Wedding Planning Tips, Your Event Career
February is Wedding Month. Get Ready with a Wedding Planner Course!
Did you know that February, home of the widely celebrated Valentine’s Day, is also National Wedding Month? While it thematically makes sense, it also leaves us scratching our heads. Do weddings even happen in February? The truth is that most weddings happen from June to October, but there’s been a push for winter weddings lately.
Besides the cheaper rates for venues and vendors, there’s also the opportunity to tackle never-before-seen themes. Are your creative juices flowing? Harness all that creativity and put it to use!
Starting a new career isn’t a walk in the park. It can be super overwhelming when you haven’t taken any significant steps yet and don’t even know where to start. If you’ve been thinking about becoming a wedding planner, why not start your career on the right foot by enrolling in a course?
Here’s what to look out for in a good wedding planning course…
Why should I take a wedding planning course?
Professionals across most industries start their careers in the classroom. There must be something to it if adults are returning to school even after their 20s! Taking a course means that you’d be able to get a well-rounded education. You’d learn how to draw up a budget, timeline, proposal, and contracts as well negotiate between all the parties involved. While you could probably learn all your interpersonal skills from shadowing an established event planner, theory is equally important.
With full-service planning, you’ll need to hire vendors and make selections that best suit the vision of your clients. Thinking on your feet gets easier with practical experience. But you must always remember to consult with your client! You may know exactly what to do and how to do it, but they won’t. Take ample time to explain your ideas and listen to theirs. Taking wedding planning classes ensure that you understand all the historical trends, cultural customs, and planning theories to help you explain your ideas thoroughly.
You’ll learn all about the different services you can offer with your wedding planning certification. Shadowing a planner for a year or two would only allow you to learn the ins and outs of the services they offer. If you want to be a force to be reckoned with, you’ll need to set yourself apart from the competition—this means setting your services apart from your mentor! Look for courses that will give you a well-rounded take on wedding planning that teaches you all the services under the sun.
How to compare wedding planning schools:
If you’ve chosen a credible school, the instructors and tutors should be highly regarded professionals who excel in the field. They should be able to provide you with critiques backed by expertise from actually working in the industry. You can throw creative ideas out there and have a professional in the field evaluate the practicality of your ideas. It’s best to know the limits of what you can do for a client before making grand, sweeping promises you can’t keep! Your textbooks can’t teach you everything. Especially as trends come and go, the word of a practicing instructor is super valuable once you graduate!
Business courses are often offered separately. That doesn’t mean you can’t find a course that integrates business units into the curriculum. A large percentage of planners are self-employed, so knowing how to start (and run) a wedding planning business is essential. If you eventually expand your business and take on employees, you’ll find yourself earning a larger salary and having to manage it yourself. It’s best to be prepared for whatever that comes your way, even if you aren’t sure if you’ll be needing any of these skills!
It’s not uncommon for aspiring planners to be employed full-time or have a family to take care of when they decide to embark on their wedding planning career. Striking the perfect balance between all your commitments on top of starting a new career is possible with a flexible course. Consider taking your education online. The flexibility afforded by an online school is incredible! You can study, learn, and complete assignments on your own time. Nothing beats an opportunity to structure your training around your existing lifestyle.
Can you upgrade your skills with another wedding planning course?
If you’re taking a certification course, you might find yourself zipping through it in no time and wonder if there’s anything else you can do to diversify your skills. Just as some people choose to take post-secondary education straight out of high school, others choose to wait. You don’t necessarily need to tack on more services or education after finishing your initial training, but you can always benefit from further education.
Remember what we said about setting yourself apart from the competition? You may decide after your standard training that you want to tackle luxury events, or perhaps you’ve developed a taste for destination wedding planning. By expanding the service range you offer, you can earn a higher salary in niche markets. You’ll also be able to plan a cohesive event for your client instead of having to outsource certain aspects of the process to someone else. While you certainly stand to gain from having more skills in your arsenal, you’ll also be able to cater to the needs of your clients—they’re the ones who determine your success in your community!
Do you have any qualms about starting a wedding planner course? Let us know in a comment below and we can help steer you in the right direction!
