How To Become a Wedding Planner

Weddings represent some of the most important occasions in our lives. They are days to express love for our partners, symbolising that we choose to dedicate the rest of our lives to one special person. Despite being only one day, weddings are planned long in advance. Wedding day planning can take months or even years. Behind every successful wedding is an experienced wedding planner!

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If you’re drawn to the magic and awe of a wedding day, you may have contemplated becoming a wedding planner yourself. Whether you have a passion for catering and think you could make someone’s menu extra special, or you think you have incredible organisational skills and you want someone else to benefit from them, there are numerous intricacies to becoming a wedding planner. 

Planning weddings is a challenging profession that demands dedication and determination. So, if you think you’ve got what it takes to become a professional wedding planner, we’ve produced a helpful guide to help you.

Professional wedding planners offer different levels of service. Their levels of service can be broken down into three main categories: 

A full-day planning service does exactly what you would expect: they plan and organise every aspect of the big day, from the icing on the cake to sorting out the guest list. 

As you may have guessed, partial planning involves organising certain aspects of the wedding but leaving some elements to the clients. 

The third and least inclusive service is on-the-day management planning. In this level of service, all that is provided is support on the day itself. 

Because full-day planning is the most all-encompassing service, we thought it would be appropriate to detail the typical duties involved in this level of service:

Effective and transparent communication with the happy couple is essential to understanding their budget, special requirements and vision for the event. 

A wedding planner must research new trends regarding the style of the dress, the decor of the venue and even the new and innovative styles of cake. You don’t want your wedding to be seen as dated or old-fashioned, so your wedding planner must keep up-to-date with the latest and best trends in the industry. 

Planning a wedding requires extensive negotiation with vendors such as florists, photographers, venue providers and caterers, which can produce unnecessary stress. It’s commonly accepted that the wedding planner will take charge of this. 

Weddings can become expensive rather quickly. As such, effective and thorough budget management is essential. A wedding planner should be able to manage finances, ensuring everything runs smoothly and efficiently. 

It’s often difficult to think of ideas, such as themes and wedding day attire. However, they say two minds are better than one. Wedding planners should be willing to offer their creative input in such scenarios.

Wedding planners should offer guidance concerning wedding traditions, best wedding day practices and etiquette. 

Wedding planners will create customised proposals outlining services and pricing based on client needs. Personalisation is one of the key components of wedding planning. 

Technically speaking, there is no universal qualification needed to become a wedding planner. The closest thing to an accepted qualification for wedding planners is a certificate or other form of qualification in event management, or more ideally a wedding planning-specific qualification. If you choose to go down the university or college route, joining societies and planning their events can be invaluable when it comes to becoming a wedding planner. It shows you can take the initiative and be proactive with your learning as well as giving you some much-needed experience. 

Another viable route is an apprenticeship in the events planning sector. The skills you require will indirectly help you in the career of wedding planning. 

Some would say that having experience is more important than any qualification. One way you can gain experience is through planning your own wedding, or the wedding of a family member or friend. If these options are not available, consider volunteering for a wedding planning or other event management company. 

To become a wedding planner, you will require certain traits and attributes, including: 

Wedding planning can be a stressful and challenging job. To become a wedding planner you must be able to demonstrate that you can remain calm under challenging conditions and can manage stress in a professional manner. 

Time management is always a brilliant skill, but it is particularly important when it comes to wedding planning. Timing is the key to a successful wedding. Ensuring the ceremony happens on time, the food is ready for the reception, and making sure that guests have enough time to arrive are all part of effective time management. 

A wedding planner must be able to communicate effectively with all manner of parties, from the clients and the vendors to the guests and their families. Effective communication is extremely important in a wedding planner. 

Juggling the many components of a wedding is never easy. You have to please your clients while making sure their desires are within the realm of possibility. Good organisational skills are essential to becoming a successful wedding planner. 

As a wedding planner, you will be managing someone else’s money, so being able to manage finances is extremely important. You will need a track record that proves you can stay within budget and invest money wisely. 

While you may think negotiating is reserved for professions such as sales and management, wedding planning requires an element of effective negotiation as well! As a wedding planner, you’ll be negotiating prices with suppliers and venues to get the best deal for your clients.

To be a wedding planner, you also need to indulge in your creative side. Other than the fact that you need to be creative when it comes to the theming of the wedding, you also have to be creative in how to solve ad-hoc problems. 

As a wedding planner, you will be in charge of all elements of the wedding. Because of this, you will need to keep your entrepreneurial spirit fresh. 

As we’ve already established, there is no surefire path to becoming a wedding planner. However, an advisable route would be:

As previously alluded to, getting certified or getting a formal education can be a great way to kickstart your career as a wedding planner organiser. 

Obtaining something like a diploma or degree increases your chances of securing more clients. After all, clients will feel more comfortable entrusting the planning of their big day to a certified professional. 

Many event planning or hospitality courses cover specific topics like contract negotiations, budget management, vendor relations expertise and marketing strategies. All of these are useful transferable skills.

Before tackling pretty much any task, you’ll want to do your research. Effective and thoughtful research increases your chances of making a successful application. 

Researching the wedding industry will help you to understand things like how to get your first client, what kind of planners are currently in demand, and what type of wedding planning matches your passion. Researching the wedding market helps to increase your chances of success and enables you to set achievable career goals. 

Hands-on experience is key when it comes to becoming a wedding planner. As previously stated, you can take on a prominent role in the planning of a friend or family member's wedding. Another common way to get experience is by garnering experience at an affiliate event-planning firm or by volunteering to shadow an already-established wedding planner. Not only does this help you to gain experience, but it also gives you a better insight into the daily activities and duties of a wedding planner.

Networking is great for developing your career. Besides the fact that meeting new people helps to develop your interpersonal skills, making contacts can put you on the frontline for future job openings and opportunities. 

Networking isn’t just great for your personal aspirations: it can help when it comes to booking people for the big day. Networking can put you in direct contact with florists, vendors and all manners of entertainers. Building a positive rapport with those you come into contact with helps to establish long-term relationships, increasing the likelihood of your projects going more smoothly, as well as boosting the chances of you booking their services in the future. 

They say learning to sell yourself is one of the hardest things to do, but finding an effective way to do so is a fantastic way to jumpstart your career in wedding planning. 

If you find marketing yourself challenging, you may wish to partake in a part-time marketing course to help develop and hone your advertising skills. To increase your visibility, consider employing a variety of strategies to market your skills (e.g., create an online photo gallery and link it to your portfolio, design business cards and distribute them to any contacts you make in the hospitality industry, etc.).

Before starting your career as a wedding planner, you should decide if you want to work for an already established firm or to go self-employed. This is an oft-forgotten step to becoming a wedding planner, but is very important. Understanding which career path you would prefer will help you better understand the obstacles you may face. 

Having an experienced person to turn to when you have a problem is always beneficial, and the wedding planning industry is no different. An experienced wedding planner can teach you the ropes as you encounter the realities of your day-to-day working life. They can offer informed instruction and impart their wisdom to you when needed. 

Wedding planning can be a lucrative career, with excellent progression opportunities and options for you to increase your salary as you gain more experience and build a reputation.

As with any career, progression can take time and require a lot of hard work. However, according to the National Careers Service, typical starting salaries for wedding planners range from £17,000 to £29,000 depending on prior experience. It’s worth noting that salaries can fluctuate greatly depending on your position and experience.

Hopefully, you feel as though you are now on the way to becoming the wedding planner you’ve always wanted to be. If you would like to take your next step to becoming a wedding planner, then why not enrol in our Wedding Planning Business Diploma Course? For the discounted price of £29 (instead of the original £127), you can learn how to have a successful wedding planning business. 

There’s also the option of Grow: our subscription service. With Grow Yearly, just £192 per year (i.e. £16 per month) will get you full access to our wedding planner course plus 11 other courses from our wider library, as well as 12 audio courses! Grow also comes with an in-built 10% reduction on printed materials and certificates, plus exclusive discounts and reward points that you can redeem for fantastic prizes.

So what are you waiting for? Enrol today!