The best wedding planner courses make starting
a wedding planning business simple
Wedding planner certification is a plus for most wedding planner jobs, but it’s no guarantee that starting a wedding planning business will be a success. Of course, not all wedding planner careers lead to wedding planner businesses. Large hotels and wedding venues employ professional wedding planners with wedding planning certification to act as their on-site wedding coordinator. At a boutique hotel, historic inn, or destination wedding venue, planning wedding events is typically part of sales and catering departments duties. Becoming a certified wedding planner opens many doors. But to become a certified wedding planner without prior business experience or training in wedding business practices may limit your employment opportunities. But more frequently, wedding planning is an individualist’s enterprise. So wedding planner courses that don’t teach how starting a wedding business for yourself really works are doing anyone learning to become a certified wedding planner a serious disservice. After covering the creative aspects of wedding planning as a career, the best wedding planner courses make the task of starting a wedding planning business simple by providing clear instruction and sound advice on issues faced by every service business. Becoming a certified wedding planner requires more than keeping up with wedding trends or navigating wedding planning websites. Wedding planner certification should mean much more, and most clients are sophisticated enough to know the difference. You don’t need an MBA, or even a college degree. But before becoming a certified wedding planner and starting a wedding planning business, or looking to become a wedding planner for a venue or firm, first master the principles, problems, and processes of running a small business. We call it Wedding Entrepreneurship 101, and we’ve designed it just for you.
What Other Wedding Planner Courses Won't Teach You about Becoming a Certified Wedding Planner
Learning how to be a wedding consultant starts with a passion for weddings. Starting a wedding planning business begins with learning how to manage and market a new business. Every wedding planner job may be different, but every wedding event planner business has the same goal: to make a reasonable profit by providing quality service at a competitive price. Before starting a wedding planning business, find out what couples really want in the market you'll be serving, and what your competitors really charge for the services they provide. Next, determine for yourself how becoming a certified wedding planner, combined with your special talents and skills, add up to a ‘value proposition’ you can sell to the clients you seek. Remember: you didn’t become a certified wedding planner to lose money. So whether you’re becoming a certified wedding planner to work for someone else or to become your own boss, be critical when you’re researching wedding planner courses. Careers in wedding planning require real business knowledge, so be sure your wedding planner certification investment is buying the business content you’ll need to succeed. We believe that anyone becoming a wedding planner should learn Wedding Entrepreneurship 101. Other wedding planner courses may help you get creative. Ours helps you get started, get clients, and make the most of your wedding planner certification.
Course Video Tutorial: 'An Expert Consultant Teaches Wedding Entrepreneurship III' (24:02)
Daryl Glenney shows you how to become a certified wedding planner prepared for success, equipping you with the business skills you'll need to meet every challenge, including destination weddings, outdoor weddings, and wedding events with demanding clients. Drawing on decades of experience in the consulting business, she’s a masterful teacher and an empathetic guide. No problem is too big, no detail too small, in the focus she brings to her subject: self-empowerment through self-employment by starting a wedding business. Her analysis of the wedding market is as accurate as her advice about what to look for in a lawyer, how to structure a contract, and why sharing an office is often more profitable than working from home. As the author of training textbooks and the writer for a major law firm’s pioneering website, she is an astute crossover entrepreneur who shows you how to change careers, start your own business, or form a professional partnership where 2 + 2 = 10. In this course video tutorial Daryl teaches Members how to incorporate, write a proposal, and sell themselves to prospective clients when starting a wedding planning business. This tutorial is the third in a three-part series and includes a live demonstration by wedding planning business owner Wendy Harrop as she conducts the rehearsal for a small April wedding in a remote rustic setting.
Learn 12 essential elements of structuring and diversifying a wedding business to avoid mistakes and optimize outcomes:
- Key questions to ask your lawyer and accountant before you begin your enterprise
- Four types of business entities to consider when structuring your new business
- Four financial considerations in choosing the type that's best for you
- Cost and image factors in deciding whether and where to have an office
- Dressing and driving for success in the style that suits your market
- Why keeping meetings small helps in getting the assignment
- Five guidelines for managing initial client consultations
- Five guidelines for managing your client proposal
- Five guidelines for managing demanding personalities
- Five guidelines for managing same-sex weddings
- Five guidelines for managing multiculturalism in your business
- How educating yourself in emerging markets gives you the edge that never ends
