What’s the Difference Between Full-Service Planning and Partial Planning?

There’s a lot of wedding industry jargon that gets thrown around with no thorough explanation. One of the most popular questions I hear when on my consultation calls is “What exactly is the difference between full-service wedding planning and partial wedding planning?” I’m here to give you the deets on how The Coordination Company distinguishes the two.

Involved in the booking process or not?

The first difference between the two packages is whether or not I am involved in the booking of your other vendors. No matter what package a client books, I am happy to provide vendor recommendations. If a client books the full-service package, I will coordinate appointment times with the vendors they want to chat with before booking. If the client wants, I can sit in on the appointment as well to make sure nothing is missed! If a client books partial planning, they will be vetting vendors and setting up appointments on their own. Once the vendor is booked, I’ll jump in to help manage communication.

Number of meetings

There is a difference in the number of meetings I will attend for each package. For full-service, I’ll be there to assist with the venue search process – aka going on venue visits with you. I cap this to 4 venue walkthroughs. For full-service I’ll attend as many vendor meetings as you would like me to. Although, couples often choose to have me attend the design-oriented vendor meetings and the venue walkthroughs. I limit it to 3 vendor meetings including the catering tasting.

Additional services

There quite a few extras that are included, such as venue search, guest hotel-block management, floral mockup coordination, RSVP management, hospitality gift assembly and coordination, and attire advice.

Most wedding planning companies have different ways of differentiating between these two services. Make sure you are each planner how they classify the difference between full-service ad partial planning when you are meeting with them.