You may have been to a few weddings, perhaps a lot of weddings. You might have planned your own wedding, or helped someone close to you plan theirs. You might think you know what you need to know to plan weddings and to a certain extent, if you have been around weddings, you do. But planning weddings for friends, family and yourself, is very different to planning weddings for a couple, who have hired and paid you, to do a job. When the person/s getting married are a paid client, there are expectations that you are a professional at what you do; which means you have to be able to demonstrate professionalism as a Wedding Planner and there is more to being able to do that, than having helped plan a few weddings.
One of the ways you can demonstrate your professionalism to a paid client is by gaining a qualification. You may know yourself that when hiring professionals to provide a service, seeing their credentials helps you to feel more comfortable about using their services. Reviews and testimonials also help paying customers to feel more comfortable, but these come over time and experience of planning weddings. In the early days of working as a professional (whether in your own business, or as an employee in someone else’s), its your qualification that is going to help reassure someone that you can do what you say you can do.
But a piece of paper alone won’t demonstrate your professionalism to a prospective client. The confidence you project, that comes from ‘knowing your stuff’, is what will win over most clients. Brides and Grooms interviewing you for the role of Wedding Planner are looking for guidance and security. They are handing something very special over to you and what they want to feel comfortable with, is that you know what you are doing and won’t let them down on the day. They want to feel reassured and taken care of in every way.
Confidence in what you are doing comes from experience, but it also comes from having a sound set of skills and knowledge that relate to the job you are doing and that is another very good reason to have a qualification behind you. It is the skills and knowledge you gain from a course, that turns that piece of paper into something meaningful that you can offer to the clients you hope to work with.
Let’s take our Certificate in Wedding Planning as an example of skills and knowledge. This course is really the foundation of most of our Wedding courses and it is the foundation of working as a Wedding Planner too. This course covers four essential skills and knowledge competencies:
Wedding Planning Fundamentals – this is where we introduce you to the Wedding industry and help you to understand Weddings from the point of view of a Wedding Planner rather than as a Bride/Groom, or guest. You will also learn about developing a theme or concept for a Wedding in this section.
Budgets, Consultations & Proposals – before you work with a couple, you first need to turn them into your client. This begins with the consultation phase and this is also where you are going to learn more about the client and their vision for their day; information you will need when they become your client. This information is also going to help you sell your services to the client in the form of a proposal and in this part of the course we teach you what you need to know about each of these phases so you can move the couple from being a prospect, to your new client. Budgets and weddings go hand in hand and in this section of the course you are going to learn how to work with them too.
Suppliers and Your Team – no matter how good you are as a Wedding Planner, you cannot do it alone. You will need a support team and Vendors to contribute to different aspects of the Wedding. Even a small wedding can involve a number of Vendors and a team of Planners and Assistants working on it. In this section of the course you are going to learn everything you need to know to confidently work with and manage a network of people on a client’s wedding.
Wedding Production – in this section you will learn more about working with Vendors and we go deep into the day itself and teach you what you need to know to be able to bring all of the planning together successfully on Wedding Day. This section will bring it all together and give you a great understanding of the detail you need to be across as a Wedding Planner.
Via readings, videos, podcasts, projects and assignments and under the guidance of a Tutor you will work through each of these sections (16 course modules). Each part of the course is designed so that you learn essential skills and knowledge that will enable you to confidently conduct client consultations, put forward winning proposals, work with clients through the months of planning, collaborate with vendors and manage your own team effectively, design and work with budgets and execute wedding days that fulfill the expectations of your clients. You will also design resources that you can use as a practicing Wedding Planner.
But most importantly, when you get that first enquiry after having Graduated from a course, you will be able to project confidence and say with certainty; yes I can do that for you!
Wedding Planning is just one of the qualifications we offer. If you would like to learn more about the skills and knowledge you will gain from doing any of our other courses, talk to one of our experience Course Advisors. They can take you through the modules in the courses in the same way I have here. You can connect with them via any of our regional campuses which you will find here.
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