include set travel costs into our proposals. This amount is based on your venue and the package you choose. The costs you'll see will cover things like: Ferry Fees Mileage to venue (for walkthrough, rehearsal, wedding day, etc) Mileage to other meetings (i.e. extra walkthroughs, rental meetings, tastings, etc.) Overnight accommodation & meals (for venues 90+miles away from the regional office or venues that are very remote and would be unsafe for our team to travel home at the end of an event) If you have any questions, please ask us!

We take the success of your wedding day very seriously, and a big part of that includes us mitigating risk. To limit liability, we don’t transport or deliver items on your behalf. We don't have the vehicles to store or transport those items safely. Squishing things into our personal vehicles is a recipe for disaster and broken dreams. Car thefts are a real thing and we don’t want to have to call you and tell you your wedding décor has been stolen, or that rentals were damaged during transport. The best way to get your personal items to the venue is to designate one trusted friend or family member to handle the task. We will help you make a plan for this during our planning process. If you are out-of-state from your wedding venue, let's have a conversation about options! We always want to be helpful, but more than anything we want your wedding day to be the best day possible.

Since 2008 we have planned and coordinated over 1500 weddings at more than 500 venues, including many private residences/private homes (our bread and butter!). While that is too many to list, we have listed some of our favorites down below. Every time we work at a venue, we share the best-practices and key info with our team, so every planner on our team knows insider information. You can search the name of any venue you're interested in our blog, but if you don't see it, let us know - odds are we've been there but just don't have the photos up yet! Other Venue Ideas While we love working with these venues, our biggest passion comes from creating unique and different designs at these spaces. We love a good challenge and creatively speaking, we get super excited every time we work at a new venue. Because of our strength and experience working at private residences, working at a “new-to-us” is never a problem. We still bring all the lessons and skills we have honed over the past decade to that venue to create an incredible experience for our couples. As a reminder, we offer our Venue Hunt add on for any package so you can ensure you have a planner's insight to help you find the perfect venue that realistically works with your vision and budget!

Yes! A big part of our job is supporting your vendors so they can do their best work for you. Regardless of package, we will email planning updates to your vendor team including: your timeline, floor plan, and rental order on a routine basis. We value the subject matter expertise of your vendors and we want to make sure they have the opportunity to send feedback throughout the planning process. When we work together, the outcome is exponentially better. We can also reach out to vendors on your behalf to gather availability, service quotes and other key information so you can make quick and informed decisions. This service is what we call our Vendor Admin Service. Researching and emailing questions back and forth is a time consuming step of wedding planning. If you want to save yourself time and having the peace of mind knowing that an expert is asking all the right questions, this service is for you. This service is included in our Deluxe Package and our Ultimate Package. We also offer an a la carte Vendor Administration Service add-on (outlined on our Services page) if there are only a few vendors you'd like us to handle. This service can be added on to the Signature Package or Premiere Package.

The short answer is no. The long answer is… we used to but we discontinued it as our couples and our planners found they just needed more meetings with each other in order to get the results we want to provide (and our couples expect to receive). Our Signature Package is the base package we offer because you deserve the best help, not mediocre help. If your wedding date is fast approaching, no problem! We will tailor our services to your needs, based on where you are in the planning process Trust me, it is not too late to have an incredible, stress free wedding day. We will dive in and get to work tying loose ends and bringing all the details together. And for those of you who may not need or want our day of coordination services, we do offer consultation services! We call it our “Ask A Planner” service. These consultations allow you to have your topic-specific wedding planning questions answered with a planner's insight, and you’ll get access to spreadsheets, checklists and tools we use every day as planners. These are great for those DIY and Type-A couples who want to plan their own wedding but want a logistical expert to educate and guide them.

Easy Peasy! Our a la carte services allow you to customize your package based on your needs. We are happy to be onsite for longer if it means taking stress off you or your family. In fact, as we are crafting your timeline, we may suggest adding more onsite hours if we feel the time allocated in your package does not allow for us to guarantee your wedding vision can be executed properly. You can also choose to add an extra set of hands (or two) by adding on an additional day of coordinator. While all of our packages have at least two coordinators onsite during the wedding day, (read why on our blog), sometimes an extra team member can go a long way towards making your day the best day possible. We outline the cost of additional onsite hours and additional onsite coordinators on our Services page. Keep in mind, extra hours and extra coordinators can be added on at any time.

Maybe this isn’t a frequently asked question, but we think it’s an important distinction to make when choosing a planner. Everyone who works for YPB is an employee. One of the more tangible benefits to couples is that everyone who works with YPB is covered by our workers comp and liability insurance policies. When planners are contractors, that is not the case. These insurance policies cover you as much as they do us. This added level of protection is just one of the many ways we protect our couples. We chose to grow our team with employees for one core reason. People who are cared for, know how to care for others. We care for our team so they can care for you.