How to become a wedding planner in Peru: a guide to getting started

Being a wedding planner is less glamorous than it looks on social media and a lot more like running a project with a fixed deadline, a tight budget and plenty of emotions in the mix. If you love organizing, negotiating and solving problems on the fly, it’s a trade you can learn. This guide covers the skills you need, how to train, how to land your first clients, how to price your work and which paperwork to sort out if you’re working in Peru.

What a wedding planner does

A planner stays with the couple from the first budget to the last dance: choosing and coordinating vendors, building the timeline, managing the guest list and running the wedding day. That work comes in three forms (full planning, partial planning and day-of coordination), which we break down in what wedding planners in Peru do and how they charge. Get to know them well, because they’re the building blocks of what you’ll offer.

The skills the job takes

It’s less about natural talent and more about a set of skills you can practice:

• Organization: juggling several weddings at once without mixing up dates, payments or vendors.
• Communication: turning what a couple imagines into clear instructions for each vendor, and saying no gracefully.
• Negotiation: getting good terms without burning bridges with vendors.
• Numbers: building a budget, tracking every payment and speaking up early when something drifts.
• Staying calm under pressure: something always goes sideways on the day, and the couple shouldn’t notice.
• An eye for design: you don’t need to be a decorator, but you do need to know when things work together.
• Handling families: at many Peruvian weddings, parents, padrinos (the couple’s sponsors) and whoever is paying all have a say.

How to train

Courses and programs

You’ll find short wedding planning courses, event management diplomas and related degrees in fields like tourism, hospitality or communications. Before you pay for one, check:

• The syllabus: it should cover budgets, vendors, contracts, etiquette and day-of coordination, not just decor.
• Who teaches it: ideally people who plan events today and whose work you can see.
• Hands-on practice: whether you’ll work real events or only sit in class.
• What the certificate means: ask who issues it and whether it carries weight outside the school.

Learning on the job

Experience counts as much as any course. A few ways to get it:

• Assist an established wedding planner, even if it’s only a few hours at first.
• Work at an event venue or a catering company, where you’ll see a lot of weddings up close.
• Help out at events in your own circle, as long as you treat them like real jobs: a written timeline, vendor list and day-of schedule.

Build your portfolio

Couples hire what they can see. Your portfolio should show real events and how you handled them.

• Ask the couple’s permission before posting photos of their wedding.
• Credit the photographer and get their OK to use their images. Never pass off someone else’s photos as your own.
• Tell the story, not just the picture: how many guests, what the couple wanted and what problem you solved.
• Collect real testimonials, with names and permission.
• Have one tidy place to send people: a well-kept Instagram profile, a simple website or a PDF of your services.

Land your first clients

• Start with your own circle. Friends and acquaintances getting married soon are your first referrals.
• Don’t box yourself into weddings. The first jobs tend to be smaller and come around more often: a simple quinceañera, an adult birthday party, or an anniversary celebration, which the couple’s children almost always organize.
• Offer a well-defined service. Day-of coordination is a good way in: the scope is clear and it lets you show what you can do.
• Partner with venues and vendors. A venue that trusts you may recommend you to couples who arrive without a planner.
• Ask for referrals right after each wedding, while the couple is still glowing.
• Reply quickly. Many couples hire whoever gets back to them first with a clear answer.

Build your vendor network

Your vendor network is a big part of what you’re selling. Keep a profile for each one and update it after every event.

Vendor	What to note
Venues	Capacity, what’s included, hours, whether their catering is mandatory
Catering and cake	Menus, tastings, how they handle allergies and dietary needs
Photo and video	Style, delivery times, hours included
Music or DJ	Own equipment, hours, playlist for the hora loca (the reception’s “crazy hour”)
Decor and flowers	Style, setup and teardown, what happens if a flower is unavailable
Hair and makeup	Schedule, whether they travel, how many people they can do
Transportation	Vehicles, schedules, a plan for traffic

Also note a backup vendor in every category. And if a vendor pays you a commission for referrals, tell your clients: being upfront is part of your reputation.

Price your services

Before you copy someone else’s rate, work out your own:

1. Count your hours: meetings, venue visits, calls, the wedding day and the wrap-up afterward.
2. Add up your costs: transportation, day-of assistants, software and phone bills.
3. Add your margin, plus what you need to set aside for slower months.
4. Pick a model: flat fee, percentage of the budget or packages. All three are explained in how wedding planners charge, along with the ranges two Lima directories publish.
5. Spell out what each service includes and what costs extra.
6. Set a payment schedule tied to progress: a deposit when the contract is signed and the rest in installments before the wedding.

Getting set up with SUNAT

If you’ll be charging for your services in Peru, you need to register with SUNAT, the national tax agency. Here’s what its portal for independent workers says:

• If you earn fourth-category income (rentas de cuarta categoría, the category for people who provide services independently), you must register for a RUC (Peru’s taxpayer number). With a DNI (national ID) you can do it through the App Personas or the SUNAT website.
• For each job you issue an electronic fee receipt (recibo por honorarios electrónico). To do that, your RUC must list fourth-category income and you need a Clave SOL (your SUNAT online password). Since April 1, 2017, independent workers can only issue these receipts electronically.
• When a client pays you, you must record that payment in SUNAT’s system by the tenth business day of the following month.
• If, instead of working independently, you want to run a business (third-category income), SUNAT has a form to switch your status to an individual running a business (persona natural con negocio).

Sources: SUNAT’s pages on RUC registration and receipts and records for independent workers, and gob.pe’s electronic fee receipt page, all in Spanish, accessed September 17, 2026.

Which path applies to you depends on how you work. Check with SUNAT or an accountant before you issue your first receipt.

Contracts and tools

• Have a template contract covering what your service includes, the dates, the payment schedule and what happens with changes or cancellations. Have a lawyer review it once, then adapt it for each couple.
• Work from a base timeline, like our month-by-month wedding timeline, and adjust it for each wedding.
• Keep guests, vendors and payments in one place that the couple can see too. Here’s what to look for in digital tools for event planners.

Questions when you’re starting out

Do I need a degree to work as a wedding planner?

There’s no mandatory qualification and no licensing body standing between you and the job: couples hire a portfolio and references. A course saves you mistakes and gets you contacts, but it doesn’t replace events you’ve seen up close. What is mandatory in Peru is the tax side: if you’re going to charge, SUNAT requires you to register for a RUC and issue an electronic fee receipt.

Can I start without quitting my job?

Yes, and it’s the sensible route until the work is steady. Most events fall on weekends and client meetings can move to the evening, so the real clash is venue and vendor visits during office hours. Start with a tightly defined service, such as day-of coordination, and take one event a month until your calendar forces the decision for you.

Should I charge less because I’m new?

Lowering your price is not the same as narrowing your scope, and confusing the two is what sinks people who are starting out. Sell a smaller service—day-of coordination, or one piece of the job—at a price that covers your hours and your costs, instead of doing full planning at half rate. And don’t work for free in exchange for photos: agree that you can publish them, and still charge.

Do I need a team on the day?

Unless the event is very small, yes: one person can’t receive vendors, handle a problem and stay with the hosts at the same time. Work out how many assistants you need from the guest count and the spaces you have to cover, build them into your quote from the beginning, and give each one their job in writing. Line up someone who can replace you, too, in case you’re ill that day.

Get started as a planner on parati

On parati you can open a planner account and follow your clients’ weddings from one place:

• Sign up at app.paratipe.com/register and choose Organizo eventos de otros (“I organize other people’s events”; the sign-up page is in Spanish).
• Your dashboard lists the events assigned to you, with each one’s date, a link to its invitation, how much has been raised toward the gifts, progress toward the goal and the guest list. Couples assign you from their wedding editor.
• You get a referral code and two links: one to invite clients, who create an account linked to you, and one to invite other planners, who count as your referrals.
• You can see the events of planners you referred, with the amount raised and your commission. The terms are in your planner dashboard.
• You build up a balance and request payouts to your bank account in Peru from the withdrawals page, once you’ve added your bank details.

For your clients, creating a celebration is free: the invitation and gift registry share one link, and guests RSVP and give gifts from their phone by card or Yape (Peru’s popular mobile wallet), without creating an account.