Why A Wedding Planner Should Learn To Keep Calm Under Pressure?

managing wedding planning stress

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

 
 

Planning a wedding is an exciting affair. Being a wedding planner involves managing and ensuring that everything runs smoothly to make it a perfect day. You need to build a lot of skills before starting an actual wedding planning business. Along with knowing the ins and outs of weddings and the ways to manage the tasks within the budget, patience is also essential to orchestrate this special day.

As a wedding planner, you need to set a master plan to sketch out everything which needs to be done and by what deadline. Your clients will expect everything to be perfect, so it is essential to remain calm under pressure. There may often be tense situations, but you should be able to deal with this professionally. If you maintain the calm mental outlook there are high chances of being successful and accomplishing the goals. This article will address the reasons why a wedding planner should learn to keep calm under pressure:

1.You develop Patience

Staying calm in stressful situations can make you learn to develop patience as well. Through patience, you can easily deal with severe conditions and it helps overcome all the obstacles that come your way. Also, it will decrease the stress level and keeps you relax so that you can easily organize every detail of your client’s wedding, making it a seamless event!

2. You Develop Optimism

You can become successful by staying calm because you develop optimism. Your optimistic outlook makes you see positive things in all situations and motivates you to make effective decisions to succeed.

3. You Eliminate Negative Self-Talk

Staying calm during the wedding chaos can make you work better as you eliminate negative self-talk from your life. To achieve success, you need to focus on positive self-talk. It will let you know how to find the middle ground in situations and balance the reality with hope for future change.

4. You Develop a Positive Mindset

There is always a chance that something will go wrong. Fret not; there is a possible solution for every problem. With a positive mindset, you can easily deal with everyday situations and issues that arise in wedding plans. It helps you to move forward to continually try to think out of the box and find the best innovative solutions to problems in your profession. Keeping calm under pressure can make you successful as you develop a positive mindset through your stressful experiences. With all this, you can easily handle the adverse situations as you don’t become victims of circumstance instead become heroes of your true reality.

wedding planner

5. You Become a Team Player

The best thing about staying calm during your wedding planning is that you become a team player. You will learn and develop the skills of working well with others and building a team to handle situations actively. If you are aware of making a good interaction with different types of people and can work together with each other, you can make things happen for your clients and yourself. Being calm makes you more focused, and you can easily assess the situation, and according to it , you should work to create positive change which helps you to accomplish a common goal.

Final Thought

Remaining calm in stressful situations is the sign of a successful wedding planner. All these skills you will have to learn in time and it will surely give you a force to reckon in the wedding planning industry. Of course, it will take time to reach there. But you can learn all the nitty-gritties of wedding planning if you invest in a professional wedding planning institute. Being a part of live internships and being groomed for the very demanding industry of wedding planning will help you out when starting your career. Such a formal training will teach you how to perform smoothly under pressure and let you start your wedding planning career with a firm foot.

5 Important Things to Discuss While Planning Your Wedding In 2023

Wedding Planning Checklist

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

The wedding industry is burgeoning and the need for a wedding planner continues to increase. Be it catering or wedding decorations, designing invitations or wedding favors, wedding planners will fight for your wedding vision and keep everything on track. And as a wedding planner, you have to always be equipped with all the essentials to glam up your client’s wedding.

But the key to a successful wedding lies in effective planning and that is possible only if you understand the client’s requirement list accurately. It is extremely important that you ask all the right questions before planning your client’s big day. Of course, if you have had a chance at obtaining formal training for wedding planning, you would have your bases covered on what are the questions you should ask your client before planning for his/her wedding. Formal training will give you a taste of the real deal before stepping out into such a demanding industry. At TWS, we have a strong focus on educating our students on dealing with clients and asking the right questions. However, if you haven’t had the chance to invest in formal training, worry not! Here are a few questions you should ask your client while planning his/her wedding-

1. Budget of the wedding –

Weddings range from small intimate ones to large starlit ones. That is why it is essential that you are aware of your client’s budget and plan accordingly. You can ask your client to give an approximate budget to you and you can break it into a ‘per person’ budget. This way your client will get a clear idea about the costs involved.

2. Number of guests attending the event –

Once you are done breaking down the budget ‘per person’ wise, you can now ask your client to give you an idea of the number of people attending the event. Realize that there are always some last-minute add-ons and hence always keep room for some extra guests and start setting your budget accordingly.

3. Date and the venue –

This question sounds very basic but it is infact the most important. Make sure that your client gives you a clear answer about the venue or at least the options that he has zeroed down to. Alternatively suggest him places and take him for venue recce and let his indecisiveness rest.

Make sure that if your client is too confused about the location. You must put a break on your horses as the entire planning should start only after the venue has been set right. Assist your client and do enough research to fit his budget. Let his doubts disappear before you hit the floor.

 

4. Top priorities for the wedding –

Now that you have a budget and guest list in your hand, it is the time to ask the client about the ‘must haves’ at his wedding. Make sure that you evaluate the budget at the beginning only and make it clear if it’s possible to add various other elements that the client might require. For example, your client wants a particular style of flower decoration but if you feel it won’t fit the budget, discuss it and have it clarified in the beginning to avoid any disappointments later.

5. Things the client wants to avoid –

Just like priorities, people have their aversions too. Imagine that you have planned for a particular band to play in the wedding but then your client says no for it and it reflects on the budget as the other options are just way too expensive for client’s budget. Now here’s a situation that should have addressed right in the beginning.

Such a ‘Need this/ need this not list’ might sound obvious but can play a huge role in deciding the wedding as per the client’s taste and satisfaction and avoiding any last-minute disappointments.

So, let all the clients call out your name in unison once their wedding shenanigans start and let your client get the utmost satisfaction from your work with the help of such effective planning.

New Year, New Career: What A Career In Wedding Planning Can Do For You?

Career at The Wedding School

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

What is a better way to stand out from the loop of generic career choices thrown by the society, than choosing a career in the prestigious wedding planning industry? It’s 2019 and wedding planning is definitely one of the best career options for all you ambitious individuals out there.

It’s no news that planning a wedding calls for major stress. A wedding planner is a boon to such stressed out couples, and hence the tremendous rise in demand for wedding planners. Starting from finalizing the venue and vendors to designing the invitation cards, from hiring caterers to choosing the flower arrangements – the planner in question manages it all. Negotiation, planning and organizing skills will take you a long way in this business.

When setting foot into the world of wedding planning, you’ll have two options – start a business of your own with complete ownership or you can start working for another wedding planner.

Why Wedding Planning Is An Excellent Career Option

Truth be said – the wedding planning business will forever be an evergreen business; people will never stop getting hitched and when it comes to Indian weddings, the amount of cash that you spend on your marriage decides your economic status.

Whether you start your own independent business or work under someone, it’s a win-win situation either ways. The former calls for a good business mind and requires spending long hours in the office and keeping your employees on their toes to meet the demands of the client. In the initial days, you’ll have to be constantly on your feet. However, after you build up a skillful rapport, you’ll have enough manpower that’ll be a command away to materialize your planned-out wedding from the blue prints to the real world.

The latter however involves working under an employer and meeting the wants of the clients as instructed by your employer.

Why This Is The Right Time To Become A Wedding Planner

The Indian wedding industry is growing as we speak. There are several startups out there that are looking out for refined individuals to help run their business successfully. Small scale, medium scale or large scale- all these weddings have been demanding to be sought after by reputed and skilled wedding planners. So, if you talk about job opportunities, there is this vast sea of opportunity that is waiting for you to dive in.

The wedding planning career can’t be compared to the norm 9 to 5 job or any other business in fact. As far as working hours, this is a very demanding job. Essentially, a wedding goes on for several days, yet the arrangements for the same begins a long time ahead. Nowadays, with the idea of destination wedding, wedding planners frequently end up traveling a ton for their work.

For somebody freshly out of college, the normal pay ought to be somewhere close to Rs 12,000 and Rs 15,000. As they start networking and winning the trust of their customers, their business will flourish. For somebody with five years of experience in this industry, the pay will be about Rs 30,000.

How To Get A Jumpstart In Your Wedding Planning Career

Here are a few ways you can get a jumpstart in your wedding planning career –

  • Invest in professional training in wedding planning. This would set you apart from other hobbyists and will help you start your career with a firm foot in wedding planning. Having an experience with Hospitality and Event Management helps you with the experience which would have otherwise taken you quite a long time to learn. It will likewise enable you to form connections at an early age.
  • As a wedding planner, you should have strong networking skills. To be successful in this field, you should be approachable and open to opinions of your clients towards the marriage-related traditions of various ethnic gatherings.  You need a decent sense of style to give things a tasteful intrigue. Great organizing skills alongside an efficient skill to negotiate and manage situations will take you a long way in this field.
  • While wedding planning is an area of specialization of event management, great number of the top most wedding planners enlists individuals who specializes in requisites like catering, mocktail and cocktail preparation, flower arrangement and in ethnic design. A few expert affiliations and organizations offer certification in them. This will help you get job opportunities if added to your CV.

How To Stay Motivated As A Wedding Planner?

Staying Motivated

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

Being a wedding planner is indeed one of the most-desired vocations. Planning the most special day for someone is so satisfying. The parties, the planning, the new people, the excitement and celebrations all around indeed gives you an adrenaline rush. The job is thrilling and often well-paying. It is not just the excessive physical labor you put in, being a wedding planner strains you mentally too, maybe more. You may not get due credit from most of your clients. Also, weddings are emotionally charged up, as a wedding planner you constantly need to be on your toes and calm everyone around you. But this constant planning, organizing and meeting deadlines can also become daunting at times. So much so, that you may often want to hang your boots! You may wonder why you ever wanted to be a wedding planner.

All this can be really intimidating, and it is not rocket science to understand that unless you are happy you cannot be creative, which is extremely important when it comes to wedding planning. If you too are struggling to stay motivated as a wedding planner read on.

wedding planning

Keep Learning

Even if you become the best wedding planner you still need to keep learning. Keep attending workshops and exhibitions, there’s always something new to learn. Attend parties, read books, look around. Do not be content with what You know. A broader vision really goes a long way.

Take It Easy

Too much work and tension can be detrimental to your creativity. Remember your worrying is not going to help you at all. Rather than the more tensed, you are, the worse it would be. Always Try and take it easy. Plan your schedule in such a way that you can organize and plan well in advance. Deadlines can be unavoidable in the wedding industry but that doesn’t mean you cannot solve them. No matter how big the problem is, a calm mind Will help you reach the solution quicker.

Look After Yourself

Take out time for yourself, sleep enough hours and most importantly do not miss your meals. Even the brightest of minds need fuel for energy. Wedding planning is anything but routine. You need to be creative and trendy with your ideas. Everyone wants a ‘never seen before’ wedding after that you need to have an open, happy and relaxed mind. Indulge in a hobby, do something that makes you happy, something that can take off your mind from the work pressure.

Music

Though it may sound strange having a piece of good background music can do wonders to your mood. Every song has the capacity to provoke you as an individual. Whenever you are planning or organizing or delegating responsibilities listen to good music something that cheers you up and makes you feel light. Encourage your team members to do the same.

wedding school

Learn To Work Without Breaks

Wedding planning is an extremely hectic and demanding industry. You might not find any time in between events, and you might feel overwhelming at first.  A lot of last-minute issues can be mitigated with proper planning, but you need to develop a penchant for learning without breaks. You can definitely take small breaks in between, but the norm would hectic schedules day after day. If you feel your job is taking a toll on you head out for a weekend vacation. Do anything and everything to plan ahead and stay charged up and motivated at all times.

Visual Motivation

When you are struggling to stay motivated having visual motivation around you can be an energy booster. Keep positive and motivating quotes as your screensaver on your phone and your computer. Put up signboards in your office that do not let you feel low or dejected. If everything else fails, put a picture of your family in your office, remember your hard work is also for them.

Learn To Let Go

Many times, you will come across clients who would just not appreciate what you do for them. Some may even frown and the end of a fantastic and successful wedding. Just do your best and do not let any negative feelings bother you. Some people can never be happy no matter how hard you try you will not be able to impress them. Disassociates yourself from such people. With such clients, it’s better to have written communication.

Finally, Get Professionally Trained

Your formal education in the field wedding planning helps you understand the ups and downs of this profession. The internship that you undergo gives you a platform where you understand the different challenges that this job involves. It not only helps in finding ways to stay motivated but also helps you in finding the path that you need to follow.  When you are focused and have a goal, the journey, despite being difficult, continues.

Difficult times and stressful situations occur in every profession. Every job has its own set of challenges. With a smile on your face think of the times when you wished to be where you are today. No matter how difficult things become, remember, “This too shall pass!”

How Successful Wedding Planners Stay Organized

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

Wedding planning is an exciting vocation, and for many, it is a dream job! This glittering and gleaming business is surely lucrative and glamorous, with its own set of challenges and hardships. And there definitely has been a fair share of budding wedding planners who have taken up this profession to turn their hobby into an occupation. But starting a wedding planning company is not easy. It takes a lot of hard work to stay in the business. Unless you can handle the high-pressure situations that may arise on an everyday basis, surviving this industry might not be as easy as it seems. And often it boils down to how organized you are in your endeavor.

Organizing a wedding perfectly is one of the biggest challenges every wedding planner faces. According to the best wedding planners in the industry, having impeccable organizational skills is the key to becoming successful in this industry. For many of the wedding planners, the experience that they acquire with each wedding they organize is a crucial component that helps them become a better wedding planner over the years. Wedding Planning is by a wide margin one of the most stressful jobs out there. One of the key components to which this stress can be credited is the plethora of tasks that the job incorporates. It’s a job that starts even before the agreement is signed. From introductory pitch, concept, to the actual wedding plan, it is hard for wedding planners to keep up a consistent workflow, overwhelmed by the responsibilities and magnitude of every wedding planning task. Organizing a wedding takes months of dedicated preparation, foresight, and timing and as always, when it comes to organizing a wedding, there’s so much that is to be done. Every wedding planner needs to have an organized system that helps them in prioritizing the various aspects of the wedding, without ignoring even the tiniest of details. Many planners have a specially made planning calendar that keeps on top of their planning requirements. Along these lines, here’s a little something to assist you. Look at these 6 tips to assist you with remaining organized while planning your next wedding:

Define and Decide

Before starting to plan a wedding and beginning with set assignments, it is important that you have a vision in your mind and set a timeline to complete it. Define a direction and settle on a strategy for the direction. You should be clear as far as the direction you need to go, the sort of wedding you have to plan, and the things you have to do to complete the tasks. Therefore, the initial step to getting organized is to define an objective and choose a game plan to achieve the same.

Creating Event Binders

Being organized can be a big boon for a wedding planner. A wedding planner’s biggest job, after all, is planning. Not keeping a record of all the expenses that are being done can easily throw him off the budget. Keeping track of every vendor’s products and services is also of utmost importance. Creating wedding planning binders is probably the most efficient way to stay organized at this stage.

Ideally, each event and/or program should have its own binder. Depending on the complexity of your event, your binder can include several sections, including:

  • Itinerary/Agenda
  • Key Contacts
  • Banquet Event Orders
  • Entertainment
  • Lodging/Rooming List
  • Attendees
  • Communications
  • Contracts
  • Activities
  • Arrivals/Departures
  • Gifts
  • Budget
  • Miscellaneous

Define Tasks Of The Day:

The objective you set in terms of planning and executing a wedding is pertinent to a bigger picture, the events leading up to the wedding, and the final  D-day. To accomplish that last objective, you have to choose smaller milestones that you have to accomplish. Choose a task you want to finish within a week, settle on the work that has to be done during the day to finish the set objective of the week. Delegate these tasks to your team. You can go old school with rosters or you can utilize advanced formats like google sheets or group messaging tools for the delegation of tasks.

Utilizing Event Planning Software

While your event binders should include all of the most important details of each event in hard copy, the rest of your reference notes, ideas, and correspondence should also be kept organized and together. In today’s age of technology and widespread internet access, online tools like Google Sheets can provide a medium to plan and organize all aspects of wedding planning.

Keep A Networking Spreadsheet

Finish each workday by writing down the name, title, and contact of each individual you’ve met. There will probably come a time when that relationship will be valuable later on! Or on the other hand, in case you don’t think you can keep up a spreadsheet in the long term, choose one social media tool that you can use for business and ensure you connect with or follow your new contacts right away. Additionally, keep a master contact sheet with your most favored vendors directly inside your wedding planning binder. When it comes time to employ them for your next wedding you’ll already have ideas, menus, and contact data conveniently laid out.

Evaluate

All the planning and organizing is futile if you don’t learn from your errors. After each wedding, it is imperative to assess your approach and learn from it. Realize what worked and what didn’t. Understand what turned out badly in terms of execution and how much time each task took up. Change your approach and strategy accordingly. Updating your strategies is the most ideal approach to stay organized. Each wedding planner has their own system of work. Some like updating things consistently while some prefer to do tasks in bulk. The final outcome must be a well planned, top-notch wedding.

Investing In Professional Training

For many of us, organizational skills are something that we are born with. But this doesn’t mean that we cannot polish what we have. There are some popular institutes that offer wedding planning programs. These courses give hands-on experience to every student. There are numerous weddings that they work-on under the guidance of mentors. These mentors who train them help them in learning the basics by working in the field. Many programs also offer internships which proved to be a big benefit for the binding wedding planners. Be it any profession having detailed knowledge about the tricks of the trade, even before entering the market, can be a big bonus. It not only adds to your personal enrichment but also helps in adding to your portfolio. Enrolling yourself into such a program can greatly help to kick start your wedding planning business.

In the end, how you organize your notes, documents, and correspondence is up to you and every professional wedding planner has their own system that works for them and their team. The most important factor should always be accessibility and readiness of information and making sure it is always kept organized. A lot comes with experience, but in the end, every successful wedding planner has one thing in common, and that is perfect organizational skills

Building Up Interpersonal Skills- Why Is It Important For A Wedding Planner?

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

If there is one thing that Indians love, it is Weddings! Indian weddings have an aura that makes them so remarkable and continues to captivate people from all over the world.

With changing times, wedding planners have become an inseparable part of Indian weddings today. More and more people are hiring wedding planners to plan one of the biggest days in their lives. This has led to a whopping increase in the demand of the wedding planners. Today, there seems to be an abundance of wedding planners in the market, however, there might not be many who would have formed a lifelong relationship with their clients. So, what is it that makes a wedding planner a popular choice?

When it comes to hiring a wedding planner, many people look for a complete package. A wedding planner may present the best of ideas, but maybe he is too fixated with them and doesn’t pay much attention to what the client really wants. One of the most important qualities of a successful wedding planner is his interpersonal skills.

When somebody hires a wedding planner, they expect him to turn their biggest dream into a reality. A wedding is not just a get together with friends and family, it is a social obligation, a status symbol, a reflection of someone’s family background and traditions. When a wedding is planned there is a lot at stake. It is therefore imperative for a wedding planner to be an outstanding communicator. There is a lot of talking that is to be done. He should not only be able to put forward his ideas in the most pleasant way but also be open to suggestions and innovations that his clients give to him.

wedding planning skills

Having excellent communication skills also gives him an edge above his competitors as one of the main jobs of a wedding planner is to keep things flowing in a positive and calm manner. There may be many high-pressure situations during a wedding, having the ability to stay resilient and calm is something that comes only with good training and exposure to such situations.

When an amateur wedding planner enters the industry, the journey to the top is a long-long one. This is where formal education in the field of wedding planning can do wonders in helping you kickstart your wedding planning business. There are institutes that provide diploma courses in wedding planning. Enrolling yourself into one will help you in getting first-hand experience, even before you begin your career. The internship that you undergo will help you in the understanding of events as well as clients that would be dealing with throughout your career.

Having good interpersonal skills cannot only help in building a rapport with your client, but it will play a key role in building strong ties with vendors and other associates. After all, a wedding planner without an efficient team can never be a successful one. When you have strong ties with people, there is trust and interdependence, which can play a key role in planning a flawless wedding.

Being a wedding planner is indeed a stressful job, but it is also the most rewarding. When it comes to carving a successful path through this glittering industry, you need to hone your interpersonal skills to help smoothen your journey. Your formal education in this field will go a long way in helping you achieve this goal.

With time and experience we all acquire certain abilities, but when it comes to making your mark in the business, the sooner you sharpen your interpersonal skills, the better for you and your career in Wedding Planning!

5 Ways To Stress Free Wedding Planning

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

The reason people hire a wedding planner is to make their wedding day a special and unforgettable event for them as well as everyone who attends it. Hiring a wedding planner gives them the best of both the worlds. They are involved in every small decision that is made, yet at the same time they get the luxury to sit back and relax, while you, the Wedding Planner does everything.

For many, the idea of planning a wedding seems very exhilarating, but, in reality it is nothing short of a Herculean task. There has to be a flow and tempo in a wedding and as a wedding planner there is so much you have to do. With so many things to plan and coordinate, it may often take a toll on you, the wedding planner. Here is a list of 5 ways to stress free wedding planning for a wedding planner.

  • Spending Time with your Clients
    The first and foremost step of an easy-going wedding is to know your client. Spend time with the bride or groom-to-be and the families in order to get to know them and get a clear picture of what exactly are they looking for. Give ideas but do not be too dominating when doing so. It is after all, their wedding. Discuss the blueprint of your plans with them and go ahead only when they okay it. You would have to make a million decisions, so talk through every aspect of the wedding with them colour schemes, fancy lights, invites, menu and even the chair cover if they wish to.
  • Manage the Budget
    One of your biggest challenges is going to be managing the budget. Having a budget doesn’t mean being miser all along, even a millionaire’s wedding has to have a budget. It simply means that you need to have a perspective and plan everything around it. Provide a realistic assessment to your client in the very beginning. When you start implementing your ideas into actions, expenses tend to mount up rather quickly, keeping the client’s budget in mind will let you make wise decisions. As an experienced wedding planner you would also be able to get your clients the best deals and discounts. Doing all this will let you be comfortable till the very end of the wedding.

  • Coordinating with the Vendors
    Planning a wedding cannot be a one-man’s job. You need to be able to work comfortably with caterers, florists, stylists, dress designers, photographers etc.  Keep close ties and always build alliances. If you have a team of professionals that you get along with, it would greatly help you in easing the entire process. An expert in their own field, they would be reliable and also suit your style of working. When you share the responsibilities, you share the tensions and work pressures too.

  • Give Valuable Suggestions
    As a wedding planner you would know the ins-and-outs of the business. Which wedding venue can accommodate how many people, which decorator will fit within your budget, which caterer would do justice to your client’s taste, are things you must suggest to your clients and help them make the best decisions. Make sure that the ideas you give are doable. Remember, your ideas are going to be the foundation of the whole wedding.
  • Take it Easy
    Wedding planning can be stressful. It is very important for you to be calm and relaxed. Going for every offer that you get may seem tempting, but it is highly recommended that you be wise and put in a lot of thinking when accept a wedding planning project. Though every wedding planner wishes to be one of the best in the business, plan your career strategies smartly. Planning two perfect weddings in a year is way better than planning five in a haphazard way. Remember, your work is your best advertisement.

The Bottom Line

The above-mentioned ways may appear to be very simple, yet they can do wonders to the way you plan a wedding. If you have undergone some formal training, things will be much easier for you, as before you enter the market you already know the tricks of the trade. The internship that you have been through, prepares you to face all kinds of high-pressure situations. To many it seem a dream job, being a wedding planner is not all about the charisma and the glitterati, it requires foresight, perseverance and a lot of hard work.

Why Is Customization Important In Planning A Wedding?

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

One of the most important responsibilities of a wedding planner is to create a personalized wedding for every couple. For this, he first needs to understand what the client wants and then must tailor the different aspects of the wedding to suit the client in particular and the family members in general. So, spending quality time with the clients and pinpointing their interests becomes instrumental. Keeping their interests in mind the wedding planner then creates ‘event-paths’ which makes it possible for him to turn his client’s dreams and ideas into a reality.

Every couple wants their wedding to be an unforgettable event not just for them but also for everyone who attends it. But, many a time, devoting so much time and effort is not possible neither for the couple nor for the family members. This is where a wedding planner enters.

The wedding planner who is a pro at handling every little detail of a wedding, can easily help in planning and customizing various things the way the client wants. They are an expert at making the best use of the available resources and can do wonders to even the most basic items and ideas. And the best part is that they can do all this well within the budget that their client has given them.

At the point when you take the time and effort to truly work your customers’ ideas into their wedding, it shows extraordinary customer service. You’re devoting yourself to planning one of a kind weddings that suit every customer’s vision. You aren’t designing a solitary wedding concept and program and applying it exactly the same for every customer. Creativity is the thing that makes you a flourishing and professional wedding planner.

The Venue

The selection of the venue is probably one of the most significant factors of the wedding. The surrounding helps in setting the tone of the wedding. Whether it is a society park or a farmhouse or an open field, the wedding planner can customize and personalize the space as per the choice of the client. They can create an intimate space for the special guests as well. Overhead lighting, a cluster of pendants, creative drawings, etc. are ideas that can completely transform the wedding ceremony.

The Menu

From greeting the guests with a celebratory cocktail with a creative name to planning the whole menu as per the couple’s story is another trend that’s becoming very popular. Dishes that are the bride’s or the groom’s favorite, the first dish that he made for her or she made for him are on the charts too.

Customized Clothes

Wearing personalized t-shirts at the ‘Mehendi’ or the sangeet or bachelor’s party are some things that the bride and groom along with the friends and family would enjoy. The wedding planner can get tees for the couple and the guests printed as-‘Bride to Be’, ‘Bride’s Best Friend’, ‘Soon to be Mrs’, etc.

Small Details

‘Going into details’ is what a well-trained wedding planner does best. From customized tissue papers with the couple’s initials or their logo to personalized wrapping paper with their photos, it makes gifting the guests all the more intimate and dear. Some wedding planners have also designed coasters with names or photos of the couple. Some have made use of monogrammed throw pillows and cushions too.

When it comes to satisfying our needs and wants, we have far too many choices. When wedding bells ring, the expectations rise even more and the biggest challenge for the couple and the family members becomes customizing the wedding in a way that it becomes an emotional and a never-to-be-forgotten event. At such a time, hiring a wedding planner becomes the best decision that one can make. Though it is a challenge, for the wedding planner too, customization truly makes the wedding the most special day in a person’s life. A wedding planner who has had some formal training can help in making things special and extremely personalized and make the wedding an event to remember.

The Art Of Listening:

Indeed, your hard skills are super important. Without your professional training, you most likely wouldn’t know what an RFP is! In any case, other than knowing how to make budget spreadsheets and courses of events, your soft skills need refining, as well. The art of listening is therefore important! How might you customize a wedding if you don’t listen to the couple that you’re working for? Before you can fulfill your obligations as an expert wedding planner, you have to have a solid handle of your customers’ needs and desires.

Perhaps the most ideal approach to put your customers at ease is to consistently show that you’re listening to them. However, don’t simply seem as though you’re doing it— really do it! Give them abundant chances to voice their thoughts and opinions. Actively engage with them. In case something isn’t working, be straightforward with them. Your customers have big dreams, it’s important not to annihilate them! Be that as it may, making guarantees you can’t keep isn’t exactly the first step in building a solid customer relationship.

Your customers don’t have the foggiest idea of how much everything costs, the complete logistics behind every event, and any legal issues included. That is the reason they have employed you! The more honest you are, the better they can confide in you. Try not to squash their ideas. Work with them to form their ideas into something different, or incorporate them on a smaller scale.

Becoming A Wedding Planner With An Eye For Customization

Understanding each client’s needs for customization is something that comes with years of experience. However, a wedding planner who has no experience in the industry might find it difficult to develop an eye for personalization. However, obtaining formal training before entering the wedding planning industry can help you a great deal with this. Formal training in wedding planning ensures that you are well-accustomed to the wedding planning ecosystem, and more so if you get a chance to be part of a live internship. All in all, investing in formal training will definitely help you out before starting a career in the wedding planning industry.

Common, copy/pasted weddings aren’t what expert wedding planners are trained for. If your customers didn’t want unique weddings, they wouldn’t have hired you! You have an obligation to plan and design weddings that genuinely correspond with the intended vision of the couple. This is why creativity, attention to detail, and active listening skills are important for wedding planners to possess. After all, a wedding is the most important day in a person’s life and they would want it to be unique, special, and customized just for them and it is your job to fulfill your client’s visions and make them and their guests happy.

How Technology Is Changing Indian Weddings?

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

Just like everything else, over the years, Indian Weddings too have been greatly influenced by technology. So much so that from the wedding lehenga to the wedding invitations, everything now has a new ‘avatar’. Things have become easier though not always simpler. Young couples prefer weaving customs and rituals along with convenience and style and the outcome is remarkable. Match-Making Rather than discussing the marriage prospects with the society ‘barber’ people are depending entirely on matrimonial websites and also TV channels, for their child’s ‘match-making’. What more, there are tonnes of Facebook groups too for the same. The youngsters too rely on dating apps and websites before they make up their mind about the wedlock. The Wedding Industry ‘Wedding’ is now an industry, and not just any industry but a 40-billion-rupee industry. With an average growth of 30% it is often said to be the recession-proof industry too. And it surely is, with almost 10 million weddings every year, there seems to be no such thing as a slowdown here. India consumes about 900 tons of gold and half of this is purchased during the wedding season. Destination Weddings Technology has made the world a small place. More and more couples have started preferring having weddings at scenic locations abroad and within India. Places like Goa, Jaipur, Udaipur, Italy, Greece are topping the charts when it comes to choosing the destination for the perfect wedding. Wedding Planners In India, weddings always involved the entire family, they still do but their roles have undergone a transformation as well. The ‘chachas and mamas’ no longer run around till the last minute, it is now the wedding planners who take care of it all. Weddings are no longer seen as a painful responsibility but a reason to party. It’s nothing less than a holiday with friends and family and hiring the right wedding planner can indeed be the best way to plan a wedding. Wedding Schools Till a few years ago a wedding school was completely unheard of but thanks to the remarkable transformation of Indian weddings, wedding schools are now giving many youngsters a platform to build strong entrepreneur skills. The courses offered by elite and well-renowned wedding schools give a jumpstart to the career of a budding wedding planner. Going through an internship helps them learn the tricks of the trade early on as they get a chance to learn under experts. Attaining a successful career as a wedding planner has been made easy with Wedding schools. So Much More The wedding industry also comprises of many other businesses and branches. Dress designers, stylists, photographers, printers, florists and decorators, etc., are an integral and important part of the industry. Decorator-The tent-wala is now a decorator and plays a key role in remodelling a society-park into a fabulous wedding location. Replicas of palaces, movie sets are also being set up by the decorators to give the wedding a touch of royalty. Invitation Cards-The wedding invite now comprises of the invitation cards to the cocktail, bachelor’s party, shagan, mehendi and sangeet, wedding and the reception too. And it’s no longer just a card – silk envelops, embroidered cards, elegant invite-mithai boxes are just so mesmerizing. Photographs-Clicking professional and high-high-definition pictures are as important as the wedding itself. They not only make reminiscing special but are also important as they have to be uploaded on various social media platforms. Technology indeed has changed the Indian Weddings. Almost every aspect seems to have undergone modifications. However, the quintessence core of every Indian wedding is still ‘tradition’. And this amalgamation of tradition and technology has been great for everyone. The couple-to-be, the parents, the guests, the wedding planners, the vendors, just about everyone is Super Happy!!

Becoming A Better Wedding Planner – 5 Important Guidelines

Want to build your career as a wedding planner 

There has been a transformation in the way Indian Weddings are perceived and organized. Though ‘tradition’ still remains the essence of an Indian wedding, there have been many new innovations and additions. The rising popularity of a wedding planner is a welcome change. With more and more families hiring a full-time wedding planner, the demand of having a good wedding planner seems to be on an all-time high. This increase in demand has also been a big reason that there are many wedding planners and wedding planner companies in the market. But there are many who are ordinary and there are many who are thorough professionals. So, what separates the two? The reasons are plenty. There is no place for mediocrity in the world today. Unless you keep learning, reinventing and recreating something new, you may soon become obsolete. Let’s have a look at some of the areas you should be focusing on to become a better wedding planner. Get Qualified Having the right educational background can do wonders to your wedding planning career. Specialized courses in wedding planning are gaining more and more popularity as event management courses are far too general in their approach. Being a wedding planner, there is so much you need to know-planning, marketing, collaborating with vendors, finalizing stylists and designers etc. Your education in wedding planning will come in very handy when you actually enter the market. Even if you are in the wedding business, it is never too late to learn. If you do not have any formal training, enroll yourself in a Wedding Planning Course today. Invest In Formal Training One of the best ways to kick-start your wedding planning business is to have some training in the field. Opt for a course that provides you with an internship else, work as an intern for an established wedding planner for some time. When you enter the market as a trainee there is so much you can learn. A good internship program will let you learn a lot about the business. The deadlines, the last-minute cancellations, the coordination between two vendors, the high-pressure situations and so much more, you will get a first-hand experience of dealing with all this. Network & Build A Strong Team Always remember, a strong business cannot be a one-man show. You need to have a strong team of people with you always. You would need to have a good liaison with different vendors who would be providing different services like catering, decorating, printing, etc. A smooth wedding will not be possible if you do not collaborate and coordinate. Improve Interpersonal Skills For most of us, it comes naturally, but you must keep working on your interpersonal skills. When communicating with your clients it is very important that you understand their requirements.  Being too rigid with your own ideas may not be a healthy sign. It is, after all, your client’s wedding and you need to deliver what he/she wants. But at the same time, using your own creativity to enhance everything is equally important. Also, weddings are events where everyone is emotionally charged-up. As a wedding planner, you need to be calm and composed even under the most high-pressure situations. Never Stop Learning Even after you hold a strong ground in the market, you need to maintain your standard and sustain your position. Unless you give your clients excellent ideas and services, things might easily slip out of hand. Be on a lookout for new and innovative ways to make each wedding a memorable one. Being a wedding planner may seem easy, but it sure involves a great deal of hard work and perseverance. In India, there is a lot of scope in the wedding planning industry and with the right formal education and the right attitude, the sky can be the limit for you.