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How to Become Wedding Planner

Update on 28 Mar, 24

How to Become Wedding Planner - Career Opportunities in Wedding Planning

If a calm nature, an undying love for parties, a helpful aura, and a knack for unexpected problem-solving scenarios define your personality, then perhaps a career as a wedding planner might be good for you, it might even turn out to be your dream job. The bride of today is too busy and too distracted to plan her own wedding. Long gone are the days when relatives and family friends would help plan and execute the wedding to perfection since their help is often unavailable with them living in different cities, states, and even countries. 

How to Become Wedding Planner:

That's where the wedding planners descend as saviors of the day and help make the wedding a beautiful and memorable day filled with many loving moments. More and more brides are turning over to wedding planners for help and assistance in turning one of the most important days for both the bride and the groom, into a day that will be looked upon as one of the best days of their lives in the future. 

Wedding planners are expert professionals who have a great amount of flexibility and incredible perks such as working from home, creative problem solving, and can miss out on the best part, the result of the hard work of wedding planners is so evident in the smiles and laughs of the couple and guests alike. Wedding planners enjoy flexibility in their work as mentioned before, since more than half the job is done via cell phones, calling for appointments, caterers, etc are all given orders over mobile phones. However, the fact that wedding planners have to be present at weddings to ensure that the wedding arrangements areas according to plan and to calm the jitters of the nervous couple, they may have to work in the evenings or on weekends, which should be cool since its a wedding, a party and all they have to do is sit back and watch their arrangements make the day of the couple. 

As a successful wedding planner, he or she must have a sensitive need for an understanding of others, empathy in the amount of pressure some couples may place on the wedding planner, and all of this should be done with an innate skill of understanding. Any wedding planner will be tested in a number of situations such as demanding and insensitive couples or when the DJ cancels at the last minute, caterers don’t make the kind of food the couples want for their guests and the like, but it pays to be calm in the face of adversities. The skills of preparation, quick thinking, problem-solving abilities, excellent communication skills, negotiating, and interpersonal skills are what make a novice wedding planner into an expert wedding planner. 

How to Become Wedding Planner - Academics Overview:

To become a wedding planner, candidates need to have an academic qualification, although it is not necessary, however having a degree really improves the chances of getting hired and being looked upon as a professional. The first step is to get a certification usually in event management. The first year of any course or degree in event management consists of basic knowledge and developing the skills and knowledge related to even managing and the likes. It is in the later stages of the course when candidates are asked to choose their specializations and wedding planning is one of them. It requires a lot of practical experience and a strong portfolio to be eligible for the high-budget weddings that are the dream wedding events of many wedding planners. 

Many universities and colleges offer internships and summer programs during the course curriculum for students to get hands-on training and practical experience. Candidates must ensure that they get exposed to all the practical and on-site experience available or rather most of it. Once that is in your portfolio, go on to take as many weddings as you can, building your expertise in themes and the like, create your own brand, your own theme and that should probably help you stand apart from the rest of the wedding planners out there. Many of you wonder How to become a wedding planner There are many degrees and certificate courses that candidates can pursue to become wedding planners. They can pursue them online or offline in today’s digitized world. 

We have listed the top three wedding planner courses available online for any candidate who wants to know how to become a wedding planner and wishes to gain a niche over the others.

Weddings Beautiful Worldwide:

Weddings Beautiful is a widely reputed and established player in the wedding industry. They offer certification courses since the year 1968, to provide excellence in education and support to wedding planners on a global scale. These two certificate courses are offered by them and wedding planners can enroll and learn.

Name of the Course

Average Fee

About the Course

Certified Wedding Specialist 

Available on the official website 

This certificate course consists of 18 assignments covering all the basic elements of wedding planning. The candidates are then tested upon the completion of each assignment by a questionnaire which the candidate is required to fill and return through the mail.

Certified Wedding Planner

Available on the official website 

This course is specifically for those candidates who have a good amount of experience in wedding planning but they lack certification or academic qualification. 

The Sheffield School

One of the best and reputed schools, which began in 1985 as an interior designer school and they now provide a host of classes and certificate courses in different related subjects such as interior design, wedding planning, jewelry designing, feng shui craft, etc.

Name of the Course

Average Fee

About the Course

Wedding and Event Planning

$1,198 (can be paid monthly or in full)

The course focuses on the basics and detailed elements of wedding planning. It consists of 20 detailed assignments, 6 workbooks, 2 virtual internships, a Sheffield graduation certificate, and support from the expert staff. 

The Wedding Planning Institute:

The Wedding Planning Institute or the LWPI was founded in 1997 by Cho Phillips. Some of the courses that are offered by the institute have collaborated with the renowned Green Wedding Planning. There are many certification courses that are offered by the institute and candidates need to register themselves once the programs are offered for enrollment. The candidates can check the payment plans, course details once they are available. They need to head over to the official website for more details here.

The online courses listed above are reputed and well in demand, and candidates who enroll in them will learn the things that are not readily available in other mainstream or general event management courses. Whichever course the candidate might choose, remember to have fun and get to know as many people as you can, it makes all the difference.

Candidates do not need to go to colleges and institutes to become wedding planners, however, it really pays to hold a degree when it comes to gaining vital knowledge and skills that can only be learned in a professional degree designed specifically for event management such as weddings, etc. The preparation the candidate will go through is broad and widely based encompassing various work ethics related to a varied work environment and types of events, in addition to weddings.

Steps to Become Wedding Planner:

Formal Training

The first step to your dream career as a wedding planner is to get formal training. After candidates complete their event management courses or certificate courses, in short, academic degree requirements, they will be required to have work. Gathering work experience as part of formal training or practical experience is the need. 

Students can not hope to gain much in the name of salary during this stage, since the focus of all students should be on gaining experience and training. This stage is usually included during the diploma courses if the school includes it in its course curriculum. Students learn various aspects of their wedding planning functions such as contract negotiations, vendor relations, budget management, etiquettes, bridal registries, marketing strategies, coordination, etc. 

Choose a Niche

Candidates can choose their own specialization such as ‘theme weddings’ or ‘destination planning’ ‘same-sex weddings’, etc which helps them gain a reputation easily in these specific terms. Niche or specific weddings tend to help in specializing the candidate in some areas and stand out among the rest. 

Find a Mentor

Candidates can find a mentor among the already established names of the industry. They can study their specific attributes, themes, and their style of work and try to incorporate that into their own ways of working, turning it into their own special, original work style. Finding a seasoned mentor can help them create and develop their own style and work ethic.   

A wedding planner can be a very rewarding career as well as a very dynamic career choice for people. In today’s world, weddings are a highly evolved affair, and more and more people are hoping to make it into the wedding of all time. According to Payscale, the annual median income of any wedding planner is $40,000 with the entry-level graduates (0 to 5 years) making around $24,000 and the experienced wedding planner ( 10 to 20 years) making around $50,000/-. 

Wedding planners need to take care of things for which they need specific skills and habits to ensure that they have those skills, it is imparted in the training and practical aspects of the course. Some of the skills that a successful wedding planner must have are as follows:

  1. Planning and Organizing
  2. Solving Problems
  3. Negotiation
  4. Budgeting
  5. Networking
  6. Managing Time

A good sense of style and color is necessary for thematic coherence at any wedding. This allows the wedding planner to coordinate different aspects of the decoration, including uniforms for workers, tablecloths, napkins, utensils, and other stuff required to build a theme for anyone's wedding. Which colony matches and color coordinates with which other color. 

Apart from this, good background knowledge of religions and different cultures of the world so as to make sure that the customs and rituals needed for specific weddings are fully maintained and religious sentiments are not hurt. Wedding Planners are the biggest authority figures when it comes to designing and ensuring the smooth functioning of a wedding. The couple, their respective families give over all the arrangements from itty bitty stuff to major stuff to the wedding planners. When a project is successful, the wedding planners get praises and when it fails, well it’s super bad. 

conclusion: 

In conclusion, many wedding planners gather the necessary academic qualifications, get into the working force, either through internships or as working under some wedding planner. However, it boils down to the fact that sooner or later, if you truly enjoy the work you do, you will start to find a niche, your own original and personal way of work, a work ethic that is, which will enable you to stand out from your competitors. Many wedding planners in today’s world are solo workers or entrepreneurs as you may call them, they are self-employed. However, it is always advisable for students who have an interest in opening their own personal wedding planner office, to attend a few business classes and gather expertise in that arena as well. Some wedding planners also choose to work for others, at least they are confident enough in opening their own studios. Whatever the case may be, if you work for someone else, or under another wedding planner, the job may teach you a lot. It may involve the process of how to sell your unique ideas to your clients or potential clients, in addition to planning and looking after the smooth function of an actual wedding. Some employers pay a percentage of their charges to the new wedding planners that work under them, it is not a straight salary as it depends from wedding to wedding and client to client. I hope you understood this article "how to become a wedding planner" 

As a final touch to the article, below we have listed a few words from couples and clients of different wedding planners who revealed what they look for in wedding planners, the qualities they hope for, etc. 

  1. “A positive attitude and elegant appearance.”
  2. “Must be available for domestic and international traveling.”
  3. “Wedding Planning Certification”  
  4. “Well organized and a quick thinker.”

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