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I invest 600-1,000 hours in each wedding I plan. It's no surprise: I care as much about your wedding as I did my own.
As a high-touch planner, I take on only a select number of weddings each year, so I can offer my couples unlimited meetings, support, and time. By the time the wedding day rolls around, so many of my couples have become dear friends!
My high-touch, full-service planning approach has six phases:
find the right setting,
create a beautifully bespoke event design,
select vendors that are just right for your vision,
get prepared via a site inspection and menu tasting,
craft a gracious make guest experience,
and finally, my team and I are on site to ensure every wedding-related event goes smoothly.
Finding the Right Wedding Venue for You
I invest countless hours in finding the perfect setting for you and your celebration.
Following a kick off call where we review our key timelines and processes, we’ll dive into your desires for your wedding venue.
Whether you know you want to be in a glamorous hotel with NYC skyline views, a luxury villa in Italy, an ancient pousada in Portugal, a quintessential chateau nestled in the south of France, on an island with water views, among the grapevines in Napa, or even if you have no idea, we’ll make a list of potential places, and what elements you most want to include. We’ll also figure out your nice-to-haves, and any dealbreakers.
From there, I will research venues on your behalf, gathering pricing and availability to create your "Venue Menu." This is a curated list of relevant venues (and maybe a small handful of wild-cards!) that fit your vibe, vision, desired dates, and budget, with as many of the must haves and nice to haves as possible.
The Venue Menu is designed to help make an apples-to-apples comparison easier, to help you find the right wedding venue for you.
Wondering if you should book your planner or your venue first? Read on!
Once you’ve narrowed it down to a favorite (or a top two or three), I will negotiate the venue contract on your behalf, trying to get you the best possible rate and the most added value.
After the negotiation phase, I ask the venue to remove any planner commissions/kickbacks, which I do not accept, and which will further reduce your venue cost.
Crafting a Bespoke Event Design
Your venue plays a huge role in the overall design of your event. Once we’ve selected the venue, only then do we move on to the event design phase, to ensure we are crafting a celebration that feels aesthetically right in your chosen space!
The Event Design phase starts with a survey. This is way less about “what color do you want your bridesmaids in?” and more about helping me understand your personal design aesthetic.
TikTok wedding trends come and go. I want my couples to walk into their receptions and feel an overwhelming sense of “this is totally, and completely OUR wedding.” The event design survey is designed to see what sort of colors, textures, and aesthetics you’re drawn to.
I take the results of the survey and distill it into Event Design One: this is exactly what I heard, and here’s what that looks like visually.
Then, I share Event Design Two. This is a little twist – perhaps an inversion of colors or a different approach. Consider Event Design Two to be looking at the same house through a different window. It’s an opportunity to think a little differently about the approach.
For some couples, I also include the Wild Card (or Wild Cards). These are event design options that have the same feeling or the same vibe, but maybe look totally different. Maybe there is a color to consider that would work so beautifully with your venue, or a pattern or design to incorporate from the surroundings. Maybe this is a chance to use more candlelight and architectural lighting than floral, or to consider other visual details to bring the feeling to life. The Wild Card is just that – a design built to showcase your favorite elements of your setting.
I had my perfect wedding. It was everything I dreamed and more – and I want each of my couples to get to say exactly the same thing. Your event design is just that – it’s yours.
These designs are options, not obligations. If you want to stick with Option 1, that’s amazing. If you want to create a hybrid – mostly 2, with this bit from 3, and this element from 1, and this pattern from 4 – let’s do it! We are designing this wedding for the two of you, and it should reflect what you’re most excited about.
Identifying the Perfect Vendors for Your Vision
Now that we have your event design chosen, it’s time to move on to sourcing the vendors who are best able to bring that specific vision to life. If you like sweeping organic florals, we won’t consider florists that specialize in tight, structured bouquets.
The idea behind confirming the event design first is that now I can present hyper-relevant vendor options, with teams who are experts in your specific vision. That way, your event design will come to life as we’ve dreamed it!
I’ll present options to you in each vendor category, starting with the vendors that are most important to you, and then like the venue phase, I will review and negotiate each contract on your behalf, before you sign and pay your deposits directly.
A note on meeting and vetting vendors: While you are welcome to meet with any of the vendors we’re considering before you book, the only vendor(s) I require my couples to meet first are the photo and video teams.
Your photographer (and videographer) are with you throughout every intimate and private moment throughout the day – from getting dressed, to your first look. So, I want to make sure you are super comfortable with them and that you click!
Typically, my clients will narrow down their photo and video selections to 2-4 choices based on style, and then we set up some super quick “vibe check” calls. While these calls are an opportunity to ask questions and learn more about your photographer’s process, it’s really a chance for you to get a feel for them – is this someone you can imagine vibing with on your wedding day?
Getting the Lay of the Land: The Site Visit & The Tasting
The site visit is an opportunity to see your wedding venue in person and to imagine each scene throughout the wedding week or weekend coming to life in the setting. I love it when my couples and I can attend the site inspection together, although when my couples can’t travel, I’ll do a site visit on their behalf, taking detailed notes, photos, and videos to help them feel like they’re there, too!
The site visit gives us an opportunity to identify the most gracious flow for the event, and to solidify the rain plan so that it feels like a “plan A” (where sun is A+).
It also gives me a chance to figure out where all the electrical outlets are, ask pages worth of questions, figure out the exact angles of the sun throughout key points in your day to make sure it won’t be in your eyes, and all kinds of those nitty-gritty details that go into making each event feel seamless. This is a chance for me to problem-solve before problems arise, so we are fully prepared for anything.
For many of my destination wedding couples, this is also an opportunity to schedule their hair and makeup test and engagement shoot, to get to know some of their vendors ahead of time and to get some practice time in front of the lens!
If our timing can’t align, I’ll also help you schedule a separate site visit, and arrange your tasting and set up meetings with any vendors you’d like to meet, and can help set up your photo shoot and hair/makeup trial, as well.
Curating a Luxurious Guest Experience
The Guest Experience is one we’re thinking about throughout the entire planning process: after all, having guests say “that was the best wedding I have EVER been to” for years to come really helps keep that wedding magic alive!
The guest experience starts long before the first guest arrives at your wedding. It starts with the earliest communication, whether a save the date, or the wedding website. From the very beginning, we make sure guests have the information they need, and nothing but excitement in the months leading up to your wedding.
I create a personalized wedding website for each of my couples, complete with travel tips and things to do near their wedding destination, the full schedule of events, event-specific FAQs and answers, bespoke RSVP questions tailored to the event, an initial experience-based registry, and beyond. Of course, this is YOUR website. You will have an admin login and can change every word and every picture if you want! But the idea is that you have something completely done to start from, without having to worry about the logistics.
I make sure that the wedding website is easy to read and understand for guests, giving them an early sense that needs will be anticipated and this wedding will be a beautifully memorable one!
We also take time to think through ways to surprise and delight your guests: from curated welcome bags to creative escort card displays or favors, to hospitality kits for the restrooms that benefit all guests, to some extra-personal touches to help each guest feel loved (for example, if your best friend is lactose intolerant, I love to sneak a Lactaid under the menu at the wedding table. When they lift their menu, they have a little touch that shows you’re looking out for them).
Having these thoughtful touches throughout all contribute to a glowing guest experience.
Throughout the planning journey, I am also tackling guest questions directly. From helping destination wedding guests book their train tickets, to answering all manner of logistical questions, I keep your inbox free from guest-related stress.
On-Site Full-Service Management of Wedding Events
I am personally on site before you arrive for the first event through after you’ve left, managing everything from vendor arrivals and gratuity distribution, to steaming dresses and cleaning rings, to arranging your flat lay, to setting the table, to assembling decor, problem-solving any snags and implementing elegant solutions, to fielding guest requests, to keeping our comprehensive timeline running smoothly, to making sure YOU have absolutely everything you need (before you know you need it), and beyond.
To learn more about Jane Handles Weddings full-service wedding planning, please visit our services page, or send a message!
Weddings are my passion, and it is such a privilege to help my couples bring theirs to life. I still can’t believe I get to do this for a living.
I’d love to learn more about you dream wedding – or to help you craft a vision if you aren’t sure where to start – and to start planning! Get in touch to schedule a complimentary consultation.
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