Becoming a Wedding Planner  |  Wedding Photographer Cardiff

Becoming a Wedding Planner

A recent post on a wedding Facebook forum from a mother asking on behalf of her daughter who was interested in becoming a wedding planner prompted this blog post from me.  I often get brides (and very very occasionally grooms) who think that planning a wedding is easy and they can do it for other's so they will set themselves up in business and do just that.  The reality of wedding planning, however, is totally different.  It's a tough job - and one that isn't really utilised in the UK except by the top end / celebrity weddings.  Brides & grooms want the fun of planning their own wedding; even if that includes the stress! I will say up front that a wedding planner is TOTALLY different from a venue dresser, despite some people in that area passing themselves off as wedding planners. So some of the stuff from the top of my head....

• They need a very wide circle of contacts within the wedding industry suppliers.  By this I mean they need to have a dozen suppliers at differing quality / price levels for each and every wedding service. (Ever tried negotiating with ***** star hotels & above?)
• They need outstanding communication and emotional intelligent / awareness skills.
• They need world class project management / event management skills.
• They need world-class negotiation skills to be able to bring disparate suppliers together to meet the clients budget.
• They need outstanding financial management skills to be able to juggle the various budgets etc.
• They need outstanding conflict management skills for when things don't go as planned and tempers fray.
• They need to be able to multi-task and multi-task a lot. They will have more than one client at a time and juggling the priorities of different clients isn't easy, especially if they are living in a widely separate place.
• Time management skills need to be out of this world to enable them to at least find time to sleep.
• The creativity and attention to detail have to be world class to create a vision and execute it on behalf of her clients.
• They have to be thick skinned as they will get called some really nasty names by very emotional clients when things don't go quite right, and when things go totally wrong.
• They will need a LOT of insurance. Think £5 million minimum public liability and maybe £10 million professional indemnities. Why - multiple clients etc. If it all goes wrong at the same time.
• They will need to EVERYTHING there is to know about Religious weddings (Roman Catholic, Anglican, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc), about Civil Ceremonies and Civil Partnerships, where weddings can and can not be held, what the legal requirements are (Marriage Act 1994)
• Overseas weddings requirements - law, requirements, translation
• Wedding Ettitquet - they need to be experts in this area. Get it wrong and it's a major faux par
• Financial planning and budgeting need to be on a par with the Chancellor of the Exchequer

On top of all of that is the actual business side of things on the road to becoming a wedding planner:

• Tax
• VAT
• National Insurance
• Data Protection Act
• Marketing
• Website, SEO, Add Words, Facebook Adverts etc
• Wedding Fayres
• Financial acumen
• General business acumen

Currently, there isn't a demand for the type of wedding planning seen in the US, and over in the US it's seen as a full-time profession. The average UK wedding, on the whole, doesn't need this level of planning - and as mentioned above many brides / grooms enjoy doing it themselves. On the day to day running, you will find its the wedding photographer and venue coordinator that run the day usually. What is the target market, demographic spread, economic marker etc?

Are there workshops / training courses / qualifications to attend on the way to becoming a wedding planner?

Yup - though after a quick bit of research not all seem to be of the same quality and not all offer the same level of national / international recognised qualification. I won't list all of the organisations but really look for one that gives you an accredited qualification that is based on the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF). Anyway some of the websites I found that will help you become a wedding planner. I do not endorse these in anyway shape or form.  Use them at your OWN risk! http://www.ukawp.com/ https://www.openstudycollege.com/courses/ncfe-wedding-planner.html http://www.novaweddingplanning.co.uk/