Wedding Planner Offboarding Guide
If you are a wedding planner who is struggling to get referrals, I recommend taking a look at your offboarding process. A comprehensive onboarding plan is important to set boundaries and to set yourself up for success, but how you leave your clients is just as important.
Offboarding is something that sometimes gets neglected by wedding planners. We tend to leave that step off because we’re exhausted after a big wedding weekend. At the end of the planning process, even if you love the clients, the months of planning and the actual weekend itself take a huge toll emotionally and physically. We wonder, “What’s next?” Then, we move on to the next client. It’s important to remember that the way we experience the end of the planning period isn’t how our clients experience it. They want to feel like their wedding is our only wedding. We spend so much time cultivating the relationship and then leave abruptly. Here are my top tips for wedding planners on offboarding your clients in a way that makes them feel loved and cared for at the very end of it all.
A Wedding Planner’s Guide to Offboarding Your Clients
Send an email or text to the couple the night of the wedding.
If there’s anything from the wedding night that needs to be addressed with the couple (where the cards and marriage license were placed, etc.), send an email either the day following the wedding or the Monday after the wedding. Sending an email makes your clients aware, and it helps you account for those items and their locations so that nothing gets mixed up in the shuffle. In the email, I recommend keeping it light by mentioning that you hope they have a great honeymoon and that you’ll be following along on Instagram.
Send a thank you to all of the wedding vendors.
The next working day after a wedding, email all of the vendors to thank them for their hard work on the wedding day. It’s important to express gratitude to the vendors by sending a note (digital or handwritten) after every event. This communication also opens the opportunity to get feedback from other vendors, and you can include Instagram handles for all of the vendors for future social media posts. Adding a line to your thank you email that says, "One of my major goals is to continue to level up and serve our clients and our vendor team better. I'm always open and receptive to any feedback you're willing to share with me on how we can do that for the next wedding we work together!" This line opens the door to hear feedback from your vendor team and may also leave you with some written testimonials to use on your sales collateral and website!
Send the clients a post-event gift.
If you’ve budgeted to send clients a post-wedding gift, now’s your chance! Sending the gift just after the wedding ensures your gift doesn’t get mixed in with all of the others the night of the wedding. This step is totally up to you and your gifting strategy, but choosing something personal and unique to the couple is always going to be a hit!
Ask your clients for feedback and a review.
Follow up with your clients 3-5 days after the wedding, or wait until after the honeymoon, to ask for feedback. Use their feedback as a temperature check to ensure it makes sense to ask them for a review. If you are surprised by mediocre feedback, use the feedback for growth, and don’t ask the clients for a review. If you receive wonderful feedback, thank them and ask them to leave a review by copying and pasting their feedback into a linked review site of your choice.
Schedule time to check in with the photographer and videographer.
Refer to the couple’s contract with the photographer and videographer and make note of the turnaround times on your calendar. Check in at the beginning of the turnaround period to ensure all is on track for your clients.
Mark your calendar for the couple’s one-year anniversary.
Do this to wish them a happy anniversary (either privately or publicly on social media) or to send them an anniversary gift. Pro tip: double-check that they’re still together before doing this! Also, you can schedule this well in advance right after the wedding while all of the vendors and key elements from the day are top of mind!
All in all, your offboarding process is just as important as your onboarding process. Offboarding is how you leave your clients feeling happy and taken care of, and it secures your referrals for future clients. Ultimately, how you leave your clients is just as important as how you meet them. Never overlook offboarding as a wedding planner.
Tune in to Weddings For Real episode 97 to hear my conversation with Renée Dalo of Moxie Bright Events in LA for more tips on offboarding and making a lasting impact on your clients. Also, consider joining my education membership and community for wedding planners, The Planner’s Vault. Within the membership, I offer a full Offboarding Guide & Checklist, along with templates for thank you notes and feedback emails. Not quite ready for the full membership? Grab my Planner’s Client Experience Bundle, which includes my Offboarding Guide & Checklist, instead!
Will you be revamping your offboarding process after reading this? Send us a note and let us know by clicking “Contact” in the upper right hand corner of this page.
