How To Start a Wedding Planner? – a Simple Business Plan

Come wedding season, and it spells money. What with all the shopping, planning, and staying away from drinks makes a bride-to-be cranky and nervous. She could use the services of a wedding planner or wedding consultant. That’s where you come in with your talents.

Learn the Skills

Learning the business while employed by someone else is a great way to get started in the wedding industry. For many venues and caterers, event coordination is an entry-level position, allowing you to gain experience in a stable work environment without the inherent risks of business ownership. You’ll also have the opportunity to work alongside a variety of wedding vendors, from bands to photographers to cake bakers.

Most importantly, you’ll be exposed to a wide variety of weddings and events. You’ll learn the many wedding protocols and traditions and will perform many of the essential tasks of a wedding planner, such as creating event timelines and managing the vendor team, before you venture on your own. On-site wedding coordination is a viable career path that may serve your interests well.

Make Your Business Legitimate and Legal

Consulting with an attorney is always a smart idea when starting a company of any kind. They can provide invaluable advice when it comes to determining which business structure (sole proprietorship, LLC, or corporation) will work for you, as well as registering your business in the state of your choice. They can also review documents you plan to use in your business, such as your client contract.

Your Expertise

Before you start your business you will need a list of resources, preferably those who have lots of greens in their pocket, and proper negotiating skills with the various vendors involved. You should know of the perfect place to have a wedding, plan it in sync with the bride and the groom, good referrals for wedding photography ( hey, you might just get a cut there too!), tie-ups with good caterers, florists, and wedding bands/DJs.

Additionally, if you have a list of the best shopping places for the brides to be, it would be a huge bonus. You can tie up with wedding one-stop stores and get a commission from them for your referrals. Remember, when it’s a wedding, people look at the grandeur and the kind of food served. So whatever you do, should be up to the mark and top-notch.

Get Prepared 

You should have a flair for organizing an event. Your clients would be those who want their wedding to be once of a kind event and would leave no stones unturned in making the wedding a grand success. And since weddings are a mighty emotional event for everyone involved, you should know how to keep your cool and stave off unnecessary criticisms (and be sure there will be) smoothly. Go on, cash in on the weddings!

Becoming a wedding planner requires absolutely no startup costs. You can get started with a list of resources and your telephone. You might want to consider investing in the printing of brochures and business cards, though these costs are not monumental. For starters, you can offer your services for free to a friend or a relative. You can request them to recommend you for other friends. As your client list grows, so does the money. Be sure to have an enthusiastic outlook, and a friendly demeanor.

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