How One Event Refers You for Years

Imagine an event planner named Saskia Brandt who plans charity galas and private parties. In January, Eleanor Ashcombe, who chairs the spring gala for the city’s children’s hospital, hires Saskia to plan it. It is a dinner for 400 in the great hall of the natural history museum. Mrs. Ashcombe’s mother chaired the first gala, in 1994, and she will sit at the head table.

The florist is Marguerite Ferrier, who has worked with Saskia twice before. The museum wants the hall empty by two in the morning, or it keeps the $5,000 deposit.

The gala goes well. When the auctioneer thanks Mrs. Ashcombe’s mother, all 400 guests stand and applaud her. At half past one, Marguerite’s team carries the last arrangement out to the van, and the museum returns the deposit. Saskia has two weddings the following weekend.

On Monday, Saskia’s booking software sends Mrs. Ashcombe the email it sends after every event. It thanks her for choosing Saskia Brandt Events, and it links to a short survey and a page for reviews. The final invoice follows on Wednesday. Saskia means to thank Marguerite, and then the week fills up.

Mrs. Ashcombe pays the invoice and leaves the survey for later. In June, a client of Marguerite’s asks her to suggest a planner for her daughter’s wedding. Marguerite gives the name of a planner who sends her a card after every wedding they do together.

Two years later, Mrs. Ashcombe’s daughter, Clemency, gets engaged. Mrs. Ashcombe has not heard from Saskia since the survey. She calls the planner a friend used for her own daughter’s wedding in the spring.

Now imagine the same gala, with three changes. During the evening, Saskia keeps a note on her phone. She writes down the moment the room stood for Mrs. Ashcombe’s mother, and the time Marguerite’s team cleared the hall.

On Tuesday, Saskia writes Mrs. Ashcombe a note by hand. “I keep thinking of your mother at the head table, with 400 people on their feet for her. Thank you for letting me be part of that night.” The note asks for nothing, and the invoice goes separately. The same day, Saskia sends Marguerite a card. “Your team had the hall clear by half past one, and the museum returned the whole deposit. Thank you.”

Six weeks later, the photographer sends Saskia the photos. Saskia sends Mrs. Ashcombe the one of her mother at the head table, with the room standing around her. There is no question in the message. After that, Saskia writes to Mrs. Ashcombe twice a year, each time with something meant for the family.

In June, Marguerite’s client asks her to suggest a planner, and Marguerite gives her Saskia’s name. Two years later, Clemency gets engaged, and Mrs. Ashcombe calls Saskia that week.

Saskia planned the same gala both times, and the evening went just as well. What changed was what she sent after the last guest left. In the first version, the last Mrs. Ashcombe heard from Saskia was a survey, and Marguerite heard nothing at all. In the second, Mrs. Ashcombe heard about her mother, and then from Saskia twice a year. Marguerite heard that her team’s late night had saved the deposit.

So the work an event brings you in the years after depends on what you send in the weeks after. Here is why, and what a wedding planner and a florist found.

Three groups of people saw your work, and each passes your name on later

Here is the course’s view of how one event keeps bringing you work. Three groups of people watched you work that night. The first is the hosts, whose guests ask them who planned the evening. The second is the vendors and the venue’s staff. Their own clients ask them to suggest a planner, the way a venue sends couples to the planners it trusts. The third is the hosts’ family, whose next wedding or anniversary may be years away.

None of them passes your name on that night. They do it later, when someone asks them. Then they answer from the evening and from what they have heard from you since. Someone who hears your name that way comes to the first call already trusting you.

For the hosts, the end of the job is part of what they remember. People remember a job by its best moment and its last one. After an event, the last one is often an email that arrives on Monday. If that email asks for a survey or a review, the job ends on a request. A request from a professional feels like a debt, not a kindness.

A wedding planner writes to each couple within three days, and their families come back years later

Krisy Thomas is a wedding planner who trains other planners for the CWP Society. In May 2026, she told the society’s Wedding Planner Society Podcast what she does after a wedding. Most planners, she said, send a kind message or a card, and then they move on to the next inquiry.

She has noticed where her best work came from. “The relationships that become the most significant in my career, the referral sources, the friendships, and the people who have sent me the most meaningful work over the years, they came from couples that I have already worked with,” she said. “It happened because I stayed in the relationship.”

Within 72 hours of each wedding, Thomas sends the couple something personal. In her words, it is “not a survey,” and it is not a request for a review or a form email. It names a moment from that couple’s wedding. Her example was about the look on a mother’s face as her child walked down the aisle.

Her reason is timing. In the first few weeks, she said, a couple is “more likely to talk about you to other people than they ever will be again.” In her words, “That window is not three months out, it’s not six months out, it’s right now.”

About six weeks after the wedding, Thomas sends something that carries the relationship on without asking for anything. It might be an article about the place the couple went on honeymoon. It might be a photo a vendor shared that the couple would love. After that, she remembers their anniversaries.

Thomas and one bride kept in touch over the years. Years later, the bride’s brother got engaged, and Thomas planned his wedding and the rehearsal dinner. “Now that didn’t come from a Google search,” she said. It came from being “someone the family thought of and someone they thought of well, years after the first wedding was over.” She has also planned the weddings of two sisters and their cousin. Her first paying client still sends her business.

Measured against this lesson, Thomas’s note and her message at six weeks reach the couple while they talk about the wedding most. Neither one asks for anything. The family weddings came years later, from a bride she kept in touch with.

A Naperville florist says planners refer her because she sends them a card by hand

In June 2014, the Florist 2.0 site published an article on what high-end wedding planners look for in a florist. Its writer, Katie Hendrick, told florists that the path to “five-figure bridal business is a wedding planner who specializes in high-end events.” Florists replied below the article.

Darlene Nelson is a florist in Naperville, Illinois, and she replied two days later. “I get more referrals because I reply to emails promptly, return calls and mostly because I send a hand written thank you card to them,” she wrote. In her words, “Those few little things are the best tools in your arsenal.”

Measured against this lesson, Nelson’s card goes to the planners who give her name. After an event, a planner’s card can go the other way, to the florist, the caterer, and the venue’s event manager. That step is the course’s own. Its reason is that florists, caterers, and venues get asked for planners by their own clients. Planners get asked for florists the same way.

Why a thank-you card that could go to any host goes wrong

Imagine an event designer named Cosima Ferrante who designs the rooms for private parties, with the lighting, the linens, and the flowers. Within a week of every party, she sends the hosts a card, signed by hand. She does about 12 parties a season, and to save time, every card says the same words. “Thank you for trusting us with your celebration. It was a joy to bring your vision to life.”

In March, Cosima designs Mrs. Lisle’s 60th birthday, where Mrs. Lisle’s six grandchildren carry in the cake. In May, Cosima designs Mrs. Thackeray’s anniversary dinner. The two women play tennis together. Over lunch in June, they find that their two cards are word for word the same.

In the autumn, a friend asks Mrs. Lisle about designers. “Cosima does lovely rooms,” Mrs. Lisle says. “Ask her for a price.” The friend asks Cosima and two other designers for prices, and she books the cheapest.

Cosima was right to write within the week and to sign each card herself. Her mistake was a sentence she could send to any host. Once Mrs. Lisle saw the same words on her friend’s card, she knew that her own card was not about her party. So all she had to tell her friend was that the rooms were lovely, and the friend chose on price.

The version that works keeps the card and changes the sentence. To Mrs. Lisle, Cosima writes, “Your six grandchildren carrying in the cake, with the smallest holding the knife, is what I’ll remember from that night.” At lunch, the two cards say different words. In the autumn, Mrs. Lisle tells her friend about the card, and the friend calls only Cosima.

Writing after an event takes minutes, not another project

Thomas knows how the end of a big event feels. When a wedding is over, she said, “you were just emotionally done.” Writing to the couple again can then feel like more work, on top of the work just finished.

Her answer is that the message is short. One genuine message about a moment from the day takes two or three minutes to write, she said. She also calls herself an introvert, for whom networking does not come naturally. Relationships built slowly over time, she said, “that I can do.”

So the work after an event is a few short notes in the first weeks. After that, it is a few messages a year to the families you have worked for.

How to keep one event bringing you work for years

1. During the event, keep a note on your phone. Write down the moments the hosts will remember, and what each vendor did beyond what you asked. Thomas’s note needs a moment that was the hosts’ own, so write it down while you can see it. For example, a planner at a 40th anniversary party might write that the band played the couple’s wedding song twice.
2. If a guest asks for your card on the night, give your card and a sentence. Then go back to the hosts’ evening.
3. Within three days, send the hosts a short note that names one of those moments, as Thomas does. Leave out any survey, review link, or request for names, and send the invoice on its own. For example, a wedding planner can write, “I was at the back when your grandfather read the blessing in Welsh, and half the room was in tears. Thank you for letting me be there.”
4. The same week, thank each vendor and the venue’s event manager in writing, for what you wrote down about them. Write the card by hand where you can, as Nelson does. For example, a planner can write to a caterer, “Your team plated 200 dinners in a kitchen with two ovens, and not one went out cold. Thank you.”
5. About six weeks after the event, send the hosts something meant for them, with no question in it, as Thomas does. For example, a planner can write, “The photographer sent me this one of your father’s toast. I thought you would want it.”
6. Before the job ends, write the family’s next occasions on the page you keep on the client. They might include a daughter’s engagement, a 40th anniversary, or next year’s gala. Then send the family something meant for them twice a year. For example, a party planner who did a 50th birthday might write that the host’s son finishes medical school next May.
7. When someone calls because of the event, ask how they heard of you. Thank the person who sent them in one sentence, and offer nothing in return. For example, a planner can write to a florist, “Thank you for passing my name to the Pellings.”

Next: You will see how to build a practice on a few clients who come back to you, one event after another.