How to Be a Wedding Planner

Video Transcript

"People say they want to be a wedding planner, especially if they helped a friend with a couple details at their wedding and oh it was so much fun. Yes, it is so much fun. Is it glamorous? Absolutely not. It is a lot of hard work. It is a lot of organization. You have to manage someone's life. Essentially you're managing 12 months of their life and the biggest day of their life. So it's not something I take lightly by any means. I feel a huge responsibility to my clients. I feel a huge responsibility to their budgets. I know everyone says this, I treat each event as if it were my own. I treat each event as if it were my own. You just can't. So if you don't have the heart to love on and take care of people and handhold and walk them through everything, whether they're laughing or crying, this may not be the best thing for you. If you're not organized, if you can't manage the details, you just like the overall big picture, well then a wedding planner and coordinator may not be the job for you. All kinds of places online certify people to be wedding planners now which is great. They walk you through what are all the elements of a wedding? What is expected of a planner? Walk you through different scenarios and then you can obtain a certification. That's great. I would say make sure that your wedding planner has experience. You can see everything you want on paper. I went to college for this, I didn't know anything when I jumped into corporate America and was sent to California to do a program for 300 people. I learned more in that first week on the job then I think I have ever learned in my last 8 years combined. It was the greatest thing ever. It was exhilarating, it was hard work. There were a lot of tears shed but I did it. And I think that if not everyone can go to school to be an event planner and that is OK. Not everyone has to and that is OK. Just make sure that you're using someone who has experience. And if you're looking to do this, if this is something you're interested in, get a certification online so your clients eventually your clients, will know that you're serious about this. You were serious enough to take the time and to spend the money to take a course and get a certification. The next step I would say it to volunteer all you can. Do you attend a church that has a lot of wedding ceremonies? If so, offer to direct weddings for some of the girls on the day of. Really get your feet wet on even though that's just a, it's not the entire planning, it's a good place to get your feet wet. Offer to volunteer intern with another wedding planner locally. Knowing it probably won't be a paid position but do you mind if I just sit with you one day a week and show up on your big event days, help you, I'll help you setup, I'll help breakdown. That's a big thing I hear from interns, I'm not in this to setup and breakdown, I'm in it just to learn how to be a planner. Well event days as far as I'm concerned is show time and you can rehearse all you want but if you're not there when the current opens, it's pointless and you've failed. So to me that as soon as I hear that, you're done, you're off the list and it's not being ugly but it's a big part of it. Yes, you plan for 12 months but it comes down to the day of. You have to be here, you have to be ready to work, you have to do whatever it takes to make this vision come to life and for me it is hugely rewarding to see my girls walk in the door and just absolutely they can't even express how elated they are because they couldn't have even imagined that it would be this good because we've taken a couple of extra steps, taking something just a little bit further for them to really give them what they want. That's a big, it's a whole lot but if that excites you, if that interests you, then this may be a field for you."