Most advice about choosing an event planner starts with questions to ask. That is useful, and we have written our own version of it.
But there is a step before that, and skipping it is why so many people end up comparing quotes that are not comparable. You have to work out what kind of planner your event actually needs. Get that wrong and you will spend weeks weighing up proposals that were never answering the same question.
The three things people call an event planner
In practice there are three quite different offers using similar language.
A decorator designs and installs the look. They may be excellent at it and have no involvement in your timeline, your vendors or the running of the day.
A coordinator runs the event itself. They take a plan you have already made and execute it — managing vendors, guest flow and the programme on the day.
A full-service planner or event manager does the whole project: budget, venue, vendor selection, contracts, design direction, run-of-show and the day itself.
All three are legitimate. They cost different amounts because they are different amounts of work. A quote from one is not a competing quote to another, and treating them as interchangeable is the single most common mistake we see.
Which one you need depends on time, not budget
The useful question is not "how much can I spend?" but "how much of this am I going to do myself?"
If you have the time and the appetite to source vendors, negotiate, chase deliveries and build a timeline, and you only want the day itself handled professionally, coordination is the right shape and the cheaper route. Handover typically starts two to four weeks out.
If you have a date, a rough budget and no clear idea what happens next — or you have a full-time job and a wedding in five months — full event management is what you are looking for. It costs more because it absorbs the part that would otherwise be a second job.
Most people who tell us their event "just needs a bit of help" are describing full management. That is not a sales line; it is that the coordination-only route assumes the planning is already done, and it usually is not.
Ask what happens when something goes wrong
Every event has a moment. A supplier is late, the power drops, the rain arrives, a delivery is short.
What separates planners is not whether that happens but whether there is a plan for it. Ask directly: what happens if a vendor does not show up? What happens to the sound, the lighting and the kitchen if the power goes? Who is watching for it while everyone else is enjoying the party?
The answer should be specific. Ours is that we confirm every vendor directly in the days before, so late arrivals are usually caught early, and our vendor network across Ibadan and Lagos means a replacement can often be sourced quickly. That is a real answer with a real mechanism behind it. "We handle everything, don't worry" is not.
Look for evidence of the unglamorous middle
The visible part of event planning is the design. The part that decides whether the day works is the part nobody photographs: timelines, contingency plans, vendor contracts, payment schedules and a run-of-show that every supplier has seen before the day.
Ask to see one. A planner who works this way will have a run-of-show they can show you, redacted if necessary. It is the clearest single signal that the planning is real rather than improvised, and it is much more informative than another folder of pretty photographs.
Check they will visit the venue before quoting
A quote given without seeing the room is a guess, and it is a guess that tends to move upward later.
Ceiling height, wall colour, existing fixtures, natural light, power supply and the access window all change what is buildable and what it costs. We visit and confirm the floor plan and setup schedule, and resolve access, power and logistics questions in advance. If you are choosing between two or three venues, a planner should be willing to look at all of them and tell you honestly what each will take to dress — that conversation routinely saves more money than any negotiation afterwards.
Local matters more than it sounds like it should
Vendor relationships are geographic. A planner who works constantly in Ibadan knows which suppliers actually turn up, which venues have a difficult loading bay, and who can be reached at short notice on a Saturday afternoon.
That knowledge is not transferable from another city, and it is most valuable at exactly the moment things go wrong. We work out of Felele and most of what we do happens within Oyo State — you can read more about how we work across Ibadan and Oyo State, including the parts that are specific to planning events here.
Be careful with superlatives, including ours
Searching for "best event planner in Ibadan" will return a lot of pages claiming to be exactly that. It is worth noticing that claiming it costs nothing, so it tells you nothing.
More useful signals: work you can actually see, events of a comparable scale and type to yours, clients who can be named, and a straight answer about what is not included. We publish our portfolio and our client list for that reason. Where an event was for an organisation that can be named — the Oyo State Government's tourism summit, for instance — that is checkable in a way an adjective is not.
Ask any planner for something specific and verifiable. If the answer stays general, that is information too.
One last question, for yourself
After the first conversation, ask whether they listened.
A planner who spent the meeting describing their packages knows their business. A planner who asked about your guest list, your family, what you are worried about and what you want people to feel is the one who will design something that fits your event rather than their template. Over six to twelve months of planning, that difference compounds.
You can also read about the person who leads our team and how long we have been doing this, which is a fair thing to weigh alongside everything else.
Ready to plan your next event?
Tell us your date, your rough guest count and what stage you are at, and we will tell you honestly which kind of help your event needs — including if it is less than you thought.