Certified Wedding Planner

Ever wonder how to become a professional wedding planner? Our certified wedding and event planner programme is ideal for anyone looking to begin their career as a professional wedding and event planner. Our comprehensive, online wedding and event planner programme covers everything you need to know to start a successful career as a certified wedding and event professional. From contracts to wedding etiquette to dealing with vendors, you'll learn how to become a wedding and social event planner by learning every facet of the wedding & social event 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 and event 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 and event planner.

In our wedding and event planner certification course you will learn through a series of assignments that are geared towards starting your own wedding and event planning 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 and event planner through our wedding and event 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 and event planner certification course provides over 100 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 and event 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 Trunk (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. This curriculum is developed utilizing a dynamic, interactive teaching method, focused on clearly expressed concepts and principals derived from research-based theories of adult learning.

Certified Wedding and Event Planning 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 and discussion boards, as well as blogs and the online student center. 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 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 Platinum Weddings, 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

This comprehensive program has been streamlined into online videos to enhance the learning experience and help you move through the program more quickly.

1. 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