How Much Does a Wedding Planner Cost in Ottawa?

Reasonable depends on how much of the work you still want to do yourself. Start with what Ottawa planners charge: the table below holds every price we found published by one. Coordination for a wedding you have already planned starts at $700 and goes to $1,600, and a planner who runs the whole thing from the engagement on starts at $6,500 at Rustic Engagements.

Then hold the quote against your budget. The Wedding Planners Institute of Canada, which trains and certifies planners, gives 10 to 15% of the total wedding budget as the average cost of full planning in its price guide, last updated in January 2022. Zola, an American wedding company, puts the US average at $4,047 in its Wedding Cost Index, about 8% of a total wedding budget. Applied to a $30,000 wedding, 10 to 15% is $3,000 to $4,500. That pays for partial planning at Caroline and Company ($1,850) or Rustic Engagements ($2,400), with room to spare, and falls short of full planning at Rustic Engagements, Fiona Lau Events or Erica Irwin.

Last, read the package for the work: hours on the wedding day, people on site, meetings before it, and the date the planner takes over your vendor emails. Two quotes with the same total can differ by a whole person on the day.

Full planning

The planner starts soon after the engagement and stays to the last dance. Fiona Lau Events’ full planning, from $7,195, lists budget development and tracking, venue comparisons, vendor referrals and contract review, the floor plan, RSVP and menu management, and the final payments and gratuities on the night. Erica Irwin Weddings and Events’ version, from $14,500, puts its principal planner and at least one assistant on the wedding day for up to ten hours. WeddingWin advises booking full planning 12 to 18 months out for a peak Saturday.

Partial planning

You have booked the big pieces, usually the venue and the caterer, and want help with the rest. Fiona Lau Events’ partial package, from $5,175, spells out the rhythm: a kick-off meeting, two planning meetings, a midway check-in, a final details meeting five to six weeks out, and one more just before the wedding. Caroline and Company starts its partial planning at $1,850 and says it begins the moment you book rather than a few weeks out.

Month-of and day-of coordination

You plan it all and the coordinator runs it, though the name undersells the work. Rustic Engagements’ day-of package, from $1,600, includes an in-person meeting, help building the timeline, the rehearsal and eight hours on the wedding day as the vendors’ main contact. Witjes Weddings prices day-of at $700 and month-of at $1,200, and the difference is how early it starts. Erica Irwin does not sell day-of on its own at all, because, its services page says, 95% of the planning is done ahead of time.

Decor only: design, or set-up and tear-down

The smallest tier is someone to put your decor up and take it down. Rustic Engagements charges from $800 and asks you for detailed instructions, a floor plan and a seating layout; Fiona Lau Events charges from $895, and Caroline and Company from $1,150. Fiona Lau sells design on its own from $2,489. These prices are for setting up decor you have already sourced. A decorator who supplies the pieces quotes them with the installation, and what that costs is in our guide to wedding decor cost in Ottawa.

Guest count, through staffing

A bigger wedding needs more hands on the day, and the packages show it: Erica Irwin’s include an assistant planner at minimum. WeddingWin warns against low quotes that never mention staffing, because a wedding with a separate ceremony and reception space can need a planner in two places at once.

On a percentage fee, guests move the price directly. Erica Irwin counts at least $300 to $400 a guest for food and bar. 20 more guests at those rates add $6,000 to $8,000 to the budget, and $600 to $1,200 to a 10 to 15% fee.

The venue: a tent costs more to plan than a hall

Baillie-David & Co. put full planning in Ottawa at $6,000 to $8,500 or more in 2022, and a tented wedding at $8,000 to $12,000, because of the much higher workload. It noted that planners often price a tent as a separate package entirely. WeddingWin says the same of tented, multi-day, cultural and production-heavy weddings: they can rise well above its ranges.

A venue with its own coordinator does not replace a planner, Erica Irwin argues, and its description of that role shows why. The venue’s coordinator handles the venue’s side of the day: the room set to the floor plan, the kitchen and bar staff, meal choices, security and the heating. The timeline, the vendors and the wedding party stay with you or your planner.

A venue out in the valley, and the kilometres

Not every Ottawa wedding is in the city. Our comparison of Ottawa wedding venues includes four a longer drive out, in Beckwith, Almonte, Merrickville and Wakefield. Planners pay for that drive, and some bill it. Fiona Lau Events charges $1.40 a kilometre, per vehicle, for round-trip travel beyond the first 100 km from its Ottawa office, and adds lodging when the venue is more than 100 km away. Its own example is a venue 89 km out: 178 km there and back, less 100, leaves 78 km, which is $109.20 per vehicle. Two cars double it.

The Wedding Planners Institute of Canada lists vehicles, fuel, parking and travel among the costs a planner carries whether or not a wedding is booked, so expect it in the fee if it is not a line of its own.

A second day

Packages price one wedding day: eight hours at Rustic Engagements, up to ten at Erica Irwin. WeddingWin lists multi-day planning, for cultural weddings and wedding weekends, as a custom quote. A henna or mehndi night before the wedding is a second event with its own setup, so it needs its own line. We style those too, in English or Arabic.

We do not publish a planning price, because the tier decides the fee. We offer full wedding planning, where we build the plan with you from the start, and day-of coordination, where we take the plan you made, confirm it with every supplier in the week before and run the day. Most couples who ask us about decor turn out to need something between the two, so we ask what you have already booked and quote the tier you need, not the larger one.

We are also the decorator, which changes the comparison. A planner usually coordinates a separate decor company, and the handover between them is where a timeline slips. When we plan a wedding, the arch, the head table and the centrepieces are ours, installed before guests arrive and taken down at the venue’s teardown time, and that is written into the quote. Our wedding planning and decor page shows what we build.

For a quote we need the date, the venue, the guest count and what is already booked. We work from Nepean, so the south and west of the city are close, and for a venue further out its access window matters more to us than the drive.