wedding planning services and background
history
Charlotte Fordham began her career in weddings in 2006, leaving Morgan Stanley in London to join Elysian Consultants, one of the UK’s best-known luxury wedding planning companies at the time working for Victoria Armstrong-Jones and Edward Cohen.
Charlotte knew very quickly that she wanted to build something personal and focused on creating beautiful moments that built memories. What drew Charlotte to weddings was the combination of complex planning, people and design, the challenge of bringing together hundreds of individual decisions and creating something that, for the client, feels entirely natural.
Artisan by EDLO began with a formal business plan, perhaps unsurprisingly given Charlotte’s previous career and grew from there. Twenty years later, the team Charlotte built carefully remains deliberately personal in the way they work.
Over the years, we have planned and designed weddings for internationally recognized families, members of society and clients for whom privacy is paramount. Our work has taken us from private estates and to destination celebrations with guests arriving from around the world.
Discretion has often been as important as the wedding itself. We regularly work under non-disclosure agreements and have managed celebrations where protecting our clients and their guests from publicity formed part of the planning from the outset.
You will not see every wedding we create on Instagram or in the press (unless our client wants placement). The majority of our clients come through personal recommendation from one family to another. We believe these beautiful weddings belongs to our clients, not to us.
However large or complex the celebration, our role is to understand what matters, bring the right people together and create something our clients will remember for the rest of their lives.
Everything we do is crafted with love, beauty and design (with a well executed plan!)
planning information
There is no single way in which our clients like to plan. Some want detailed schedules, real-time updates, budget forecasting and complete visibility of every decision. Others want us to lead the process, present carefully designed proposals and remove as much of the day-to-day planning as possible.
We align accordingly. Throughout, we act as our clients’ advocate.
Recommendations are made because we believe they are right our clients, we do not take commissions or use templated supplier arrangements.
Our service brings planning, design and production together under one team. From the early financial and logistical framework through to the creative direction and final delivery, we ensure the full picture is curated and brought together.
All services are fully insured and we work with established professional suppliers appropriate to the scale and requirements of each event. Through our relationships, we are also able to access often impossible, or not available to the public, historical or private estates for celebrations.
booking process
We send a short information request for you to complete, then we begin with a complimentary consultation, should we be available for your date range. Experience and capability matter, but so does the relationship. You should feel comfortable asking questions, confident that you are being heard and certain that we understand what you are trying to achieve.
Following that conversation, we prepare a clear proposal, setting out the recommended scope of work and the associated fee.
Our core services can be supplemented with optional services, including Guest Concierge, where required. These do not need to be committed to at the outset and can be added later as the wedding develops.
We work on a fixed-fee basis rather than charging a percentage of the wedding budget. We believe this is clearer for our clients and removes any conflict between the size of the wedding budget and our fee.
Before work begins, everything is documented in a clear contract setting out the scope of our service, responsibilities, fees and relevant contingencies. A deposit and signing is required to commence services.