Agree on the Budget Before You Design the Event

Imagine a florist named Gwendolyn Hallam who does the flowers for weddings and large parties at private houses. In March, Mrs. Delahunt asks her to come and see the garden. Her daughter, Isobel, is engaged, and the family is giving a party for 180 guests in June. There will be dinner on the lawn and dancing on the terrace.

Gwendolyn walks the garden with Mrs. Delahunt and takes notes. She has two weddings that weekend, so she builds the proposal the way she always does, with a price beside each piece. The arch at the gate is $5,500. The 18 tables are $700 each. The garlands up the terrace stairs are $4,200, and the bars and the cake table are $3,100. The total is $25,400.

Mrs. Delahunt goes down the list with a pen. She asks whether the guests will notice garlands on the stairs. Gwendolyn is between two weddings, and she says they might not, so the garlands come off. Then Mrs. Delahunt asks whether the tables could be $500 each. Gwendolyn agrees, and the total comes to $17,600.

On the night, the tables look lovely. The terrace, where everyone dances until one, is bare stone. In every photo of the dancing, there is not a flower in sight. In the autumn, Mrs. Delahunt books a different florist for Isobel’s wedding.

Suppose instead that Gwendolyn asks one question before she leaves the garden. “What would you like to spend on the flowers for the whole party?” Mrs. Delahunt laughs. “I have no idea what flowers cost. What do parties like this come to?”

“For 180 guests, with the gate, the tables, and the terrace, the flowers for a party like this start at $24,000 to $28,000,” Gwendolyn says. Mrs. Delahunt does not hesitate. “We’d set aside $40,000. I want the terrace to look as if the garden has come up the stairs.”

Gwendolyn designs to $40,000. The design has the arch at the gate, the 18 tables, and garlands up the stairs. Roses run along the terrace wall, where people will dance. Her proposal names every piece and gives no price beside any of them. “The flowers for Isobel’s party, from the gate to the terrace, are $39,000,” it says. Mrs. Delahunt asks whether the roses on the wall will last until one. Gwendolyn says they will, because they sit in water, and Mrs. Delahunt signs that week.

In the photos of the dancing, the terrace is full of roses. In the autumn, Mrs. Delahunt books Gwendolyn for the wedding.

Gwendolyn had the same eye and the same prices both times. In the first version, Mrs. Delahunt first saw a price for each piece. So she asked of each piece whether the guests would miss it, and she cut until the list felt sensible. She never said what she had set aside, because nobody asked her.

In the second version, the two of them talked about the money for the whole party before Gwendolyn planned a single piece. Her starting figure gave Mrs. Delahunt something to answer, and the answer was the real budget.

So settle the money for the whole event before you design any piece of it. Here is why a priced list starts a fight over each piece, and what a florist and two event planners found.

A price beside each piece asks the client to weigh each piece

Here is the course’s view of what a priced list does to a client. Many people planning a large party have never bought the flowers or the design for one. So they do not know what it should cost. The first prices they see become the measure for every price after them. On a priced list, those first prices are $700 for one table and $4,200 for a staircase.

Each price on the list then becomes its own question, about whether those flowers are worth that much. A price beside one part asks the client to weigh that part on its own. The pieces that are easiest to cut are the ones the guests might not miss. For Mrs. Delahunt, that was the garlands on the stairs, where everyone would dance.

A figure for the whole event works the other way. It answers the question the client came with, which is what the flowers for the party will cost. It also tells the client what you think the work is worth, which is how price creates belief. Most of all, it gives the client something to answer. Some clients say the figure is fine, and some say it is more than they planned. Some say they had set aside more, as Mrs. Delahunt did. Either way, you hear the real budget before you plan anything.

A florist offered three prices for every piece, and most couples took the cheapest

Alison Ellis is a florist. In March 2013, she wrote for the blog Flirty Fleurs about how she sells a wedding. Years before, at a seminar for florists, she was taught to offer three prices for each piece. The presenter told the florists that “No one wants to pick the lowest price point for their wedding day.”

Plenty of Ellis’s couples did pick the lowest. “In fact, most people did,” she wrote. The proposals were a lot of work, too, and “a huge waste of my time.”

The seminar also told florists to leave the budget out of the first conversation, “because people don’t know what they need to spend.” The proposal would show them. Over 11 years, Ellis found the opposite. Most couples know roughly what they can spend on flowers.

So now she asks each couple, “what is your ideal floral budget?” When a figure is far below what the wedding needs, she tells the couple right away. Her example is $3,000 for 25 centerpieces, eight bridesmaids, the ceremony, and the rest. She would tell that couple they are about $1,000 below a realistic starting point.

Some couples are not sure what to spend. Once she knows the size of the wedding, she gives them a “starting point,” such as $4,000 to $4,500, “and then I know how they feel about that.” The usual result, she wrote, is that the couple feels reassured she can work within their budget. She feels reassured, too, that the proposal is worth her time.

Measured against this lesson, Ellis’s three prices were for each piece, not for the whole wedding. So a couple made a separate choice for every piece, and most of them chose the cheapest. Her starting point is one figure for the whole wedding, given before any proposal. Her ranges are narrow, $500 or $1,000 wide. So the couple has one clear number to answer, and Ellis designs to a budget she knows.

An Israeli planner says her clients do not know what design costs

Racheli Winer is an event planner in Israel. In September 2023, Ynetnews interviewed her and described her clients as “Israel’s very rich.” Asked what matters most at an event to hosts like these, she said, “Design.”

Then she said what many people get wrong about it. “People in Israel have no idea how much design costs. People tell me to make it amazing for 10,000 NIS, but design is very expensive.”

At the other end are clients who give her no figure at all. One family planning a bar mitzvah gave her free rein, she said, “to the point that I picked out the mother’s dress and shoes.” In her words, “They just told me to let them know the next day how much it all cost.”

Measured against this lesson, the people who want it amazing for 10,000 shekels are guessing. Nobody has told them what design costs. The family that gave Winer free rein did not need a figure at all. Many clients sit between the two. They have money to spend and no idea of the price, and your starting figure is how they find out.

A Florida planner settled the bar’s budget before the wedding, and the couple chose on the night to spend more

Laurie Hartwell is a wedding planner who planned Amber and Greg’s wedding in Central Florida in 2004. In May 2026, she sat down with Amber on the Wedding Planner Society Podcast to talk about it. Amber had wanted a party with dancing and great music. “There had to be alcohol there,” she said.

Before the wedding, the couple chose an amount to spend on the bar. In Hartwell’s words, “it was not a small number.” Hartwell also told them what would happen as the bar got near it. “Okay, so when it becomes a little close, I’m gonna approach you,” she remembered telling them. “Hopefully, we won’t have to do that, but if I do, you just be prepared to give me an answer.”

On the night, the bar reached the amount, and Hartwell came over and gently told Amber. Amber and Greg looked at each other and told her to keep it going. Asked 22 years later which details her friends and family still talk about, Amber named that moment among them.

Hartwell talks couples through this choice all the time. The answer, she said, depends on the time of night. When the party is close to the end, “maybe you want to throw some more at it.”

Measured against this lesson, the couple’s real budget for the bar was more than the figure they set. It came out on the night in a few seconds, without an argument. That was because the question, and who would answer it, had been settled before the wedding.

Why a wide range to keep the client comfortable goes wrong

Imagine an event designer named Imara Quigley who designs the rooms for private parties, with the lighting, the furniture, and the flowers. In October, Mr. Rutherford calls her about a New Year’s Eve party for 80 guests in his apartment. He wants the living room to feel like a supper club, with small tables, low light, and a band in the corner.

Imara knows to give a figure for the whole party before she designs anything. She is driving to an installation, and she does not want to scare him off. “It can be anything from $15,000 to $60,000,” she says. “It depends on what you want.” Mr. Rutherford says, “Let’s aim for the lower end, then.”

Imara designs the supper club anyway, because it is what he asked for, and her proposal comes to $42,000. Mr. Rutherford writes back the same day. “You said $15,000.” He asks her to take pieces out until the total gets close. She cuts the stage for the band and half the lamps. The party is pleasant, and it does not feel like a supper club.

Imara was right to give a figure before she designed. Her mistake was a range so wide that it told Mr. Rutherford nothing. He held on to the first number he heard, $15,000, and measured her proposal against it. A range from $15,000 to $60,000 covers four different parties.

The version that works gives a range for the party he described. “A supper club for 80 in your living room, with the lighting, the tables, and a stage for the band, starts at $38,000 to $45,000,” Imara says. Mr. Rutherford is quiet for a moment. “That’s more than I thought. But it’s New Year’s, so let’s do it properly.” Her proposal comes to $42,000, and he signs it.

Giving a figure before you design is not guessing

Some florists and designers were taught to keep the budget out of the first conversation, as Ellis was. A figure before any design can feel like a guess. It can also feel like a way to scare a client off before they have seen your ideas.

The figure is not a guess. It comes from the size of the event, which you know by the end of the first conversation. That means the guests, the place, and the spaces to fill. Ellis gives her starting point only once she has “some preliminary info about the size and scope.”

Some clients will be shocked by it. “If someone is shocked by my estimate, then we’re just not a good fit. I’m OK with that,” Ellis wrote. Mrs. Delahunt and Mr. Rutherford were not shocked, because the figure was for the party they had described. At the top of the market, Winer said, “Usually, the people with ridiculous requests are willing to pay accordingly.”

How to agree on the budget for an event before you design it

1. By the end of the first conversation, you know the guests, the place, and the spaces to fill. Then ask what the client would like to spend on the whole of your part, not on one piece. For example, a party planner booked for a garden party can ask, “What would you like to spend on the whole evening, from the tent to the last song?”
2. If the client is not sure, give a starting figure for the whole event, as a narrow range. Start the range at the price of the event the client described. That is the course’s suggestion, because the first number a client hears becomes their measure. Then stop, and let the client answer. For example, a florist asked about a bar mitzvah for 250 can say, “For a party that size, with the entrance and the tables, the flowers start at $18,000 to $22,000.”
3. If the client’s figure is below what the event needs, say so once, as Ellis does. Then say what that figure would buy. For example, a wedding planner can say, “For 300 guests, $20,000 is below where full planning starts. For $20,000, I could run the wedding day and the month before it.”
4. Design to the figure you agreed, and send one design with one fee for the whole event. Name every piece in the proposal, with no price beside any of them. For example, an event designer’s proposal can say, “The design for your 50th, from the front door to the dance floor, is $36,000.”
5. When a client asks to take a piece out, say once what that piece does for the evening. If they still want to spend less, offer a smaller design with its own fee. Plan it for the smaller figure, rather than taking pieces off the first design. For example, a florist can say, “The candles along the drive are the first thing your guests see. If you’d like to spend less, I’d design around the tables alone, at $24,000.”
6. Some costs can run past their figure on the night, such as the bar or the band’s overtime. Before the event, settle the figure for each one. Settle who you will ask when it gets close, and what they would like done near the end. For example, a wedding planner can say, “The bar is set at $12,000. If it gets close before eleven, I’ll find you both. If it’s near the end, shall I keep it open?”

Next: You will see why a seamless event comes from preparation the client never sees.