If you’ve found yourself on this page, I don’t have to be a mind-reader to know that you’re interested in a career in Wedding Planning. But, should you become a Wedding Planner in 2022?

As a Wedding Planner myself I can tell you that for me, it’s an incredibly rewarding, creative and exciting career. I also love the flexible hours and the ability to decide how many and what type of clients I work with (because I have my own wedding business). But Wedding Planning can also be challenging, especially if you don’t know how to plan a wedding professionally. This blog post is going to help you decide if Wedding Planning is the career for you. It’s also going to help you create a step by step plan for how to become a Wedding Planner in 2022.

But before we get to that, you might be wondering, is now the right time to become a Wedding Planner.

Why There Has Never Been A Better Time To Become A Wedding Planner

Pre-COVID, the wedding industry worldwide was booming. 

then… Covid and things changed.

But not for long.

Here’s some stats to back that up!

According to Time, in a typical year, the US plays host to 2 million weddings, but as reported by The Knot, that figure fell to 1 million in 2020. The industry expects an increase of 20-25% in 2022 and further growth beyond that. In the UK the story is very similar and experts estimate that 200,000 weddings didn’t go ahead over the last two years and that this will lead to a boom in 2022/23. Online HR consulting company SEEK is predicting that the wedding industry in Australia will continue to bounce back with 16.5% job growth in event planning over the next five years.

What does this mean for you?

It’s simple. If you decide after reading this post that you want to be a Wedding Planner, NOW is the time to take action. It’s time to get trained and to get some experience.  Because you CAN become a successful Wedding Planner who works with happy clients. And you can do that without experiencing overwhelm, stress, fear of failure or imposter syndrome. You simply need to start and make a plan using my 5 strategies for becoming a professional Wedding Planner 2022.

And here’s some good news! These strategies will work for you even if you have little, or no event planning experience! 

You’re Going To Want To Keep Reading If:

• You’re curious about a Wedding Planning career but you need help with how to get started.
• You want to fast track your career and get experience, not spend months and more doing a course that doesn’t teach you how to plan a wedding.
• You’ve launched a wedding business but you’re not booking clients and you want to turn that around, pronto.
• You want to be a booked out Wedding Planner – whatever booked out means for you. You can plan weddings full time, part time or as a side hustle.

And you’re definitely going to want to keep reading if you’re ready to learn and implement the foundational steps you must take to become a professional Wedding Planner. By following the strategies I’m sharing, you’ll have taken the important first steps towards becoming a Wedding Planner who is well respected by Venues and other Vendors and who delivers an exceptional customer experience to every client from the very first wedding you ever plan.  

Strategy #1 – Decide If You Should Even Be A Wedding Planner.

This might seem like an ‘unusual’ strategy but trust me, this is where you need to start.  But before I get to why, let’s get clear on what a Wedding Planner does.

What does a Wedding Planner do?

A Wedding Planner is someone who helps a couple to plan their wedding and they’re usually there on the day to ensure that all of the planning comes together and the couple and their guests have a great day.

In the process of carrying out the role a good Wedding Planner becomes the couple’s advocate, trusted advisor, even counsellor.  Simply put, a Wedding Planner is someone who helps to alleviate the work of planning a wedding by sharing their knowledge, expertise and networks with a couple to help elevate the experience for them and ensure that every detail is covered and that the couple can actually enjoy their wedding day. 

Which brings us to the question of whether becoming a Wedding Planner is even the right step for you and why answering this question will help you to become a Wedding Planner.

Life is way too short to build a business or career around something that just isn’t a good fit for you. 

It’s simple really. You have to love what you do, especially when it comes to the wedding industry – our entire industry is built around love and passion and couples want to work with people who are invested in their love story. If you don’t feel that way about wedding planning (most of the time), it’s hard to fake it.

So let me ask you three questions to help you feel confident about pursuing Wedding Planning as a career.

Q1 – Do you LOVE planning things and being organised?

Yes? Great, you might be an amazing Wedding Planner.

But you’re also going to need to be really good at managing people, projects, deadlines and the occasional melt-down. How do you feel about that?

If you don’t love those things, or have experience with them that’s ok, these are all skills you can work on. But if the very thought of having to see a project through from start to finish makes your skin crawl, Wedding Planning may not be the right career for you.

But let’s make sure…onto the next question.

Q2- Do you LOVE styling spaces and making things look beautiful? 

Yes? Awesome, you could be a killer Wedding Planner who also offers styling and set up services – two very in demand skills in the wedding world right now.

No? That’s ok too, not all planners work as Stylists. And others spend time developing this skill over time. So answering no here is not a deal breaker.

What’s more important is your answer to the next question.

Q3 – Do you genuinely LOVE weddings and helping people?

Your answer here is probably the most important. Everything you will be called upon to do as a Wedding Planner or Designer and Stylist for that matter, is a learned skill. Additionally they’re skills that you nurture over time – no one is great at all of these things from their first or even fifth wedding. But you can’t fake enjoying weddings, collaborating with vendors and helping a couple and their guests to have an amazing wedding day. That’s got to be in your heart.

If it’s in yours, you’re in the right place my friend and becoming a Wedding Planner and helping couples to have the wedding day of their dreams is perfect for you. So stay with me!

Strategy #2 – If You’re Going To Do It – Commit To It

It’s time to do something that may make you feel a little uncomfortable. You might even be thinking to yourself, is this what I came here for?

But please stay with me… I promise this is an important step because nothing else I share here matters if you can’t take the time to commit to your goal of becoming a Wedding Planner.

I know this because I’ve seen a lot of people fail to reach this goal because they don’t commit to putting in the work.

Yes, I know you’re busy.

You probably don’t feel ready.

And, I know you’re thinking… “Well, maybe when I find some spare time I can look into this some more…”

But I’m calling you out on all of those things and anything else holding you back.

Because you don’t find time, you MAKE it.

And because things are never going to magically or significantly change… until you take the steps to change them.

You can watch all the webinars, listen to all the podcasts and download all the free guides you like, but until you stop and commit, it’s just not going to happen. 

So I want you to do one simple thing for yourself right now if you genuinely want to become a Wedding Planner. I want you to grab a post-it, and I want you to write on it “I AM A WEDDING PLANNER” and then stick it on your laptop,office wall, or bathroom mirror. Make that declaration to the universe and yourself that this is what you want, what you are working towards, and just watch how much easier it is to make it happen once you do.

Seriously, if you can’t do this one simple thing for your dreams… how will you ever expect yourself to do the actual work involved in getting there?

If you are like so many of the people I’ve coached over the years, you’ve already used up a lot of time thinking about becoming a Wedding Planner. It’s now time to direct your energy to the actions you need to take to become one.

Go on, what have you got to lose?

Step #3 – Be a Unicorn (seriously)

If you really want to step-up to become a Wedding Professional, not just someone who can plan a wedding, you need to become a “unicorn” in the wedding planning world.

Stay with me, this is not as hard or silly as it sounds.

And no, I don’t mean go and glue a glittery cone to your forehead (although I am not here to stop you if you really want either!).

No, what I mean by “be a unicorn” is that you need to become that rare and much sought after service provider. The kind of service provider clients dream about, but they currently don’t believe really exists… Because they are so rare. And how do you do that?

It comes down to really focusing on and committing to these two things:

1. Knowing your stuff (and by stuff I mean the ins and outs of planning a wedding), so you can give a couple advice and guidance as they plan their wedding and be the support they need on the day itself.
2. Adopting a ‘nurture my craft’ attitude… which simply means ditching the belief that you have to be a great Wedding Planner from your first wedding, because you know that whilst you’ll do the very best you can at every wedding, each wedding is also an opportunity for valuable lessons and growth. 

Skills + Attitude = Unicorn (aka Professional Wedding Planner)

Too often I see people investing too much time, money and energy into their online persona rather than in becoming a Unicorn. And to really be able to step up to that next level, to be a true Wedding Pro who can rely on referrals, reviews and testimonials for future business, you must commit to becoming better and better at what you do with each wedding you work at. A fabulous styled shoot, gorgeous website and clever branding can only take you so far – these things will never disguise the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing as a Wedding Planner. 

But knowing what to do as a Wedding Planner doesn’t require you to take a long drawn-out course or complete a Diploma or Certificate. Instead you just need a tried and tested system for planning weddings and access to professional resources. Stay tuned for more about that.

Strategy #4 – Gain Experience

Before I dive into this strategy, repeat after me… I am not going to let a lack of experience stop me from getting started.

Why?

Because it’s essential that you get out there and start planning weddings.

That is experience!

I don’t know a Wedding Planner who hasn’t learned from experience – the good experiences and the not so good. That’s why experienced Wedding Planners tell you on their website how long they’ve been doing this for. As I’ve already highlighted in this post, you’ll stand out as a Wedding Planner when you approach every wedding as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Which means you need to start planning weddings.

But of course as I’ve also said, someone’s wedding isn’t your classroom.

When someone hires you they expect you to be able to fulfil your commitment to them. Most couples don’t hire a wedding planner because they want perfection, but they will be expecting a certain level of service from you.

So you’ve got to know the basics and then some. Which means; fully understanding what planning a wedding entails. If you’ve ever seen one of those 12 month wedding planning checklists, I’m here to tell you, they don’t come close to outlining what you’ll need to do to plan someone’s wedding (and stand out in all the right ways doing it). But they are a reasonable guide to the tasks that have to be completed from the moment someone gets engaged. So you can start there, but to project confidence as a Wedding Planner you’ll need more in depth knowledge and resources that you can use with your couples to ensure your dotting all i’s and crossing all t’s.

This is the ‘gaining skills’ or really knowing your stuff piece of your Unicorn Success Strategy.

This secret to standing out as a Wedding Planner is exactly why I created my Simple Framework for Planning Weddings – which I share in Wedding Planner School. It’s designed in such a way that you can execute each step of the framework even if you don’t have experience. It’s a fast track to starting as a Wedding Planner so you can build on your knowledge as you do more and more wedding planning.

But my framework isn’t the only thing you can be doing to help build on your knowledge so you can stand out as a new Wedding Planner.

YOU CAN GAIN WEDDING PLANNING & STYLING EXPERIENCE BY:

• Volunteering at Events – it doesn’t matter what type of event, or what you’re doing there – any type of event offers you an opportunity to observe and learn from others. And whilst planning a wedding is different from planning, let’s say a Charity event, there are certain things that are the same. Use this type of experience to gain an understanding of how to work through planning tasks and to be part of the execution of an event.  I got my start in Corporate and Charity event planning and I use a lot of the things I learned doing that type of work, to help me plan a couple’s wedding.
• Reaching out to Wedding Planners for opportunities to work with them. Most Wedding Planners are grateful to have extra hands on Wedding Day and being there on the day, even if you’re shadowing someone or helping out with setting up, provides an opportunity to observe how all of the planning comes together and what resources are being used in the coordination of the day.
• Interning with a Wedding Planner or Catering Company. Internships offer a valuable opportunity to immerse yourself in all of the work that goes into planning weddings.
• Volunteering to help friends and family plan their special occasions. This is one of my favourite ways for you to gain experience and if you’re following a proven method for planning weddings and using professional resources this option will help you to learn as you go.
• Offering your services within Wedding Planning forums at a reduced price making it clear that you have the knowledge to plan weddings but need experience – again this one relies on you having more than a basic knowledge and understanding of the steps it takes to professionally plan a wedding.
• Soaking up knowledge by attending industry networking events, workshops, masterclasses and virtual  summits.

Strategy #5 Work On Your Confident Self

Have you ever heard the saying ‘Confidence is really just competence’? 

It’s true. 

Sure, the idea of stepping into your inner unicorn and doing that first wedding might seem daunting right now.  But these scary feelings are only scary because this is all kinda new.

You don’t have the competence yet to feel confident in any of this. 

And that’s OK, because that is an easy fix and exactly what we help you with in Wedding Planner School where we share our Simple Framework for Planning Weddings + professional Wedding Planning Resources that you can use when working with your own clients.

Because like I said, having the confidence to do all these things, like they are just second nature, is a matter of investing a time in gaining the relevant skills, and getting support to hold your hand and cheer you on, too (also what we are great at inside Wedding Planner School).

But what about some other actions you can take to project confidence whilst you’re gaining competence. Because let’s face it, Wedding Planners need to be leaders who can command a situation and get the best out of their team (which includes all of the vendors a couple has hired). There will be times when you must negotiate sticky situations, and calm frayed nerves. 

Yes, experience helps to build confidence. But the level of experience you need to feel 100% confident in every situation you’ll encounter on a wedding day, can take years to gain. 

So let me tell you a story that might help with this.

I’ve struggled with confidence most of my life, until a conversation I had with a fellow Wedding Planner in Las Vegas. I was sat beside this Planner at an event dinner and to be honest I was mortified. She had years of experience under her belt and I was embarrassed for her that she had to sit next to me. I must have projected this because she kindly shared a story with me about her own lack of confidence. This astounded me as I had seen her confidently take a stage earlier in the day and command an audience of hundreds. What she helped me to understand over the course of that evening is that confidence, like every other skill, is something that needs perpetual attention and practice. Anyone can be confident. It’s just a matter of allowing yourself to get there by talking to yourself in the right way, being authentic, and targeting consistent issues that chip away your confidence. 

This is something I continue to work at and if you suffer from a lack of confidence, I encourage you to do the same thing.

Which is why I love following our Simple Framework For Planning Weddings – when you have a proven method for planning weddings to follow + tried and tested resources and a supportive community around you where you can go to ask your Wedding Planning questions in real time, you can feel more confident about the work you’re doing.