Budgets, oh my!

I received an email today that said something along the lines... "we want to get married this year and our budget is $10K" She wanted to know a) how much coordinating costs + b) did I think $10K was a healthy budget.There are sooooo many variables just looking at the surface here. I coordinated a wedding last year for $15K and they had 36 people in attendance. That's a very healthy budget. I've also coordinated a wedding for $15K and they had 125 people in attendance. Were the weddings the same? Maybe some of the same elements were used but the weddings were stark in contrast. My coordinating fee doesn't run on a sliding scale. Both of the above weddings hired me as a full service coordinator and they paid the same amount. That said... I've had people come to my office and ask if a $10K budget was doable and after some prodding I find out they have 20 attendants and 200 guests on the list. Is it doable? Sure but it would be more cost effective for you to plan everything. You could, perhaps, hire a coordinator on an hourly rate to just brainstorm ideas. That would help you immensely!