Wedding planner CRM

A wedding planner CRM is the client system that holds every couple a planning business is talking to or working for, from the first Instagram message to the review after the last dance: enquiry, consultation, proposal, signed agreement, deposit, planning tasks, vendor contacts, payment milestones and the thank you. We set up CS+, our CRM, for full service planners, partial planners, day of coordinators, cultural wedding planners and Canadian planners who run destination weddings, arranged around the wedding date rather than a generic sales funnel. Canada Create is a Toronto agency that does this setup for planning businesses across Canada.

Contents

• Enquiries lost in DMs and how to catch them
• Consultation, proposal and deposit stages
• Couple records that hold the whole wedding
• A vendor directory inside the CRM
• Task reminders counted back from the wedding date
• Assistants, coordinators and moving off spreadsheets
• Reviews, referrals and reporting by source
• How the CRM fits with your marketing
• Consent and couples’ personal details
• How we set up CS+ for a planning business
• What a wedding planner CRM costs
• Questions to ask before you choose a CRM
• Your next step

Enquiries lost in DMs and how to catch them

Planners hear from couples in more places than almost any wedding vendor. A bride messages on Instagram after seeing a reel of a tablescape. A groom fills in the website form at midnight. A venue coordinator passes on a couple who needs a day of coordinator. A listing site sends an email. A past client texts that her sister just got engaged. Each arrives in a different inbox, and the ones in DMs are the easiest to lose under a stack of vendor messages and story replies.

Why speed matters to couples

Couples choose a planner on trust, and the first sign of trust is how quickly and clearly the planner answers. A couple who writes to three planners on a Sunday often books a consultation with whoever replies first with a real answer about their date and their budget. A planner who finds the message on Wednesday is usually too late.

One pipeline for every source

We set up CS+ so that website forms, consultation bookings, listing site emails and referral details land in one pipeline, each tagged with where it came from. Instagram and Facebook messages can be added as contacts by your team or routed in where the connection is available. Every new enquiry shows as waiting for a reply until someone answers it.

What to ask in the first form

The website enquiry form for a planner asks what a consultation needs: the wedding date or season, whether the venue is booked, the approximate guest count, the service the couple wants and how they heard about you. A budget range is optional and set by you. Those answers become fields on the record, so you can sort enquiries by date and service before you reply.

First replies that do not sound automatic

We write reply templates for the questions couples ask first: are you available on our date, do you do partial planning, do you plan South Asian or Persian weddings, do you travel for destination weddings, what does day of coordination include. Each template is a starting point your team personalizes in a minute. Where you want it, AI drafting help can suggest a reply from the couple’s message for you to edit before it goes out.

Consultation, proposal and deposit stages

A planner’s pipeline follows how a couple becomes a client. The stages we set up usually look like this, adjusted to your services:

1. New enquiry: date, venue if chosen, guest count, budget range and service wanted.
2. Date check: is the date free for you and for your lead coordinator?
3. Consultation booked: a call or an in person meeting, with a reminder the day before.
4. Proposal sent: full planning, partial planning or day of coordination, with optional extras.
5. Agreement signed: your own signed agreement on file.
6. Deposit received: the deposit terms the owner sets, recorded on the couple’s file.
7. Planning: the wedding is active and tasks start running.
8. Wedding complete, then review and referral follow up.

Date clash checks

Many planners can run only one full wedding per day, or a small number with a team. A view of booked and held dates lets you answer the first question every couple asks without opening three calendars, and flags when a second couple asks about a date you have already promised.

Consultations that lead somewhere

A consultation booking link sends the couple a confirmation and a short questionnaire about the date, venue, guest count, style and priorities, so you arrive prepared. Notes from the meeting stay on the couple’s record and feed the proposal, which is then followed by a gentle reminder if it sits unopened.

Proposals that match your packages

Full planning, partial planning and day of coordination each get a proposal template with your scope, inclusions and optional extras such as rehearsal coordination, welcome events or decor design. Sending the right package with the couple’s names, date and venue already filled in saves time and keeps every proposal consistent across your team.

Payment milestones

Planning fees are often paid in instalments: a deposit to hold the date, a payment midway through planning and a final balance before the wedding. We set up reminders for each milestone on the dates you choose, so you are not chasing payments from memory in the busiest weeks of the season.

Couple records that hold the whole wedding

A planner’s client file is much more than a name and email. We set up couple records with the fields planners actually use.

What each record holds

• Both partners’ names and contact details, and a parent or family contact where the couple wants one.
• Wedding date, ceremony and reception venues, and any rehearsal or welcome events.
• Guest count, budget range and the service package booked.
• Style notes, colour palette and inspiration links.
• Cultural or religious traditions to plan around, such as a mehndi, a tea ceremony or a church ceremony followed by a hall reception.
• The vendors booked for this wedding, linked to their vendor records.
• Documents: the signed agreement, timeline drafts, floor plans and vendor quotes.

Keeping documents with the couple

Instead of hunting through email threads for the floor plan the venue sent or the florist’s revised quote, documents are attached to the couple’s record. When an assistant covers a meeting, everything they need is in one place.

When the guest count or budget changes

Guest lists grow, budgets shift and venues change after a family conversation. Updating the record keeps everyone working from the same numbers, and a short note on what changed and why helps the next person on your team understand the couple’s decisions without reading every email.

Keeping couples informed

Many couples want to see where planning stands without sending another email. We can set up a way to share progress, upcoming decisions and documents with the couple, described and agreed in your proposal, so they feel looked after between meetings.

A vendor directory inside the CRM

Planners work with dozens of vendors: venues, caterers, photographers, videographers, florists, DJs, officiants, rental companies, hair and makeup artists and transport. Keeping them in the CRM turns a planner’s network into something the whole team can use.

What we set up

• Vendor records by category, with contacts, service areas and notes on how they work.
• Which weddings each vendor worked, so you can see who you book most often.
• Vendor contacts linked to each couple’s wedding, so the day of contact sheet builds itself from the record.
• Reminders to confirm arrival times and final details with each vendor before the wedding.

Referrals in both directions

Venues and photographers send planners couples, and planners recommend vendors in return. Tagging each enquiry with the vendor who referred it shows which relationships bring work, so you know whom to thank and whom to keep in touch with. A list of trusted vendors by category also lets you send couples a short, consistent recommendation list for photographers, florists or DJs in their budget and area. Photographers who want their own client system can see our photographer CRM page.

Task reminders counted back from the wedding date

Every wedding runs on a countdown. Book the venue, then the photographer, send save the dates, order invitations, finalize the menu, collect the guest list, build the floor plan, confirm vendors, write the day of timeline. The timing depends on your process and the type of wedding.

Task lists by service

We build task lists for each service you sell, each task set to fall a set time before the wedding date as you define it. When a couple books full planning, the full list appears with dates calculated from their wedding. Partial planning and day of coordination get shorter lists. If the date moves, the tasks move with it.

Reminders for you and the couple

Some reminders go to your team: confirm the rental order, send the final timeline to vendors. Others go to the couple, with consent: send us your guest list, confirm your hair and makeup booking, choose your menu. Templates for those messages are written in your voice and sent at the right point in the countdown.

Destination and multi day weddings

Destination weddings and multi day cultural weddings need extra steps: travel blocks, guest accommodation, welcome events, separate vendor teams for each day. These become their own task lists, so nothing in a sangeet, a ceremony and a reception across three days falls between the cracks.

The final stretch before the wedding

The last part of the countdown is the busiest: final guest numbers to the caterer, the seating chart to the venue, payments to vendors, the timeline shared with everyone working the day, and the emergency kit packed. A dedicated final stretch list, with tasks for you, your coordinators and the couple, keeps those steps visible when several weddings fall on consecutive weekends.

Assistants, coordinators and moving off spreadsheets

Roles and access

As a planning business grows, the owner brings in lead planners, assistants and day of coordinators. We set up roles so each person sees the weddings and tasks assigned to them, and sensitive details like budgets and payment status are visible only to those who need them.

Handover to the day of coordinator

When a coordinator who has not met the couple runs the day, the CRM record is the handover: the timeline, vendor contacts, family notes and the couple’s priorities in one place. A short checklist confirms everything was passed on before the wedding week.

Importing your spreadsheets

Many planners start with spreadsheets: one for enquiries, one for clients, one for vendors, and a template wedding checklist. We import those into CS+, clean up duplicates, map columns to the right fields and turn your checklist into task lists. Your history stays with you, and the spreadsheets can be retired.

Peak season workload

From late spring through early fall, many planners run weddings every weekend while answering new enquiries for the following year. A view of each team member’s open tasks and upcoming weddings shows who is stretched and who can take a new consultation, so the busiest weeks do not mean slow replies to next year’s couples.

Reviews, referrals and reporting by source

After the wedding

The days after a wedding are when couples feel most grateful. We set up a thank you message, a request for a Google review, and a reminder to send vendors a note and gallery link when the photos arrive. Anniversary messages and a check in when friends start getting engaged keep you in mind for referrals. Our online reputation service covers reviews more broadly.

Reporting by enquiry source

Reports show how many enquiries came from your website, Instagram, listing sites, venues and past clients, how many booked consultations, and how many became signed couples. Over a season you can see which sources bring couples who book full planning and which mostly bring price shoppers.

Returning couples and their families

A couple you planned for may come back for a milestone anniversary, a baby shower or a milestone birthday, and their siblings and friends get engaged too. Keeping past couples in the CRM with their wedding date and consent to stay in touch makes those referrals simple to recognize and welcome.

Pipeline value and the season ahead

A simple view of booked planning fees, outstanding milestones and open proposals for each upcoming season helps you decide when to hire a coordinator or when to take on more day of bookings.

How the CRM fits with your marketing

A CRM handles enquiries once they arrive. Getting more of them is the job of marketing, which our marketing for event planners page covers. Your website forms feed the CRM, so a site built through our website design team can send every enquiry straight into the pipeline. Newsletters to past couples and vendors run through email campaigns with consent, and an AI receptionist can answer calls when you are on site at a wedding. Planners who also handle corporate and social events will find that work on our page about Event planning CRM. Venues that receive referrals from planners are covered on our wedding venue marketing page, and the events and entertainment overview gathers all our pages for the wedding and events world. Venues and entertainment businesses that sell tickets and bookings are covered on our entertainment marketing agency page.

Consent and couples’ personal details

Couples share a lot with their planner: home addresses, family situations, dietary needs, accessibility needs, sometimes details about health or religion. A CRM holds all of it, so privacy needs planning.

• Collect only what you need for the wedding, and limit access by role so assistants see what their tasks require.
• Commercial emails and texts follow CASL: consent, clear identification of who is sending, and an unsubscribe in every message.
• PIPEDA applies to personal information in general terms: collect it for a clear purpose, protect it and let people see what you hold.
• Keep sensitive personal details out of analytics and ad targeting.

This is a marketing observation, not legal advice.

How we set up CS+ for a planning business

A free review

We start with a free review of how enquiries reach you today, how you track couples, vendors and payments, and where things slip in peak season.

A custom proposal

You receive a custom proposal with the pipeline stages, couple and vendor fields, task lists, templates, imports and roles, and the fees quoted in writing. The CS+ licence is shown separately.

Build, import and training

We build the setup, import your spreadsheets, connect your website forms and booking links, and train you and your team. Each month after launch we review reports with you and adjust templates and task lists for the coming season. Your couple and vendor data stays in your business’s name.

Training around a real wedding

Training uses one of your own upcoming weddings rather than a demo couple. Your team moves a real enquiry through consultation and proposal, opens the countdown list for a booked couple, adds a vendor and sends a milestone reminder. Learning on a wedding they already know helps assistants and coordinators trust the system before peak season starts.

What a wedding planner CRM costs

Setup and support fees are quoted in writing after the free review. The CRM licence is a separate, ongoing cost shown on its own line.

A solo day of coordinator with a single service needs a much lighter setup than a planning studio running full service, cultural and destination weddings with several coordinators. The free review shows which parts you need now and which can wait until the business grows.

What drives the price for a planner

• How many services you sell, each with its own pipeline and task list.
• How many team members need access, and what roles they need.
• How much data comes in from spreadsheets and old email.
• The number of templates for replies, reminders and couple updates.
• Destination and multi day weddings that need extra task lists.
• Connections to your website, booking links and AI help.

Questions to ask before you choose a CRM

• Who owns the accounts? The answer should be you: your couples, vendors and history should stay in your business’s name.
• Can the system count tasks back from each wedding date and move them if the date changes?
• Can assistants and coordinators see only what they need?
• How will my spreadsheets and vendor lists be moved in?
• Will I see which enquiry sources become booked couples?

Canada Create answers each of these in the written proposal.

Your next step

Book a free CRM review for your planning business. Tell us how you handle enquiries, couples and vendors today, and we will send a custom proposal for CS+. Call (416) 273-9030, Monday to Friday, 9 am to 6 pm, and Saturday, 10 am to 2 pm. After hours, our 24/7 AI agent answers the toll-free line, +1 (800) 808-9235, and we’ll follow up the next business morning. You can also reach us through our contact page. We reply within one business day. Our office is at 126 Willowdale Avenue, Suite 3, Toronto, and our CRM and automation services page explains CS+ for other businesses.