The starting points
Event styling with Shabz starts from $1,200. That floor covers engagement parties, corporate events, milestone birthdays and private celebrations. Wedding styling starts from $5,000.
Those are floors, not averages. Publishing them is unusual and it is deliberate, because the alternative is couples spending weeks enquiring with stylists who were never in their range.
What almost nobody can tell you honestly is what your specific wedding will cost without seeing the venue and the guest count, because the range between the floor and the ceiling is enormous and it is driven by things most couples have not thought about yet.
The five things that actually drive the cost
- 1. Venue size and ceiling height
- The biggest driver and the one couples underestimate most. A room with a nine metre ceiling needs installations at a scale a four metre room does not, and scale costs money in materials, labour and rigging. The same styling brief can differ by thousands between two venues purely on volume. This is why a very large room and a finished city ballroom are completely different quotes.
- 2. Guest count
- Every extra table is another centrepiece, more linen, more glassware and more place settings. The relationship is close to linear, which makes it the easiest variable to model and the easiest to adjust when the budget is tight.
- 3. How much of the room is being transformed
- There is a very large gap between styling tables in a room that already looks good and transforming a blank space. A venue with existing chandeliers and good lighting gives you a lot for free. A bare warehouse or a marquee on grass means the floor, the lighting, the walls and the ceiling all become your responsibility. That is why a rural blank canvas site costs more than it looks like it should.
- 4. Installation complexity
- Anything suspended, rigged, built on site or needing specialist labour moves the number significantly, because it brings crew, equipment and time. A ceiling installation is a different order of cost to a backdrop that stands on the floor.
- 5. The install window
- A venue that gives a full day for bump in costs less to style than one that gives three hours between events, because a compressed window means more crew working at once. Difficult access, no loading dock or a long carry all do the same thing. This is a large part of why city venues cost more.
How to read a styling quote
A quote that is a single number is not a quote, it is a request for trust. What you want is an itemised breakdown where you can see the ceremony, the reception, the florals, the hire and the labour as separate lines.
That matters for one practical reason: it lets you change your mind. If the total is above budget, an itemised quote shows you exactly which element to reduce. A single figure gives you nothing to work with except accepting or declining.
Ask specifically whether hire, delivery, install and pack down are included, because those are the lines most often left out of a headline number and added later.
What is worth paying for
If the budget is tight, concentrate rather than spread. One arresting ceremony installation and clean, consistent guest tables reads as expensive. The same money spread evenly across every surface reads as busy and costs the same.
Lighting is consistently the most underrated line in a styling quote. A beautifully styled bridal table sitting in shadow will not photograph, and no amount of floral spend fixes that. In a marquee or a warehouse it stops being optional entirely.
The entrance earns more per dollar than almost anything else, because it is where guests stop, look and photograph before they have adjusted to the room.
Where you can save without it showing
- Choose the venue carefully
- The most effective styling decision happens before styling starts. Ask what a room gives you before you sign, because a venue with good bones costs a fraction to style compared to a blank one.
- Use what the venue includes
- Many venues include linen, centrepieces or a dance floor. Replacing competent inclusions with something marginally different is the least valuable thing a styling budget can do. Some venues include a great deal.
- Move the date if you can
- A Friday or Sunday, or a date outside the October to April peak, changes both pricing and availability across every supplier.
- Choose flowers in season
- In season varieties are cheaper, better conditioned and last longer through a long reception. Out of season means paying a premium for something that will look worse by nine o clock.
For the full breakdown including what is not charged for, see the pricing page.