The Wedding Planning Market....

Did you know that the average wedding in the UK today costs in the region of £18,000?

A huge amount of money to spend on one day by any one's standards... 

Did you know that the average age of a couple marrying in the UK today is 29 for the bride and 31 for the groom?

Much older than the average age our parents married at years ago, usually in their early to mid 20's...

Did you also know that over a fifth of couples are now enlisting the services of a wedding planner to help plan their big day?

And it's easy to see why, spending nearly £20,000 (an average yearly salary for many!) on this one day, paying a wedding planning on average 10% (£2000) of this is a small price to pay to ensure the total money is managed and spent well.... Just imagine spending all that money for something to then go wrong on the day!!

Most wedding planners also offer an On-The-Day Wedding Coordination Service for those couples who wish to plan everything themselves but then want to ensure all their hard work pays off on the day. The average cost of an on the day service is around £400 (less than 2.5% of the total wedding budget) is a tiny amount to pay to ensure total peace of mind and a stress free day.

As couples are on average now marrying later in life - means they are more likely to fall into what I call the 'money rich, time poor' generation who  have extremely busy work, family and social lives and would rather pay someone to do the work for them - a wedding planner is similar in many respects to a cleaner, a financial adviser, or a gardener as people don't 'need' these services as they could easily do these job's themselves, but they prefer someone else to do them as it frees up time in their busy lives. 

I remember years ago when I first started my business in 2008, all the wedding Fayre's I exhibited at in the first year, I was the only wedding planner there, but now you can usually guarantee that there will be at least one or two planners at every wedding fayre - you might think I'm mad, but I actually prefer doing a fayre when there is another planner there - why, I hear you ask..... It's because it shows to the couples that having a wedding planning is now the norm and more and more couples are choosing to work with us.

I've seen a huge change in the wedding planning market over the last few years as most wedding venues and suppliers now fully understand our role and more and more brides-to-be are understanding how a planner could benefit them.

I firmly believe that like wedding photographers (and there are thousands of them!!) that the quality and professional wedding planners will survive and thrive in the market and brides will always choose the planner who complements their style, personality and budget, or simply who they get along with the most!

Here is a photo of me in action at my clients Lucy & Duncan's wedding in December 2010

Blog post wrote by Mentor Lisa Hilliard of Lisa Hilliard Wedding Planning

Top Tips from the Experts: Building a Successful Network

More on this topic will be covered on day one of the ‘Planning & Coordinating a wedding’ 2 day training course... if you are interested in securing your place visit the wedding planning college website.

"Business networking is a socioeconomic activity by which groups of like-minded businesspeople recognise, create, or act upon business opportunities. A business network is a type of social network whose reason for existing is business activity"

In any business, networking is key!

A great example of this is summarised in the old saying...

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”

So... where and how do you start to build a network of contacts?

The best place to start is on your own doorstep... visit your local wedding venues such as hotels, get to know the local florists and hairdressers, attend some local business networking events to meet other local businesses - although do check beforehand the list of businesses attending as a networking event full of financial advisors and solicitors wouldn’t really be that useful to a new wedding planner (unless you haven’t yet produced your terms and conditions, in which case a solicitor could come in handy!) 

You might have already started to collect business cards and contact details from other related business that you have met in the early stages of planning the launch of your business... Keep these, as you never know when you might need them.

Top Tip: Invest in some form of storage to house all the business cards, leaflets and brochures you are now starting to accumulate, as you will become overrun with things if you aren’t careful!

Remember networking isn’t just simply exchanging business cards, its then what you do with this information.... I would advise sending anyone you meet at a networking event a quick email afterwards to say how nice it was to meet them then check out their website etc... and if you bump into them again at another networking event, make the effort to say Hello (remembering their name and what they do, will ensure they remember you for all the right reasons!)

Others will be wanting to network with you too so make sure you are friendly, approachable and can confidently chat about your business and always carry business cards as you never know when you will bump into someone!

Successful working relationships can take years to build, but if you ensure you are professional and friendly from the start you will soon find that businesses will be approaching you...

This is really just the start of building a network of contacts... Even after 5 years in business my network continues to grow as each wedding brings new suppliers, venues and contacts to add to my database.

To learn more about 'Building a successful network' book your place on the 2 day 'Planning & Coordinating a wedding' training course

Top tips from the experts: How to get organised

More on this topic will be covered on day one of the ‘Planning & Coordinating a wedding’ two day training course... if you are interested in securing your place visit The Wedding Planning College website.

“I am very organised.....” is one of the things I hear all the time from those interested in becoming a wedding planner... and rightly so, as being organised is one of the key requirements to becoming a successful planner. Juggling brides, venues and suppliers who could all call or email at any time of day (or night!) to confirm a detail or to ask a question, and they will expect you to be on the ball and respond with an answer.

All planners will have their own individual way of working but will all follow similar disciplines – They will all have a separate file for each couple they are working with that includes all their contact details and key information about their wedding day i.e. the ceremony venue and time, so at a glance they can remind themselves of the details. The way this file is created will be different for each planner; it may be a written file which is stored in a filing cabinet or be an electronic file on a computer. Then within each file there will also be details of each supplier as and when these are confirmed and the services/products they are providing your clients.

It’s all in the details.... and being organised will ensure all the correct details are recorded and stored in the right place so they can be found quickly.

And it’s not just organising the details of your couples, you will also need to record and store details of all the suppliers in your local area, over the years as a planner you will collate hundreds of contacts from photographers to entertainers and you need to find a way of organising this information so when a new couples for example asks for a caricaturist to perform at their wedding – you can quickly dig out the contact information of the great caricaturist you met at a wedding fayre 3 years ago...  

I have really only touched on the subject of ‘how to get organised’, it is certainly one of the most important parts of being a planner and ensures you manage your own business and time well, record all the correct details for each wedding, create useful documents to support and aid the planning of your clients weddings such as spreadsheets and time lines and enables you to create a useful database of contacts and suppliers.

To learn more about ‘how to get organised’ book you place now on the 2 day ‘Planning & Coordinating a Wedding’ training course.

Next weeks Top Tips from the Experts: Building a successful network...

Ultimate Brides Wedding Exhibition 11th September 2011

The Wedding Planning College is proud to be part of Yorkshire’s biggest wedding exhibition

Our tutors Lisa of Lisa Hilliard Wedding Planning and Joy of Unique Wedding Planning will be attending and both will be available throughout the day to chat to you about the wedding planning college and the courses that are available.

Our exhibition stand will be located near the bar – look out for our bright green poster!

We look forward to meeting you all on the day!

For further details about the exhibition or to book tickets visit Ultimate Brides

Blog Feature

We were very excited and honoured to be featured recently as part of one of the top weddings blogs. The Boho Wedding Blog was created by Wedding Planner - Kelly Hood of Boho Weddings and Events.

A really interesting feature about how to become a wedding planner was one of Kelly's latest topics for discussion and she chose to highlight The Wedding Planning College as a featured course!

Click here to read the full article

Wedding Planner Wednesday - How to become a Planner

Wedding Planner Hires a Wedding Planner!

It was my own wedding a few weeks ago on the 1st of July and being a planner I knew exactly what I wanted and exactly where to find it! The planning was the easy part, it was only when my husband-to-be mentioned that he was worried about me not being able to relax and enjoy the day as I would be in ‘planner’ mode instead of being the bride...

The on-the-day coordination service is one of my most popular services as it gives brides who are happy to do all the planning the peace of mind that all their hard work pays off allowing them to relax and enjoy a stress free perfect day, knowing that I have everything under control.

I needed an on-the-day coordinator!

Joy, my partner at The Wedding Planning College kindly offered to be my on-the-day coordinator! The first thing to do was to have a final run through meeting at the venue, to ensure Joy and the venue manager knew all the timings and what each supplier should be doing. Just unloading all this information, which currently only me and my wedding file knew (as I’m a bit of a control freak!) was a great feeling.

Even knowing that Joy would be there, I still wondered if I would be able to completely relax and switch off from being a planner and enjoy my day as a bride...

But I did! It was the most amazing day ever and I didn’t worry for one second as I knew Joy was there.
Here we are on the day

Photo taken by Image Boutique

I will be posting the official photos from my wedding very soon...

Post by Mentor Lisa Hilliard

Royal Wedding

I was approached by Edale Primary School a few months ago and asked if I could help them plan their very own Royal Wedding!... It was such a lovely project to be part of and the children had a fantastic time!

Adding to the excitement was the fact that The Derbyshire Times and Channel 5 News attended and covered the event... Both of which went on to feature the story!

Here are a selection of photographers captured by the official photographer Mark Tierney

Royal Wedding - Edale Primary School - 15th April 2011

I was the chauffeur on the day!

To see the rest of the photos visit the photographers Blog www.tierneyphotography.co.uk/blog