Wedding & Event Planning Intake Forms & Client Questionnaires

Wedding planning is project management with emotions attached to every line item. Two families, competing visions, a hard deadline that cannot move, a budget that everyone defines differently, and dozens of vendors who all need to coordinate around the same four-hour window at the same location on the same day. A planner who walks into the first consultation without structured information-gathering will spend the next 12 months chasing details that should have been nailed down in the first meeting. The Wedding & Event Planning intake form captures everything you need to scope the engagement, price your services, and begin vendor coordination from a position of clarity rather than assumption.

The form starts with event fundamentals. It captures the event date (confirmed or target range), day of the week, ceremony start time, reception start and end time, and whether the ceremony and reception are at the same venue or different locations. It documents the venue name and address for each location, or notes that the venue has not been selected and the couple wants the planner’s help choosing one. Guest count is captured as a range (minimum expected, maximum invited) because the difference between 80 guests and 180 guests is not just a catering headcount — it affects venue selection, table layout, bar requirements, parking, restroom facilities, and overall budget by a factor of two or more.

Budget and Financial Decision-Making

The budget section asks questions that most planners are afraid to ask directly, but that determine the entire scope of work. It captures the total budget (as a range if the couple is not yet specific), whether that number is firm or flexible, and who is contributing financially — the couple, one or both sets of parents, or other family members. This matters because a budget funded by parents often comes with conditions (“my mother is paying for the flowers, so she chooses the florist”), and the planner needs to know the decision-making structure from day one.

The form breaks the budget into category allocations with checkboxes for which categories the couple has already booked or committed funds to: venue, catering, photography, videography, florist, DJ or band, officiant, attire, hair and makeup, transportation, invitations and stationery, favors, rentals (tables, chairs, linens, lighting), cake or dessert, and planner fee. For each booked vendor, it captures the vendor name and deposit status. This lets the planner see immediately where the budget has already been spent and where there is still room to negotiate or reallocate.

Vision, Theme, and Design Direction

The vision section captures the couple’s aesthetic without relying on words like “rustic” or “elegant” that mean different things to different people. It asks the couple to list three to five weddings or events they have attended or seen (in person, on social media, in magazines) that represent their ideal look, with a note about what specifically they liked. It captures color palette preferences, floral style (garden-gathered, structured, tropical, dried, minimal, maximalist), lighting mood (bright and airy, candlelit and moody, string lights, uplighting, projection), and table style (long farm tables, round banquet tables, mixed seating, lounge areas).

The form documents the ceremony type: religious (denomination and officiant requirements), spiritual but non-denominational, civil ceremony, interfaith, or cultural ceremony with specific traditions. For religious ceremonies, it asks whether the venue is a house of worship with its own requirements (pre-marital counseling, membership, restrictions on decorations or music) or whether the officiant will travel to the venue. For interfaith or multicultural weddings, it captures which traditions from each background the couple wants to incorporate — a Jewish-Hindu wedding with both a chuppah and a mandap, a bilingual ceremony, specific cultural music, traditional attire changes, or ceremonial elements like a tea ceremony, handfasting, or sand blending.

Guest Experience and Dietary Requirements

The guest experience section goes beyond headcount. It asks about guest demographics: will there be elderly guests with mobility limitations (affecting venue accessibility and seating), young children (affecting meal options and entertainment), or out-of-town guests needing hotel blocks and transportation? It captures the couple’s expectations for guest experience touchpoints: welcome bags for hotel guests, rehearsal dinner (and who is hosting it), morning-after brunch, shuttle service between hotel and venue, and any group activities for destination or multi-day wedding weekends.

Dietary restrictions and catering preferences get a dedicated section because they directly affect vendor selection and budget. The form asks about the service style: plated dinner, buffet, family-style, food stations, cocktail reception with passed appetizers, or food truck. It captures known dietary restrictions among the couple, wedding party, and immediate family (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, kosher, halal, nut allergies, shellfish allergies, dairy-free), and asks whether the couple wants a full open bar, beer and wine only, signature cocktails, dry event, or a combination. For cake and dessert, it captures preference: traditional tiered cake, dessert table, cupcakes, doughnuts, pie, cultural desserts, or no dessert.

Vendor Coordination and Photography

The vendor preference section captures who the couple has already hired, who they want recommendations for, and any specific vendor requests or restrictions. It asks whether any vendor relationships come from family connections (cousin who is a photographer, aunt who makes cakes), because these relationships carry emotional weight that affects how the planner manages expectations and quality control. For photography and videography, the form captures the couple’s priorities: must-have shots (first look, family formals, candid reception moments, detail shots of rings and invitations), style preference (photojournalistic, traditional posed, editorial, dark and moody, bright and airy), and whether drone footage, a photo booth, or a same-day edit is desired.

The timeline section captures the couple’s priorities for the day-of schedule. It asks what moments matter most to them (the first dance, the father-daughter dance, the bouquet toss, the speeches, the late-night exit) and what they could skip. It documents hair and makeup start time, first look timing preference, how much time they want for cocktail hour, and whether there are any hard time constraints (venue noise curfew, last shuttle departure, vendor overtime cutoffs). This section is the foundation of the day-of timeline that the planner will build and distribute to every vendor.

Pricing

Each form is $19.99 for the complete set (intake + questionnaire), $14.99 for intake only, or $9.99 for questionnaire only. All PDFs are fillable in Adobe Reader and password-protected against editing.

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