Protecting Your Business: Essential Contracts Every Wedding Planner Should Have
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Paige Griffith decided in her first year of law school that adding a photography business to her already demanding schedule was her next move. Entrepreneurship and Paige immediately clicked, as she fell in love with the thrill of building her own dream. After connecting with more creatives, Paige quickly became attuned to their legal uncertainties and founded The Legal Paige as a solution to the confusion that comes with building a legally legit business.
Founded in 2018, The Legal Paige is a leading legal education platform and contract template shop for online small business owners. Created with the mission to equip entrepreneurs with easy-to-use contracts and legal tools- The Legal Paige has served almost 10,000 customers, expanded to multiple industries, grown to over 300 products,and offers over 400 legal resources.
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Protecting yourself and your business with solid legal contacts is an important facet of wedding business ownership.
As wedding planners, we’re providing services for one of the most important and expensive days of our clients’ lives. Stakes are high, and so are emotions.
Having the right contracts and agreements in place is critical.
Firstly, for outlining and defining your scope of work. This ensures a smooth onboarding and working process. Second, clear and details contracts are essential for handling any conflicts that might arise. Anything from small misunderstandings to major disputes, including cancellations, delays, and financial issues such as missed payments or refund requests.
Your contracts are your sword and your shield in the face of those disagreements and legal conflicts. A sword to do battle, and a shield to protect. If you don’t have solid contracts, you’re walking in to “battle” with little to no protection.
The expenses of starting or growing your wedding planning business might seem steep, but don’t delay investing in professionally written contracts.
You could work with a lawyer local to you, but I recommend starting with more affordable templates, like my fave resource: The Legal Paige.
Whatever option you choose, it’s important that they have knowledge and insight specific to your industry.
Templates shops like TLP offer the benefit of instant downloads so you can customize their contract templates from expert lawyers, for Canadian and American businesses, and have contracts ready quickly.
You could have your new agreement purchased, edited and ready for clients to sign in your CRM (like Dubsado) in an hour or two. Fast, easy, and professional.
TLP’s templates offer peace of mind, sort of like insurance. You hope you never have to make an insurance claim, but you’re always relieved to have coverage. Similarly, a proper contract means you’re on solid ground when issues arise.
Would you rather have a one-page document you snagged free off Google when a client is demanding a $3000 refund? Or a legit multi-page document with important clauses and stipulations?
Each of TLP’s templates are clear, concise, and organized with numbered headings. So you can easily understand every line and confidently communicate with clients.
Alright, enough of me yapping about the importance of contracts.
Here are 3# essential contracts types for your wedding planning business:
1 - Client Service Agreement
What It Is:
This is your most important document for working with wedding planning clients. A foundational contract between the wedding planner and the client outlining services, scope of work, payment terms, and responsibilities.
What to include:
Basic details: Date of service and locations.
Scope of services: Define what’s included in the wedding planning package (full-service, day-of coordination, etc.).
Payment structure: Detail the fee, deposit requirements, payment schedule, and late payment penalties.
Cancellations and refunds: Outline how cancellations or rescheduling will be handled and any refund policies.
Responsibilities of the client: Specify what the client is expected to do or provide.
Timeline: Include a working timeline to avoid last-minute issues.
Why It’s important:
Your wedding planning contract ensures both parties have clear expectations and reduces disputes.
2 - Staffing Agreements
What It Is:
Contracts for any staff, assistants, or subcontractors hired for event-day support, or planning and coordination on your behalf.
What to include:
Clearly defines the working relationship as well as roles and responsibilities: What the contractor or employee is hired to do.
Payment structure: How and when they will be compensated.
Non-compete or non-solicitation clauses: Protecting your business from having clients poached.
Confidentiality: Ensure that private client information is kept secure. As well as your intellectual property.
Why It’s important:
Protects your planning business from disputes or misunderstandings with hired team members or contractors, and clearly outlines their scope of work, as well as relationship for tax purposes.
It’s most likely that you’ll start off with assistants to help you on your wedding days first, and later scale your business to grow with associate planners, both hired employee’s and independent contractors. TLP has solid agreements for all of these scenarios:
3 - Addendums, Etc.
What It Is:
An addendum — or you might be more familiar with the term “amendment” — is used to clarify and add things that were not part of your original contract. This might be useful for situations where clients change their wedding date after booking. such as rescheduling, or having found their venue with your help. Additionally you might use an addendum when you need to use an associate planner, or have a third party payor.
What to include:
Specify the parties subject to the initial agreement and the new amendment.
Clarify the part of the original contract the addendum refers to. be compensated.
Why It’s important:
When the larger details outlined initially change, it can’t hurt to have a clear update to the agreement. This further protects your business under the new details, should issues arise later on. TLP has some very useful amendments for several scenarios:
Proper Legal Protection Ensures Long-Term Success
While your clients’ weddings are special milestone events, there are so many reasons why the planning process or even wedding day can go awry.
We all sign on for their big day with the best of intentions, expecting their wedding to take place. But things happen.
I once had three couples cancel their weddings in a thirty day span — two of them 24 hours apart! It wasn’t a big deal however, because my agreements clearly outlined what to do in each scenario, as well as which funds were mine to keep.
Likewise, when so many of my clients chose to reschedule or cancel their 2020 weddings, I already had a rescheduling clause in their agreements, which offered a clear path forward.
Having solid contracts in place protects your as wedding planner and your clients and takes a lot of confusion out of these awkward scenarios.
I encourage you to include space in your operating budget each year for legal needs. Whether that’s purchasing templates, or having them reviewed on a regular basis to ensure they’re legally binding and inline with your regions practice. A lawyer local to you can help tailor your agreements to your specific needs.
