MADELINE HOCKLEY WEDDINGS

Senior Lead Planner

Job Posting - Senior Lead Planner

Madeline Hockley Weddings

Company:

Madeline Hockley Weddings was created in 2016 and is a wedding planning company located in Gravenhurst ON. We service 40+ weddings every year around the Simcoe-Muskoka area. We offer full, partial and event management planning packages.

Madeline Hockley Weddings is a boutique planning company compromised of our CEO, Office Manager, Lead Planners and Assistant (Day-of) Planners. Our goal is to continue to grow and serve the Simcoe-Muskoka area with excellence.

Our Mission:

We are on a mission to help as many couples in the Simcoe-Muskoka area plan incredible weddings. We do this by being leaders in the industry, sourcing an amazing vendor team, overseeing logistics and designing a beautiful event. We are kind, compassionate and thrive working alongside and serving people. From the venue, to vendors, to their guests and all the emails with the couple we are obsessed with making this experience seamless for the couple. We actually believe that wedding planning can be FUN. We believe the couple deserves to be CELEBRATED. We are hospitality-obsessed. Our “secret sauce” and what sets us apart from other planning companies is the warm, kind, and excellent customer service we provide. We believe clients and guests will one day forget the logistics but they’ll never forget how we made them feel. From our CEO to day-of-assistants we revolve around making our clients feel seen, loved, and encouraged in their planning process.

The copy below is from our website. It is extremely important that anyone applying for this position must fully agree with it.

“At our core we love people. We believe you are worthy and your love story is worth celebrating no matter your design style, guest count, or venue choice. This desire to honour you fuels every decision and interaction we have. It’s how we stand out from other planning companies. Not only are we logistics experts and can design amazing tablescapes, we also care about you, your family, and friends and want nothing more than for you to adore your wedding day. Our team is trained to ask ourselves constantly “How can we serve you? How can we serve your guests? How will we go above and beyond for this couple?” When guests approach us our first response is “How can we help?” and it’s not a facade, we genuinely can’t wait to help! We take on the stress and inevitable interruptions that occur because we desire that you look back on your wedding day with fondness, knowing your planning team really wanted the best for you!”

We believe from the moment the client signs the contract to their wedding day, they will experience an unmatched level of hospitality and care. The senior lead planner will work directly with clients, bringing their vision to life.

Location:

Muskoka, Ontario

We service the Simcoe-Muskoka area with the ability to travel anywhere in Ontario should the client and venue fit
90% of the weddings we do happen in Muskoka
We do not charge travel within an hour from Gravenhurst ON (our “headquarters”)
Common venues are in Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, Port Carling, Rosseau and Huntsville
Each year changes but we do around 50-60% venue weddings a year and 40-50% are private property
You must have your own transportation to get to and from the weddings

Job Description:

The senior lead planner is committed to working with the company long term and is excited to be apart of a growing company. The role is set to begin immediately upon finding the right applicant.

We are actively booking 2026 weddings, and the lead planner would jump in right away to begin planning 2026 full and partial planning clients. We would also aim to fill the 2025 summer calendar as availability allows.

The planner will take on a minimum of 20 weddings per year with a goal of 25-30. This will mostly be a mix of full planning and partial planning packages as we have lead planners who oversee a majority of our event management packages. We use a point system which assigns our average number of hours to each of the planning packages. This point system assigns more points to a full planning package vs. a partial or event management package. A working year is 2080 hours. We aim for an average of 1400 hours for planning clients weddings. The additional hours will be filled by networking events, team building, staff meetings, wedding shows and holidays.

Primary Responsibilities & Qualifications:

The senior lead planner must have:

Availability to work every Friday and Saturday during our peak season - June through October.
Understand and accept event days are often 15+ hours on site.
A passion for weddings and a commitment to deliver an exceptional client experience
A passion and dedication for being a team player and working well alongside vendors
An incredible work ethic as most of the work is remote work unless you are at a site visit, networking event or wedding weekend
A drive to serve people and give them an experience they will remember with joy when looking back
A love for the hospitality industry
Able to lead your team of day of assistants
Thrive off of stress and making decisions under pressure
Ability to think quickly on your feet to come up with solutions in a calm and kind way
A willingness to want to work weekends and long hours on event days
An understanding of the wedding season - long hours in the summer and a lot of freedom from Nov-April

Once a couple is booked, they will be passed to the senior lead planner to bring their wedding to life
Able to plan all of our packages which includes: Full weekend weddings, full planning, partial planning, private property and event managements
Must respond to emails within 24 hours
Touring venues and keeping a pulse on new venues that we need to reach out too and build relationships with
Representing Madeline Hockley Weddings at wedding shows and networking events
Collaborating with vendors and being a team player in the company and on wedding days
Ability to attend team workshops, branding photoshoots and buy into the the company’s team morals
Strong communication skills, both written and verbal, with the ability to manage client relationships professionally and efficiently.
Strong people skills with the ability to “read the room”
Ability to work independently and as part of a team, with excellent time-management and organizational skills.

Experience

Must have 2+ years of planning weddings
Proven track record of having planned weddings before and demonstrated experience in full planning packages, including logistics, design, vendor management, and on-site execution.
Experience planning private property weddings and able to understand the added logistics that Muskoka event planners face

Compensation & Benefits:

This is a full time employee position paid bi-weekly year round
Salary range is $50-55K
Ability to grow should the planner be able to take on more weddings
Opportunity to manage high-end, beautiful weddings with the support of a close-knit team
Flexible work from home environment during the off-season
Opportunity to be apart of the leading wedding planning company in Simcoe-Muskoka