Are you thrilled everytime you see a couple exchange vows? Does the first sight of the bride always leaves you with a feel-good tear in your eye? Have you always loved planning or organising weddings? Then being a wedding planner can be just the thing for you!
Being a wedding planner can be one of the most rewarding tasks that one may have but it is not an easy one. It is, in fact an eloquent art capable of leaving a lasting impression in the hearts of people.
Organising a wedding is fraught with challenges and high stress situations and yet there are organisers who survive and make it big in this domain.
To help you out here are some of the secrets or tips to become a successful wedding planner. Just take a look.
- Enhance Your Wedding Related Skills – Although being professionally certified is not a prerequisite for being a wedding planner, but it is going to set you ahead of your competition in this industry. It is also going to entice your potential clients and helps in assuring them that you have received formal training and are capable of the job.
Apart from that, you should also expand your wedding related skill-sets like the fields of wedding photography, design and cake making so that you know the intricacies inside out. You can also offer these along with wedding planning if you are really good at one or many of these side skills.
- Try to Achieve Hands-on Experience – Hands-on experience is extremely vital to be a wedding planner. So you can visit the website of various wedding planning companies to check if there are internship opportunities. You can also plan internship at the nearby hotel for experience. Volunteering at wedding planning companies and planning events for free for friends and family can also help you augment your experience and also get you some practice which will help you improve eventually.
- Develop Your People Skills – Being a wedding planner is all about interacting with people. Besides working with the couple (who are potentially stressed) you also have to deal with people in entertainment, catering, venue and decorations. Moreover you also have to mingle and deal with the rowdy relatives during the event. So it is a must that you–
- Be a good listener so that you can understand what your clients want clearly and are able to deliver them with a memorable event
- Be cool and calm as the weddings can be extremely emotional and stressful and you must remain collected all through the process
- Build Network and Nurture Relationships – Wedding planners bring to the table their style, expertise and experience. But bringing together your own set of uber-talented vendors can make you an A lister. You should also have a wide variety of vendors and suppliers for every style and budget. So assemble your dream team of vendors to meet the specific needs of your clients.
Remain in touch with them which will help you be on top of your game and also give you the power of bargain when you need it.
Not just your vendors and suppliers, you should also catch up with your old clients often, so that they have you in mind the next time they think of organising an event.
- Be Organised – You will be needed to go for intense multi-tasking for wedding planning. From the cakes to flowers to decorations, you have to arrange for everything within budget and time. So a paper or digital calendar becomes your best friend as planner. However, you should also do the following –
- Make sure you can be easily reached. Answer you emails and have your phone with you all the time.
- Create separate files for every client and write the important dates and every vendor transaction and client requests categorically.
- Have a Contingency Plan – There are 101 things that can go wrong in a wedding. The mishaps include anything from the bridal gown getting stained to a drunken uncle creating ruckus to weather changes and staff calling in sick on the crucial day. That is why you must have a contingency plan for most of these mishaps that come to your mind. But don’t let your clients know that immediately. That will stress them out. Just assure them that you have got them covered and execute your plan B when the need arises.
- Keep Upgrading Yourself – Just getting certified and gaining experience are not enough. You have to stay at par with the current trends in a plethora of domains including fashion, décor, customs and even sales and marketing. So you should keep educating and upgrading yourself.
These are some of the secrets or essential skills, as shared by the experts of reputed event management company, that you must develop to be a successful wedding planner, sustain the competition and eventually create your own niche in the industry.