Description

Ever wonder how to become a wedding planner? Our certified wedding planner programme is ideal for anyone looking to begin their career as a professional wedding planner. Our comprehensive, online wedding planner programme covers everything you need to know to start a successful career as a certified wedding planner. From contracts to wedding etiquette to dealing with vendors, you'll learn how to become a wedding planner by learning every facet of the wedding planning industry. You'll learn about flowers and florists, live music and disc jockey services, how to successfully market your business and trade secrets and industry specific applications known only to wedding planners. Whether you are planning on working part-time or a full-time this program will provide you with the tools you need to become a successful, in demand, certified wedding planner.

In our wedding planner certification course you will learn through a series of assignments that are geared towards starting your own wedding planner business. The lessons you learn through these assignments will be used again and again in your business and include such topics as how to write contracts, how to construct business packages, how to use profiling templates for new clients and which tools to use for designing a signature wedding. As you learn how to become a wedding planner through our wedding planner certification course you will use comprehensive textbooks that include templates and examples to consider as you develop your own, custom business tools. Our wedding planner certification course provides over 50 documents in our on-line library that may be download and used as templates for your bridal clients.

As you learn how to become a wedding planner you will learn about a variety of industry related topics including budgeting, effective project management skills, how to coordinate with vendors, traditional and contemporary wedding customs from over 15 different cultures worldwide, Wedding Gown Styles & Veils including the seasons top designers and videos of the most recent Truck (Fashion) Shows, Wedding Event Planning, Writing your Business Plan, Signature Wedding Design, Invitations, Public Relations, Wedding Music Selections, Sales & Marketing, Pre and Post Wedding Parties, How to expand your business, Relationship Education as well as Production and Operations Management.

To address the demands of the industry this program is created for real-world application including experiential learning. This includes role-playing, vignettes and other ways to practice for actual business objectives or work settings in the day-to-day of wedding planning.

Certified Wedding Planner students can email instructors as often as they need to during the course and schedule phone meetings to discuss assignments if needed. Online students also have access to other students in the course through the course online message boards. Here, students find additional resources, support and networking with others in their area and throughout the WORLD. Many online students utilize this network even after graduation.

Because the wedding planner plays such an integral role in the planning of a couple's most important day, there is much to learn in the way of planning, budgets, working with vendors, contracts, revenue channels, not to mention keeping up with the latest trends in bridal fashion, color choices and wedding design.

Some typical tasks for a Certified Wedding Planner (CWP) include:

• Receiving, making and documenting telephone calls to clients and vendors.
• Scheduling appointments with vendors for clients.
• Helping a client to unveil her personal style or wedding day vision.
• Designing inspiration boards for new client meetings.
• Assist a client with her wedding gown/attire selection.
• Budget Tracking and project planning.
• Site visits with clients for venue selection.
• Troubleshooting and solution solving.
• Managing and delegating task as well as tracking progress.
• Collecting payments and performing collection activities.

Wedding planners are in demand as more and more sophisticated brides discover they can not be the bride and the wedding planner on the day of their wedding. With popular shows like Whose Wedding is it Anyway?, Race to the Alter, Married Away, Big Day and Bridezilla, the profession is growing at an increased rate year after year. Many professional planners run their own company while many others work for wedding businesses offering wedding planning services.

Course Objectives

Upon successful completion of the Certified Wedding Planner program, students will:

• Understand the role of a professional wedding planner.
• Gain a basic understanding of the wedding industry.
• Create business contracts, pricing, packages and presentation tools.
• Identify the formula/method to structure and set-up a wedding planning business and operations.
• Be proficient in skills such as budget planning, vendor selection and wedding design.
• Be familiar with industry specific terminology, communication, telephone techniques, organization and project management.
• Have knowledge of vendor contracts and what to look for.
• Be familiar with wedding design elements, fabrics and styles.
• Understand how to market as an expert in the industry to gain PR attention.
• Understand online marketing and how it applies to a wedding planners business.
• Have knowledge of different wedding traditions and cultures and how to implement a couple’s ethnic background into the celebration.
• Have knowledge of traditional and non-traditional etiquette.
• Understand the Event Planning Process necessary to design and deliver a successful wedding/social event.
• Understand the Six Stages of Event Experience and ways to implement them.
• Be fully prepared to take on his/her first bridal client.
  

Outline

The following is a comprehensive course outline containing the major topics you will cover as you learn to be a wedding planner with the Wedding Planner Certification programme from Gatlin International.

This comprehensive course has been streamlined into online and classroom videos to enhance the learning experience, and help our students to move through the course more quickly.

I. Introduction - Video Library
i. Wedding Industry Overview
ii. Wedding history
iii. Engagement purpose
iv. Current statistics
v. Engagement Process as it leads to the wedding day

II. Your role as a wedding planner
i. Setting expectations for all involved
ii. Budget Management
iii. Wedding Etiquette
iv. Planning, Coordinating and Directing

III. Business Structure
i. Fee for services, Pricing, Packages, Proposals, Project Plan Budgeting
ii. Market place evaluation
iii. Small business start-up cost
iv. Business Location set-up
v. Home Office
vi. SOHO Solutions
vii. Office Set-up

IV. Documentation
i. Training materials
ii. Design boards
iii. Fabric boards
iv. Manuals
v. Design Project

V. Templates - over 40 editable documents for your business
i. Pricing Packages, Contracts
ii. Client hand-outs
iii. Ceremony Structure, Customs, Traditions
iv. Many, many more

VI. Vendor Selection
i. Vendor Interviews
ii. Vendor contracts
iii. Vendor partnerships and negotiation
iv. Vendor marketing
v. Vendor booking

VII. Contracts
i. Contract Law
ii. Creating Your Contracts
iii. Contract Templates
iv. Bridal Client Contracts
v. Vendor partnership
vi. Traditional Wedding Planner packages

VIII. How to work with a prospective bride
i. Profiling
ii. Training
iii. Role playing
iv. Making the sale
v. Educating the bridal client
1. bridal registry
2. setting expectations
3. wedding day vision vs. reality
vi. Traditional vs. non-traditional wedding ceremonies
vii. Wedding party delegation

IX. Over 15 different Ethnic Wedding Customs & Traditions Worldwide

X. The Wedding Gown
i. Gown styles
ii. Veil styles
iii. Body Types do's & don'ts
iv. Top 50 wedding dress designers

XI. Destination Weddings

XII. Music - How to write a musical score
i. Popular Wedding Ceremony Music Selections
1. Processional
2. Recessional

XIII. Signature Weddings - How to create a signature wedding each and every time
i. Rehearsal Procedures
ii. D4 Analysis - Wedding Design
iii. A6 Production - Event Experience
iv. Event Project Management

XIV. Business marketing practices, industry associations, networking

XV. Bridal Shows
i. Research
ii. Checklist
iii. Booking the bride
iv. How to work a booth
v. Post show activities

XVI. Online Marketing strategies
i. Designing Your Website
ii. Marketing Your Website

XVII. Industry terms
i. Traditional
ii. Trendy

XVIII. Public Relations
i. Becoming an expert in your field in your local market
ii. Writing a Press Release
iii. Writing Your Bio
iv. Negotiating promotions

XIX. Organization
i. CRM (Client Relations Management)
ii. Industry Software
iii. Expanding your business offerings and adding additional revenue streams

XX. Certification - what does it mean and how it sets you apart.

XXI. How relationship education can be incorporated into your business

XXII. Philanthropy

XXIII. Final Exam

Demo

Click here for a demo!  Click BACK button after viewing demo.

Additional Info

Languages

English

Course Length

300.00 hours

Duration of Access

6 months

Instructor

Wedding Planning Institute

Prerequisites/Audience

There are no prerequisites for our Certified Wedding Planner course.

The intended audience is anybody who is interested in becoming a full- or part-time wedding planner.

Requirements/Materials Included

PC Requirements/Materials IncludedThis course is compatible with the Windows Vista operating system.

Students will require a computer with Internet access.

The following textbooks will be provided:

• How to Start a Wedding Planning Business
• How to Start a Wedding Planning Business Certification Workbook

  • Manual of Wedding Planning Templates, Resources and Industry Guides