When to involve wedding planner

It really depends on what you want. Every couple their own needs and wants so there is no one size fits all answer. Do you want the planner to essentially plan everything for you and you and fiancé show up as guests or do you want to pick your own vendors and have the coordinator tie up the loose ends and act as mediator when needed between you and vendors?


Typically couples who don’t want any personal involvement or don’t have time to invest in planning (they may be busy executives or celebrities for example) are willing to pay big bucks to have someone else do all planning. Not everyone has that type of budget and some couples want to contribute ideas or they have a venue in mind they want to use.
Before you book the venue, decide what your vision (aesthetic and areas to focus budget and attention as well as a list of what you want to cut out) , your budget without outside assistance, and your must have guest list including significant others regardless of whether just got serious or they have no plans to marry (the engaged/married only guest list is archaic and excludes friends and family who don’t fall into those groups) who you can’t imagine the day without and who are not people invited to make others happy but would dampen your day. You need that information set in stone before you can look at venues.
Venue shopping/tours does not reduce planner costs. It is included in full planning costs and not offered for month of coordination. They divide their services on their websites between full planning (planning everything for you and you just show up) and partial planning/month of coordination where they meet with you the last 1-2 months depending on their services to tie up loose ends after you have the venue and vendors secured and direct the wedding day behind the scenes so that your loved ones can relax and enjoy themselves.
There is no way to begin to estimate costs. This is an international forum so no two locations/regions will cost the same and even in the same city no two vendors will charge the same. You’re comparing apples to carrots in most cases because individual services are different from one business to another in the same field, a small town can sometimes cost more than a large city because of no access to vendors for several miles (which they charge per mile outside of their base area in addition to standard fees), and contrary to popular belief, a large city has a wider range of prices from low budget to if you have to ask because they don’t list prices then you can’t afford it. Browse Yelp and read reviews there which vendors cannot pay to have removed, unlike the pay-to-play sites (such as TheKnot) that have 1 or 5 star reviews with nothing in between and have reputations for removing less than glowing reviews with no warning. Make sure you read websites that list prices and services and get a consultation before you book anyone. You and fiancé need to click completely with this person and you both need to be on the same page as far as what you want that they provide. If a website/vendor doesn’t list prices, move on to the next vendor because you are inviting a high maintenance person that you may not have enough funds to afford.
As far as questions to ask the venues, there are many lists on Google that cover nearly all your bases.