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By Forever Farrah Published 2026-10-20.
Full-service vs partial wedding planning from the planner's side: what each includes, when it starts, published fees and hours by market, and where to draw the line.
Full-service planning starts with a blank page, usually 12 to 18 months out, and covers the budget, the venue, every vendor, the design and the day. Partial planning starts when the couple has already booked some vendors, usually 3 to 6 months out, and covers the rest plus the day. In the US, Zola puts full-service at $4,000 to $10,000 or more and partial at $1,500 to $6,000. The difference that matters most to a planner is hours, and the boundary has to be written down.
| Detail | Full-service | Partial | Day-of coordination |
|---|---|---|---|
| Usually starts | 12 to 18 months before | 3 to 6 months before | About 4 to 6 weeks before |
| Typical US fee | $4,000 to $10,000 or more | $1,500 to $6,000 | $800 to $3,000 |
| Typical hours | 50 to 150 or more | 30 to 60 | 15 to 25 |
| Couple arrives with | A date range and an idea | Venue and some vendors booked | Every vendor booked |
Sources: start times and fees from Zola's guide to planner costs, updated February 2026; hours from Thumbtack, which quotes its own lower fee ranges (for example $1,500 to $3,800 for partial service). Other sources put full planning at far more hours: Bridebook, in both its UK and Canadian guides, quotes a planner saying a wedding takes 200 to 300 hours to organize. Treat every hours figure as a range to test against your own records.
Zola describes full-service planning as budget development, venue and vendor sourcing, design and concept, contract management, timeline creation and coordination on the day. In Australia, Easy Weddings describes it as end-to-end coordination from budget management and venue selection to vendor sourcing, design direction and guest logistics.
Partial planning, in Zola's description, is help choosing the remaining vendors, finalizing the design, vendor coordination, timeline development and managing the day. The word that does the work is "remaining": the couple has already made the big decisions, and you finish the job.
Day-of coordination, covered in the day-of pricing guide, adds no vendor sourcing at all.
| Market | Full planning | Partial planning | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Often 10% to 15% of the budget, or a minimum fee | £30 to £100 an hour, or a fixed fee from estimated hours | Daniel Lay, 2024 |
| Canada | $3,500 to $10,000, not split by tier; 10% to 15% of the budget | No separate published figure found | Bridebook Canada |
| Australia | $5,000 to $6,000 | No separate published figure found | Easy Weddings |
Sources: Daniel Lay's UK planner cost guide; Bridebook Canada; Easy Weddings. Bridebook UK gives £1,543 as the average UK couple's spend on a planner in 2026, and notes partial planning costs less than full planning without giving a range. Where we found no published partial figure, we say so rather than estimate one; the planner pricing calculator does the same.
Partial planning is the tier most likely to grow without the fee growing. It happens in small steps: the couple booked a caterer but not the bar, then the florist they booked closes, then they ask you to "just look at" invitations. Each one is reasonable. Together they turn a 40-hour package into an 80-hour one.
Three habits keep it in shape:
Full-service rarely runs out of scope. It runs out of hours. Over 12 to 18 months, meetings, vendor calls and design rounds accumulate, and a fee set at booking can fall well below your hourly rate by the wedding. Track your hours on every full-service wedding for a year, then price the next one from the real number. A percentage-of-budget fee (Zola gives 10% to 20% in the US) grows with the wedding, which is one reason planners use it for full-service rather than for smaller packages.
As a rule of thumb, not a rule:
Ask at the first call what is booked and how much time they have. The answer usually picks the tier for you.
Many planners sell all three tiers, and the documents are the same in each: a guest list, a seating chart, a run of show, a vendor contact sheet and a floor plan. What changes is how early you start them and how many vendors you chase. Keep one set of templates and one process for all three, and the tier only changes the start date and the scope list. The client onboarding guide covers that process from the signed contract.
The planner pricing calculator is free and needs no signup. It shows published fee ranges for full-service, partial and day-of planning in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia, and says where no figure exists.
Whatever the tier, the guest side of the wedding is the same work. In the planner dashboard, each client wedding's guest list, RSVPs and seating chart sit in one place that you and the couple both see, Matchmaker (automatic seating) places guests at tables in seconds, and you can chase RSVPs across every client wedding from one screen. Your first 2 client weddings are free.
A package for couples who have already booked some vendors, often the venue. The planner books the remaining vendors, finishes the design, builds the timeline and runs the day. Zola says it usually starts 3 to 6 months before the wedding.
In the US, Zola gives $4,000 to $10,000 or more for full-service and $1,500 to $6,000 for partial. The gap reflects hours: Thumbtack puts partial at 30 to 60 hours and full-service at 50 to 150 or more.
Zola says full-service planners usually start working with couples 12 to 18 months before the wedding, before the venue is booked.
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