How many weddings can one planner handle solo?

4–6 per year comfortably. 8 if you have a templated system and disciplined intake. Above 10 you need at least a part-time assistant. Above 15, a small team.

What''s the most common multi-event failure mode?

"I forgot to follow up with X" — usually a vendor payment chase or a client comms beat. Multi-event planners drop ON tasks, not OFF tasks. A weekly cadence + a system that surfaces overdue items kills it.

Should I take same-weekend weddings?

Only with a co-planner. The math is brutal — 2 events on Saturday means parallel vendor management, parallel emergencies, parallel mothers-of-the-bride. Solo? Don't. Co-planning with a trusted peer? Yes — and split the comms cleanly.

How early should I take a wedding deposit?

Within 5 business days of the verbal yes. Verbal commitments evaporate; a paid deposit anchors the booking. 30–50% upfront is standard for full planning; 100% upfront for day-of (less work, no follow-on commitment).

How to Manage 12 Weddings at Once (Without Burning Out)

This is the operating manual for the busy season. Lagos planners running 8–15 weddings a year live in two modes: the 6 months of build-up (May–Oct), and the 4 months of execution madness (Oct–Feb). The system below is built for the execution stretch.

If you're solo and running >6 events a year, you need it. If you have an assistant, this is the framework you train them against.

In short: Run a fixed weekly cadence. Use a multi-event dashboard, not 12 separate spreadsheets. Template everything — your vendor briefs, your client emails, your run-of-show. Delegate the chase-work first, the judgment calls last. Touch every event every week, even if just to confirm "nothing changed".

The weekly cadence (non-negotiable)

Without this, multi-event planning becomes whack-a-mole.

Day	Block	What you do
Monday morning	2hrs	Review all events. Each gets 5–10 mins. Identify the week's risks.
Monday afternoon	2hrs	Send the week's vendor follow-ups in batch.
Tuesday	varies	Client calls (max 4/day). Use the same time slots for every client.
Wednesday	2hrs	Vendor calls (the chase-the-late-ones day).
Thursday	4hrs	Event prep — whichever event is closest. Write next week's checklist.
Friday	4hrs	The next-closest event. Confirm payments, confirm logistics.
Saturday	12hrs	Execute (if you have an event) OR rest. Never office work on Saturdays unless event-related.
Sunday	0	Off. Truly off. Burnout is what kills planning businesses.

The weekly cadence works because every event gets touched, even the ones 8 months out. Couples whose planner has gone dark for 3 weeks call other planners. Touch = retention.

The multi-event dashboard

Stop running 12 Excel sheets. Run ONE dashboard that shows every event at a glance:

Days to event (sorted ascending)
Plan completeness (% of tasks done)
Budget status (estimated vs actual)
Open tasks (with overdue flagged)
Last contact with client

When you open your Monday review, you see 12 rows ranked by who's closest. The one at the top of the list is who you focus on this week.

Owa Planner's /app events list is built for this — multi-event view with stat strips per event. See it →. If you're not on Owa, build the equivalent in Notion or Coda. The format matters more than the tool.

Templating — the 6-hours-per-event savings

Anything you do more than twice is a template. Top planners have:

The vendor brief template — one per vendor type (photographer, decorator, MC). Fill in 5 fields, send.
The client kick-off email template — same structure every time.
The payment-chase email template — friendly, firm, traceable.
The day-of run-of-show template — copy from last event, swap names + venue + ceremonies.
The post-event closeout template — vendor balance releases, client thank-you, review request.

In Owa, the AI Planner output IS the template — clone an accepted plan from a past event, swap the client's vision, ship it. Saves 4–6 hours per new client.

Delegation — what to hand off first

If you're hiring your first assistant, hand off in this order:

Calendar wrangling. Setting + confirming + rescheduling client calls. Highest-leverage delegation; zero judgment required.
Vendor follow-up batches. "Has photographer confirmed?" / "Has caterer sent the proposal?" — chase-work. Train on the templates above.
Payment chasing. Awkward to do yourself, perfect for an assistant. You set the policy; they enforce.
Spreadsheet hygiene. Updating budget rows, marking tasks done, syncing the event dashboard.
Client comms — non-judgment. "Yes, we got your fabric photo." / "Confirmed for Wednesday." Routine reply work.

What you DON'T delegate (yet):

Vendor selection / vetting.
Pricing conversations with the client.
Family politics.
Day-of decision-making.
Anything that touches the contract.

These are your job for the first 2 years of any assistant. They take over when they've watched you do it 8+ times.

The 3-week danger zone

Every event has a "danger zone" — the 3 weeks where stuff goes wrong fastest. For a Nigerian wedding it's weeks 3–6 out.

Vendor confirmations slip.
Aso Ebi stock arrives wrong.
Family conflict re-emerges over guest list.
Catering count changes by 100+.
A vendor goes dark.
The bride changes the colour scheme.

If you have 4 events all in the danger zone simultaneously, you cannot do good work. Either:

Hard cap your bookings so 2 events are ever in the danger zone at once.
Hire ahead of the season — a part-time assistant Oct–Feb pays for itself in retained clients.
Reschedule a non-critical event — easier said than done, but better than failing.

Multi-event burn-out is the #1 reason planners leave the industry. Plan capacity backward from your danger-zone limit, not forward from "how many enquiries you got".

The same-weekend wedding question

If two clients want the same Saturday, you have three choices:

Say no to the second. Cleanest. Refer to a peer.
Co-plan with a trusted peer. You take Event A, they take Event B; you swap on the day. Split the fee.
Promise both, hope it works. Don't. This is how planners get sued.

Co-planning works when you've worked together before, have the same standards, and trust each other's vendor lists. Start with smaller co-events before doing a full wedding double.

Closeout — the 2 weeks after every event

The work isn't done when the music stops. The 2 weeks after are where you protect your margin AND your reputation:

Week 1 after. Pay vendor balances. Collect any final client payments. Send the photo/video timeline expectations.
Week 2 after. Send the thank-you note + the review request. Archive the event in your dashboard. Schedule a post-mortem (with yourself + assistant).

The review request is the most underused move. Couples just-married will say yes to a 10-minute call OR a written testimonial about 60% of the time, IF you ask in week 2. Week 6, that rate drops to 15%.

The tools comparison (US tools vs Owa)

Need	US tools (Aisle Planner / HoneyBook / Planning Pod)	Owa Planner
Multi-event dashboard	Yes	Yes
Aso Ebi shop	No	Yes
Naira-native budget	Painful (USD conversion)	Native
WhatsApp broadcasts	No (US uses email)	Yes
Per-group RSVP links with tagging	Limited	Native
Templated AI plans	No	Yes
Pricing per month	$30–$60	TBD — KM finalising

The US tools are great IF your wedding is American. They miss every Nigerian-specific surface. The whole point of Owa Pro is the operating system FOR Nigerian weddings, not adapted from them.