Branding for Wedding Planners
Crème Brands is a boutique creative agency specializing in branding for the wedding industry. Since 2013, we’ve designed branding for dozens of wedding planners. The more planners we partner with, the more respect we have for the work you do. It takes incredible attention to detail, design sensibility, and client service to make it in the wedding industry. We believe your branding should reflect this, serving as another touchpoint that elevates your client experience. From the moment couples land on your website, they should feel like they are in exactly the right place. Your branding should feel well-considered, frame up your work beautifully, and mostly importantly, feel like YOU. With so much experience designing branding for wedding planners, we have a lot to say. Read on to learn about the branding process, our approach at Crème Brands, and plenty of real examples from our portfolio.
Elizabeth Flake Events branding and website design by Crème Brands
Time to rebrand?
Do you cringe every time you share your URL? Are you still using the same logo you made in Canva when you first started out, despite being regularly featured in alllll the industry publications? We work with wedding planners all around the country with completely different styles and personalities. The one thing they had in common before our work together? Their branding just didn’t match their level anymore. Our approach to branding for wedding planners is all about bringing your visuals into alignment with your high-end work. Take a peak at our work to see what we’re talking about.
So, what goes into branding services for wedding planners?
Beyond just a logo, branding for wedding planners is all about creating an entire brand world. You’ll walk away with a visual toolkit you can apply to your social media, stationery, client gifts, and mostly importantly, your website to help you stand out and be remembered. Branding encompasses logo design, color, typography, and supporting graphics, all designed around a strategic foundation based on your business goals.
Karli & Co. branding by Crème Brands
Hand-drawn logo designs
At Crème Brands, every logo we design begins in pencil. Our inspiration doesn’t come from other designs on Pinterest, it comes from getting to know you and your couples on a surprisingly deep level. We sketch dozens of logo options in pencil, exploring creative symbolism to tell your story. Our goal is to craft something so uniquely YOU that it could never work for another planner.
Karli & Co. branding by Crème Brands
Case study: symbolism to tell your story
Let’s make this all less abstract by looking at one of our clients, Karli & Co.
As one of the first wedding planners in Vail, Colorado, founder Kelly Karli has been setting the standard for full-service planning and design since 2008. She’s known for producing events where every moment feels beautifully considered. Her calm but confident demeanor gives clients a wedding experience they can live in.
Karli & Co. branding by Crème Brands
As Kelly entered the next chapter of her business, expanding from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to the coast of New England, she was ready for new branding to help her stand out. Like her wedding planning style, the new branding had to be calm but confident, pushing creative boundaries while still feeling understated. We designed a logo that’s chic, airy, and filled with symbolism unique to Karli & Co.
Mountains: The K is inspired by the lines of a mountain, representing the Colorado Rockies where Karli & Co. was founded over a decade ago and continues to compose breathtaking weddings.
Water: The nested "Co" evokes the feeling of ripples in the water, representing coastal New England where founder Kelly Karli is originally from and the next chapter of Karli & Co. will unfold.
Flow: The overall execution has a sense of graceful ease. It feels lived in and effortless, just like Karli & Co's events and planning approach.
The final logo fits Karli & Co. so well, it couldn’t be confused or swapped out for anyone else.
Karli & Co. branding by Crème Brands
Color palettes that set the tone and harmonize with your work
Your color palette needs to do a lot of things. First, it needs to set the emotional tone. As you know from curating wedding designs, there’s nothing quite like color to capture a feeling. We want prospective clients to land on your site and have it feel like it does to work with you, whatever your style is.
Since couples will be comparing multiple planners, your color palette is another way to stand out. It should feel elevated, signaling a bit about your taste and design sensibility. Using complex tones and interesting pairings will feel captivating and help you be remembered.
Elizabeth Flake Events branding by Crème Brands
So, we need to do all this setting the tone and standing out, AND we also need to frame up a range of events all with their own color palettes. The colors on your website shouldn’t clash or compete with your portfolio photography—they should harmonize and enhance. Sometimes we see wedding planners with a bolder style express their vibe through super saturated color pops. The palette could be perfect for them in isolation, but in use on their website, it feels chaotic and scattered—you don’t know where to look first and you end up not truly appreciating their beautiful portfolio photography because the branding is competing. It gets even worse when a couple goes for a super fun and bold wedding design, and when they try to add the wedding photos to their portfolio, they completely clash with the website colors.
At Crème Brands, we believe your work should be the artwork, your brand color palette, the most perfectly fitting mat and frame job.
Elizabeth Flake Events branding and website design by Crème Brands
Case study: Elizabeth Flake Events
Let’s take a look at how we designed the color palette for one of our clients to both capture their personality and frame up their work. Elizabeth Flake Events is known for storytelling through the timeless art of entertaining. With a flair for original ideas and signature layered style, we knew their branding needed to reflect this personality, without clashing with the striking portfolio images on their site. We paired an unmistakably Southern light blue with a rich, muted green in solid fills and custom background patterns. There’s a lot going on, and it definitely feels like it has a point of view, but the colors are muted enough that the work is the true focal point. The deep green makes a variety of event color palettes shine. It harmonizes with beautiful natural settings, and makes bold, warm palettes pop. Overall, it both expresses the Elizabeth Flake Events personality AND really enhances their portfolio photography.
Elizabeth Flake Events branding and website design by Crème Brands
Finally, your color palette needs to be FUNCTIONAL.
It’s one thing for you to present your clients a beautiful selection of color swatches in their wedding design deck. It’s a completely different thing to apply the colors to a wedding design. A rich green can serve as a crisp accent in a light and airy, traditional wedding design. Or it can be a moody color drench used for all the table linens and extensive draping, completely transforming the feel of the room.
It works similarly for brand design too. Some colors are used in large amounts, like as the background color of a website section. Others are used for small accents like buttons. As website designers too, as we curate your brand colors, we’re constantly testing how they’ll work in use on your website.
Your entire palette needs to be well-tuned to work well together. We need combinations of text and background colors that are legible, since color contrast is hugely important for website accessibility. Visitors with low vision, including older visitors, need to be able to access your website content. If a bride sends your site to her older mother, we want mom to be able to read everything effortlessly. We see a lot of branding for wedding planners with low contrast text—think: light blue on cream—that would cause many website visitors to have to strain to try and read the content. You can still have a soft feeling AND use adequate contrast at the same time.
At Crème Brands, every color palette we present in our brand designs includes specified color combinations for text and background colors that meet the required color contrast ratio for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 level AA compliance, widely used as the industry standard.
So, there’s a lot to balance when it comes to color. Your final palette should take into account your personality, portfolio, and style, mixed with practical considerations for color application and accessibility to create a palette that’s interesting, all while still letting your work shine.
Elizabeth Flake Events branding by Crème Brands
Typography that adds texture and nuance
Typography is the next element in your branding. We like to think of its role in your brand design as adding texture to the mix.
Your brand typography is more than just one single brand font. It’s a set hierarchy of heading and paragraph intentionally styled to make information easier to read AND to express your style. At Crème Brands, we deliver a type hierarchy with four headings and three paragraph styles, corresponding directly to what’s used in web design, so everything is consistent and considered.
Typography is the perfect place to bring in nuances—those subtle design notes that don’t hit you over the head, but add depth to your brand design. For example, if your style is a touch earthy, but you definitely don’t want it to feel like a theme, we can touch on that feeling ever so slightly with some subtly organic typography.
Baciare Events branding by Crème Brands
Common typography mistakes in branding for wedding planners
We’ve looked at a lot of wedding planner branding over the years. Here are three of the most common mistakes we see when it comes to typography:
Generic: We see a lot of wedding planners using typography that lacks any kind of personality at all. Think: super clean, pared back sans serifs everywhere. It ends up feeling too corporate and too impersonal for the industry. You’re working with clients 1:1 on something incredibly meaningful, beautiful, and creative. Your typography should express this!
Timestamped: If you lean into the same trends everyone’s using, you’re not going to stand out. A few years down the line, your website might even look timestamped. Instead of looking at what's trending, lean into your unique personality. It’s the best way to stand out AND have a look that lasts.
Inconsistent: It looks messy when you have inconsistent font sizing throughout your site—we want to make sure you’re polished! Sticking to your designed hierarchy will take care of that. Industry secret: it’s almost less about which fonts you’re using and more about applying them consistently and thoughtfully, that makes the difference between looking professionally designed and DIY’ed.
Baciare Events branding by Crème Brands
Case study: Baciare Events
One of our favorite type hierarchies we’ve curated was for our client Baciare Events, a premier destination wedding planning firm. As Baciare means “to kiss” in Italian, we had so much fun playing with romantic, old-world European inspiration for their branding. The final type hierarchy incorporates a display font with ligatures inspired by classic Italian art deco signage. We used this font artistically in their site design to call out all the different destinations where Baciare plans weddings. To avoid feeling theme-y or stiff, we balanced the ornate display font with a cleaner sans serif. It still has plenty of detail, but keeps the overall feeling lighter and fresher. The overall look is elevated but with personality.
Baciare Events branding by Crème Brands
Supporting elements to elevate the details
As you know from designing weddings, it’s really all in the details. We love to build out a brand toolkit with supporting graphics, like badges, patterns, and illustrations.
These make adding on-brand details to your website, social, and collateral super easy. Ordering stationery? You already have a custom-designed pattern to use. Want to add a little accent on the corner of your social posts? Choose from logo configurations and custom-illustrated icons.
Spellbound Events branding by Crème Brands
Case study: Spellbound Events
We especially loved the graphic elements we designed for our client Spellbound Events. Based in Charleston, South Carolina, Spellbound Events crafts heart-centered celebrations for madly-in-love couples. These weddings are not your traditional Southern style. It’s much more about the magic that comes from couples expressing their love freely, than conforming to what’s expected.
Spellbound Events branding by Crème Brands
The brand design we created for Spellbound Events included custom celestial-inspired graphic accents and multiple different badge designs to add thoughtful touches throughout the brand experience. It’s especially magical when a brand feels both elevated AND celebratory.
Digging deeper into branding services for event planners: brand strategy
We’ve already looked at beautiful logos, color palettes, typography, and graphic accents. Now, let’s go deeper into understanding the process of branding for event planners.
Where do you even begin knowing what you want your branding to look like? It all starts with the right strategy. Good branding is PURPOSEFUL.
Glint Events branding by Crème Brands
Our branding process
We absolutely recognize how scary it can feel to rebrand. By getting super clear on strategy first, decisions start to flow, and you become so much more confident in your new direction. Before we pick up a pencil to sketch logo concepts or look at any color swatches, we have a whole strategy phase in our process.
Many of our clients have been in business for years, if not decades. It can feel re-energizing to hash out your brand strategy with a creative partner who has fresh eyes on it. You’re not only walking away with beautiful branding, but also with newfound clarity on exactly who you are and where you’re going.
“We’ve increased our profit by 100%”
—Ann Travis Events
Your business objectives
Good branding aligns with your business objectives.
Where is your business headed in the next five years? Are you looking to book more destination weddings? Raise your prices so you can take on less weddings per year? Maybe you’re shifting into a new market after a big move or looking to work with more couples whose personality aligns with your style.
Knowing your objectives is ESSENTIAL for designing branding that will help get you there. Nearly all our wedding planner clients have a huge mismatch between the level they’re at and their branding. Our goal is always to first bring their visuals into alignment with their high-end work, then elevate things to help create their next chapter.
The Shindig Co. branding by Crème Brands
Ideal client
Good branding is designed for YOUR couples.
Your couples are everything when it comes to branding. We need to get to know them on a surprisingly deep level so we can design branding that resonates with them.
It sounds abstract, but you can really just think about your favorite couples you’ve worked with. Your branding needs to fit into their world. What’s their style when it comes to clothing or interior design? How do they relax? Where do they go on vacation or out to eat?
Peach & Pearl Events branding by Crème Brands
Maybe you tend to work with super type-A, highly accomplished professionals. Or maybe you attract adventurous couples who love breaking traditions.
Maybe they’re here for a glamorous moment, or maybe they have no idea what their taste is, they just know they want something that feels effortlessly beautiful.
Every planner’s situation is different. Maybe you’re located in a destination spot and your couples tend to be from out of state. Maybe couples choose you because you’re the “fun option” and they’re looking for someone who feels like a friend (even though you’re also very much a professional).
Allll of these nuances play into branding. We need to be in tune with your ideal client so we can design everything to attract them specifically.
Positioning & unique value proposition
Good branding expresses what makes you special.
Every business owner’s favorite question: what’s your elevator pitch? Tell me why you’re different! 😉
Okay, so we all know it would be so much easier to come up with something great for an industry friend than it is to sum up for ourselves.
Ellen Robinson Events branding by Crème Brands
The good news is that’s actually the point of working with a designer. We’ll help pull it out of you.
At Crème Brands, one of our greatest strengths is knowing the right questions to ask you to get to the heart of what makes you so special. It’s truly an honor to get to sit and really get to know your unique essence. Our experience and (sometimes, probing 🫣) questions will pull it out of you, then we’ll help package it up into your mission statement, taglines, and visual branding. We live for those moments towards the end of a strategy session when everything starts to come together and all the parts of your business you thought were disparate are actually super connected. For lack of a better term, we love to figure out what your superpower is.
A Charleston Bride branding by Crème Brands
All the insights from your brand strategy fold into your website, social media, and marketing
One of the best benefits of a solid brand strategy is that it's the foundation of everything else when it comes to marketing.
Knowing your ideal client makes it easier to speak to them in social media posts.
Getting to the heart of what makes you special helps hone your messaging on your website.
At Crème Brands we’re website designers too. Every piece of your brand strategy and design is carefully considered to flow directly into your website. We take a storytelling approach to websites, building on the insights we learned in your branding to really share your story and make your couples feel seen.
How to choose the right partner in branding for wedding planners
We’re probably going to tell you the same thing you’d tell any couple in the process of hiring a wedding planner. It’s all about finding the right fit for YOU.
When you’re looking at different brand designers, we recommend taking a look at a few key things.
Portfolio
Browse their portfolio of work. Read some case studies of projects you’re attracted to. You should not only find the work beautiful, but you should also resonate with the designer’s explanation for how they landed on the final design.
It’s a bonus if the designer also has experience in the weddings industry, because they’ll already understand your context coming into the project.
Browse our portfolio at Crème Brands.
Marcella Lenick Events & Design branding by Crème Brands
Proof
Testimonials are a great insight into a particular designer’s strengths. Browse reviews for common themes to get a more rounded impression of what it might be like to partner with them.
Spellbound Events branding by Crème Brands
Personality
Before hiring a designer, we always recommend getting on a call to see if you vibe! It can feel really vulnerable to put your business into someone else’s hands. Especially when your business is so bound up with yourself and your personality as a wedding planner. You need to work with someone you feel comfortable with to be honest, ask questions, and trust the process with.
At Crème Brands, you’ll work 1:1 with our Creative Director, Kathryn Joachim, for the entire branding process. Book a call to start the conversation and see if you gel.
Glint Events branding by Crème Brands
Process
A solid branding process will protect your project from going off the rails. It should include solid strategy, temperature checks to ensure the creative direction is aligned, and transparency on what to expect when. When you hop on a call with a potential brand designer, ask about their process and see if it makes sense to you.
The Shindig Co. branding by Crème Brands
FAQs on branding services for wedding planners
How long does a typical branding project for wedding planners take?
This depends on the designer, but at Crème Brands, our signature branding process takes around a month.
The first half of the project focuses on brand strategy. This includes an extensive questionnaire, then a 1:1 branding strategy call with our Creative Director, Kathryn Joachim, to really hash things out. We’ll then synthesize everything into a creative direction document, which includes brand strategy (positioning, ideal client, mission statement, and taglines), a moodboard, and initial ideas on colors on typography that serve as a temperature check before we head into the design phase. Clients often find this part of the process exciting and reassuring.
We then move into the heart of the design. We sketch dozens of logo options in pencil before narrowing it down to our top recommendation. This allows us to focus all our energy into the best fit for your business and get the time to build things out.
We’re proud to say that our solid process means that 3 out of 4 of our logos are approved on the first round!
Peach & Pearl Events branding by Crème Brands
What do I walk away with?
You’ll walk away with a whole brand toolkit to keep your visuals consistent across digital and print touchpoints. This includes:
Logos: All your logo files exported in all the file formats you’ll need for print and web.
Colors: A brand color palette, with color codes so you can keep things consistent whether you’re making a Canva graphic or ordering stationery.
Typography: A hierarchy of heading and paragraph styles.
Supporting elements: Patterns, badges, and supporting graphics ready to be put to use.
Mission statement and taglines: We’ll help wordsmith your mission statement and taglines for use in logo configurations and messaging.
Launch images: Mockups of your new branding in context, ready to be shared on socials.
Marcella Lenick Events & Design branding by Crème Brands
What questions should I ask before hiring a brand designer for my wedding planning business?
Here are some useful questions you can pull from:
What’s your process like?
Have you worked with wedding industry clients before?
Who will I be working with throughout the process?
Is brand strategy included?
What’s your philosophy when it comes to designing for the wedding industry?
And here’s a bonus thought for you: make sure to pay attention to the questions THEY ask YOU! If a designer you’re interviewing asks you good questions, that’s a great insight into how they’ll show up as a strategic partner.
Karli & Co. branding by Crème Brands
What are special considerations on branding for wedding planners specifically?
Arguably the most important application of your branding is for your website to attract those couples in the first stages of their engagement. Inevitably, they’ll have a few tabs open comparing different planners. This is THE moment we really want to help you stand out!
A lot of wedding planner websites tend to look really similar. This is the perfect opportunity to stand out with branding that leans into your unique personality. You’ll want something well-crafted and completely unique to you.
You’ll also want to make sure your branding, and especially your colors, frame up your work. It should enhance, not compete with, the beautiful photography on your site.
Peach & Pearl Events branding and website design by Crème Brands
What makes a good logo for a wedding planner?
If your logo couldn’t just be swapped out for another planner’s name, then it’s a good design that will last you years to come. A good logo isn’t just pretty—it tells your story with symbolism and creativity.
What are mistakes to avoid when it comes to branding for wedding planners?
In no particular order, here are some mistakes to avoid:
An overly bright color palette that clashes with your portfolio photography.
On the flip side, a safe color palette that looks like everyone else’s.
Fonts that lack personality.
Finding logo inspiration from aesthetics on Pinterest versus a solid brand strategy.
Going to a branding project without clear business goals. You don’t have to have everything perfectly figured out, but you do need an idea of where you want your business heading in the coming years.
Elizabeth Flake Events branding by Crème Brands
How do I know it’s time to rebrand as a wedding planner?
If there’s a mismatch between the level of work you’re doing and how your branding makes couples perceive you, then it’s time.
Spellbound Events branding by Crème Brands
Branding for wedding planners creates an experience
So, branding is so much more than a pretty design. It’s about your purpose and your profit. It’s all about a deep strategic understanding of your business, and a design that helps take you to the next level. When everything is working together, it feels seamless, like your visuals perfectly match the in-person experience of working with you.
Ready to elevate your branding?
We’d love to hear about your business! Grab a spot on our calendar for your free branding consultation. You’ll chat 1:1 with our Creative Director, Kathryn Joachim, on all things branding.
