How We Work
Mary Me charges one planning fee, agreed in writing before you sign and fixed for the whole of your wedding. It does not grow when your budget grows. Supplier costs reach you at the supplier’s own price, with no margin added between their quote and your approval, and you choose your own suppliers: there is no preferred list you have to book from. Coordination and planning fees start at EUR 5,000 and are set by the scope of the wedding, not by what you spend on it. And from the first decision to the last payment, you follow your budget in your own planning portal, as it moves.
Before you read a single number
Three things worth knowing first
Most of the worry about wedding planners comes down to three questions. Here are our answers, before you have to ask them.
One fee, fixed before you sign
It covers the planning, the design direction, the supplier negotiation and the coordination across every day of your wedding. It is written into your contract and it does not move when your budget moves, so nothing we recommend to you earns us more.
No mark-up on your suppliers
You pay the supplier’s own price. We gather each quote, negotiate it where there is room, and pass it to you as it stands. Nothing is added between their quote and your approval. You can pay them directly, or through us if our payment options suit you better: the choice is yours, and the amount is the same.
Your suppliers are your choice
There is no preferred list you have to book from. We suggest the people we have watched do the job well, and you are free to bring your own photographer, band or celebrant instead: we coordinate them exactly as we coordinate the people we already know. Where a venue restricts the choice, and some do, we say so early.
The proof, not the promise
Your wedding, open on both sides
Transparency is a word until somebody shows you the screen. Every Mary Me couple plans inside a system where they and their planner are looking at exactly the same thing, at the same moment.
A real-time budget
A wedding budget is not a number fixed on day one. It takes shape as you make your choices, and yours is kept up to date with every one of them: what is decided, what is still open, and where the total stands today. You never have to ask us for the latest version, because you are already looking at it.
Every proposal, as it comes
Supplier proposals are shared with you as we receive them, at the price the supplier asked, so you choose with the real figures in front of you. Where we negotiated a price down, the saving is yours.
Every payment, accounted for
Each supplier you confirm, each payment made and each balance still to come, in one place. And whenever you want to see the supplier’s original documents behind any of it, they are there for you.
And the part that matters
There is no internal version of your budget. What your planner opens in the morning is the screen you can open at the same time, from anywhere, with nothing held back for a later conversation.
The planning fee
What makes the fee higher or lower
The fee answers a single question: how much of your wedding are we carrying. Three things set it, and nothing else does.
Variable one
Days
A wedding spread across three days is three days of production, not one day with extras attached to it.
Variable two
Events
An Indian wedding can run five events across three days. Each one is planned, staffed and run as its own event, because that is what it is.
Variable three
Guests
How many people our team is looking after, which sets how large that team has to be and how much weight sits on it across the weekend.
One more thing sits in the same conversation without being a price lever of its own: whether we design and produce your decor ourselves, or coordinate the studio that does. We agree that at the start, along with everything else inside the scope.
Where the range starts
Coordination and planning fees from EUR 5,000
One day, one event, sixty guests at a single venue sits at the bottom of the range. Three days, five events and two hundred guests sits at the top. You get your own number before you commit to anything, and it does not change unless the scope does.
Pricing you can verify
Do not take our word for it
The practice couples worry about is a planner taking a supplier’s quote, adding a margin, and presenting the higher number as if it were the supplier’s price. We do not do it. Once a supplier has quoted, the figure on your budget is the figure that supplier gave us.
So test it, without asking us. Pick any supplier on your budget, call them, ask what they would quote you direct, and compare it to our line. The numbers will match. We would far rather you did that in month one than wondered about it for a year.
It has a consequence we should say out loud. If a line looks high to you, it is high at the supplier, not at us, and the right move is for us to go back to them or find you somebody else. That conversation is a large part of what you are paying us for.
And if a supplier is genuinely better booked by you, directly, we will tell you so. A planner who cannot say that is not saving you anything.
Straight answers
Questions couples ask
Will my suppliers cost more because I booked through Mary Me?
No. Each supplier’s own price passes through to you with nothing added to it. Where we negotiate a discount, the discount is yours. The number you approve on the budget is the number you pay.
How can I check that for myself?
Call any supplier on your budget and ask what they quote you direct, then compare it to our line. We encourage it. A couple who has checked plans the rest of the year without that question sitting at the back of their mind.
Do you have a preferred supplier list I have to book from?
No. We suggest people we trust because we have watched them work, and you are free to ignore every one of them. Bring your own photographer, band or celebrant and we coordinate them the same way. Some venues impose their own restrictions, and we flag those before you fall for the venue.
Who pays the suppliers?
Most couples pay through us. We invoice you at exactly what each supplier charges, receive your payment and pay the supplier: we sit in the middle without taking anything from it. It also means one payee instead of many, more ways to pay, including card, and no string of international bank transfers to different accounts, which is where payments from abroad most often go wrong. If you would rather pay a supplier directly, you can.
Do I see the original supplier invoices?
Yes, whenever you want to. What we invoice you is exactly what the supplier charges us, and the supplier’s original documents are available to you so you can set the two side by side.
Is your fee a percentage of my budget?
No. It is a fixed number, agreed before you sign. It changes only if the scope of the wedding changes, and then only with your agreement in writing.
How much does a wedding planner cost in Portugal?
At Mary Me it is always a fixed fee, never a share of your budget. Coordination and planning fees start at EUR 5,000, and where your wedding sits above that depends on three things only: how many days it runs, how many events it holds and how many guests we look after.
Who runs Mary Me today?
Mary Me has been planning weddings in Portugal since 2013. In 2025 the agency was acquired by its current owners, who have been investing in how the work gets done ever since: clearer processes, digital tools across the whole team and a planning portal where couples follow their budget as it moves. The aim is simple: fewer emails and spreadsheets, and more of our time spent on the wedding itself.