If you are passionate about romance, you could make a career out of wedding business opportunities. It is an added advantage if you have exposure to different types of wedding, as this can help you in becoming a wedding planner.
Weddings play the most important role in a person’s life and people are willing to spend a lot on this most important day of their lives. You can easily consider starting a wedding planning business from home, without having to pay for office rent.
Wedding Planner Requirements
If you love organizing parties and events, it’s a great option for you. You must also be good at handling people with diplomacy, so that you can maintain a calm and stress free atmosphere during a crisis. Good management skills and a keen eye for detail could go a long way in making you a successful wedding planner.
As far as wedding planning business start up costs is concerned, you don’t need much equipment either, just a computer and a printer for printing contracts.
Check out the job duties of a wedding planner before you venture on it. Cultivate top skills like budgeting, planning, organizing, negotiating, solving issues and networking.
If you have a keen sense of color and style, it will be useful in coordination of the décor, the flowers, napkins etc. Learn more about different cultures and customs, especially with respect to weddings.
How to Become a Wedding Planner? Learning the Ropes
- Get some experience in this line of business before becoming a wedding coordinator. Try event planning for birthday parties, family functions and get together to begin with.
- You can work alone or get affiliated with specific venues to plan weddings in these locations.
- Work with an experienced event planner to understand the business before you invest on your own. Get experience as special events Assistant.
- Check out the top wedding planner books to get tips and secrets from top wedding planners.
#1. Attending Programs / Accreditation
Though it is not mandatory to get a certification, there are many community colleges offering these skills and a wedding planner certification. There are also several wedding planner courses online that you can attend to get accreditation. You can add these to your resume, showing that you are a certified wedding planner to impress potential clients,
Tip: Get support/networking/certification from AACWP membership while considering a wedding planner career.
#2. Hands on Experience
- Work for free at venues with popular wedding planner companies to gain experience before starting a wedding planning business.
- How to be a wedding planner? Work as a wedding planner at hotels to gain expertise and you can slowly build your portfolio.
- You can even specialize in a niche, such as destination weddings, celebrity weddings, budget weddings and so on.
(Source: vertex42.com)
#3. Website Creation
- If you want to become a wedding event planner, create a website and describe your services, present testimonials from friends’ weddings that you’ve planned; your certifications and samples of your work.
Tip: Include photo shoots of mock weddings, showing the wedding cake, decorations etc.
- Use wedding planner templates to fit in gorgeous images and attract potential clients.
- Get inspiration from popular wedding planning websites.
#4. Marketing Strategy
- Decide the charges for your services while considering a wedding event planner business. Check out the competition and the rates they are charging.
- Market your wedding planner business through social media pages.
- You could also sign up for a booth in trade shows, business events in your town.
- Use the usual means of advertising, newspapers, and business cards. Send emails to couples that are recently engaged to succeed as a wedding organizer.
- Do networking with other event managers.
- Offer some free services at churches in order to put your name out there on the front.
- Get to know caterers, florists and photographers. Consider prices and reliability factors. Develop connections with vendors of various price ranges to suit varying budgets.
Tip: List out churches in your town/city and contact the wedding coordinators. Send brochures and meet them in person.
#5. Business License
- Name your business.
- Get it registered (Fees vary according to the state).
- Consult your lawyer for creating contracts with clients.
- Understand bookkeeping requirements and filing of taxes etc.
Wrap Up
In a nutshell, here is a summarized wedding planner business plan:
- Learn more about the business.
- Get related experience, attend weddings, build networks and try to connect with possible clients.
- Get certification through a crash course in wedding planning.
- Get the necessary licensing and develop a sound marketing strategy.
Wedding planning business is not your ticket for a get rich quick. The business is a little unpredictable so you need to think off the cuff and be flexible. This is not a 9 to5 job, but it sure is an exciting and fulfilling one as you never know what challenges await you. The timing has to be precise, the music, the arrivals, the cutting of the cake, everything needs precision timing.
Being a wedding planner is hard work for sure, but it’s worth it!! You’d be surprised to know that there were 2.4 million weddings in the US in the year 2016, so there’s plenty of demand.
As for the scope of wedding planning business, wedding consultants can earn an average of around $14 an hour, according to payscale.com. The market is a thriving one, so why not tap into it?
Cover Photo by Pexels
