Wedding planning and event management

About the business

This trade needs almost no capital and almost no licence. Beyond a trade licence, no separate permit could be found for it. That makes it easy to enter and hard to stay in. The work is not making things yourself; it is holding the decorator, the caterer, the light and sound crew, the photographer and the venue on one thread. What the market looks like shows in how packages are sold. One Dhaka firm sells a package as a single price covering a menu for 100, 500, 700 or 1,000 people plus complete decoration of stage, hall, rooftop and entrance, lighting, dala and kula, cake table, VIP table, photography, a video story, a management officer and the hall rent. The venues named are Radisson Blu Water Garden, Pan Pacific Sonargaon, Le Meridien, Westin and Dhaka Regency in Dhaka, Radisson Blu Bay View in Chattogram, Momo Inn in Bogura and the Grand Sultan at Sreemangal. None of them prints a price; every event is quoted separately. What is printed is the decoration budget: doing it yourself Tk 5,000-10,000, a plain package Tk 15,000-25,000, a good stage with fresh flowers Tk 30,000-50,000, and theme work with laser lighting above Tk 80,000. The entrance gate alone is Tk 3,000-5,000 in artificial flowers or Tk 10,000-20,000 in fresh ones. The pressure in this business is not capital. It is reputation and working capital: you pay the decorator and the caterer first, and the client's other half arrives on the day of the event.

Unit economics

What you need to start

• Camera and video capability, owned or hired. In the 2025-26 market wedding photography packages run Tk 10,000-35,000 basic, Tk 35,000-75,000 mid and Tk 80,000-250,000 premium. Caution: that source is from September 2025 and is a year old.Equipment
• Decoration materials: cloth backdrops, artificial flowers, basic lighting. The gate alone is Tk 3,000-5,000 in artificial flowers or Tk 10,000-20,000 in fresh ones; a dala is Tk 1,000-1,500 and table decoration packages sit within Tk 3,000.Starting stock
• Trade licence from the city corporation, municipality or union parishad: form Tk 10, licence book Tk 50, standard tax Tk 30, stamp Tk 150-300, licence fee Tk 100-60,000, plus signboard fee and VAT, issued in 3-5 working days. The source does not state the validity period. No other licence or registration could be found for this trade, and that absence is the defining feature of it.Licence
• Bargaining, running to a timetable and handling ten crews at once on the day, plus the costing skill to quote: nobody publishes a rate card, so every event is priced from your own sheet.Skill
• Standing rate agreements with decorators, flower suppliers, a light and sound crew, caterers, photographers and videographers, a DJ and transport. Flower prices move with the season, and using seasonal flowers instead of out-of-season ones lowers the cost.Supplier
• A small office or meeting place where clients can be shown photographs of past work, and a store for materials. Dhaka planners keep offices in areas like Dhanmondi-Green Road or Gulshan.Workspace

How the work is done

1. 1Decide which level you work at: a neighbourhood holud stage at Tk 15,000, or a thousand-guest event in a five-star hotel. The clients, the prices and the risks are different.
2. 2Take a trade licence from the city corporation, municipality or union parishad: form Tk 10, licence book Tk 50, standard tax Tk 30, stamp Tk 150-300, licence fee Tk 100-60,000, issued in 3-5 working days.
3. 3Fix rates in advance with the decorator, the flower shop, the light and sound crew, the caterer, the photographer and transport. Hunting for rates in the week of the event means paying more.
4. 4Learn the hall rents and date calendars of the community centres, hotels and resorts in your area. Dhaka planners work at the Radisson Blu, Sonargaon, Le Meridien, Westin and Dhaka Regency; in the districts, resorts like Momo Inn and the Grand Sultan.
5. 5Build a set of photographs of your own work. In this trade clients decide on pictures of past events, not on price, so the first job or two may have to be done close to cost.
6. 6Quote each event separately against guest count, venue, stage, gate, lighting, food and photography. Nobody publishes a rate card, so you need your own costing sheet.
7. 7Sign a written contract and take 50 percent at booking. One Dhaka firm treats the retainer as non-refundable and takes the whole amount up front when fewer than 21 days remain to the event.
8. 8Use the advance to pay the decorator's and caterer's own advances, and keep receipts for what you paid. That money is your working capital and it leaves before the event.
9. 9Go to the venue the day before and check the stage, the gate, the power line and the seating yourself. Most of what goes wrong in this trade is caught the night before.
10. 10Collect the remaining 50 percent on the day, then settle the suppliers. If the client does not pay, the decorator still comes to you, not to them. The risk is yours.
11. 11Deliver the photographs and video on time. One firm states 15 to 25 days and keeps a backup of the work for 90 days; delay holds up payment and damages your name.
12. 12Fill the off-season months with birthdays, aqiqah, small holud jobs and corporate events. The wedding season is a few months a year, but rent and staff run for twelve.

Sources

• Bikroy — pickup and covered van listings (used)

  Collected: 21 Sept 2026

  Supports: Starting capital · চট্টগ্রাম (আগ্রাবাদ, চান্দগাঁও, মুরাদপুর)

• সিটি কর্পোরেশন থেকে ট্রেড লাইসেন্স প্রাপ্তির ধাপ সমূহ

  Collected: 16 Sept 2026

  Supports: Starting capital, Time to first revenue, requirements.LICENSE · বাংলাদেশ

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