How to become a wedding planner: Do you need a college degree?

Emma Holland left a comment on my video about Theft in the Wedding Industry that said, ”Hi Andrea! Could you make a video about the education requirements to be a wedding planner? I’m a high school student and I’m very interested in event planning. ❤️❤️”

Well, Emma - this video is for you and the thousands of men and women who are interested in this field, but not quite sure how to proceed.

One of the reasons that I am so committed to teaching others is because I remember how greatly I struggled to find information on the industry when I was in high school and college. The World Wide Web was not yet a thing, and there were not great resources for those of us who wanted to become wedding planners and event designers.

As a matter of fact, my family relocated from Long Island to Las Vegas so that I could attend UNLV, which was and remains one of the top hospitality universities in the world. When I first met with my college counselor I was asked, “So, what do you wanna be when you grow up?”

I said I wanted to be a wedding planner. The counselor looked at me with this blank stare and blinked a few times before telling me, “But that's not a real job. You should study catering!” I kind of laughed and said that while wedding planning was not the most popular job right at the time, there was a woman Marcy (Marcy Blum) doing it in New York. All of these celebrities and socialites were hiring wedding planners. I really believed that the industry would take off, and I was just so insistent and so passionate about it that the counselor enrolled me in….catering. There really was no other place for me to go!

Fortunately, times have changed. In the last 25 years, the role of a wedding planner has grown from something that only socialites and celebrities used to widely being considered a necessity, With so many different types of wedding planning experiences available, many couples find that they can afford to include some sort of professional planning and execution in their budget.

And so how do you break into this industry? What kind of education is it that you need?

The truth is, all you need to do to start your own wedding planning company is a business license, insurance, and a website. That's it! A couple of clicks of a button and boom! Your wedding planner. But that won't make you successful, and it certainly won't make you good. I have a lot of issues with people entering the industry without having taken the time to study both the art of design and the business of being a wedding planner.

Being good isn’t enough. Checklists are good. Apps are good. To do this the way it needs to be done, you need to be great. T and the only way to be truly great is to be incredibly and continuously educated..

Here are 5 Educational Elements you need to commit to in order to start a successful wedding planning business:

1. WORK: Get real-world experience. One of the greatest differentiators that sets me apart from others in my field is that I have decades of hands-on, real-world experience. Think about your career and every job you have taken. From my first job as a greeter at a wedding tradeshow to my first "real" job as a hostess at a high-end restaurant to all the years that I spent in hotel and resort catering departments, restaurant sales, and nightlife operations, every job I took was with the intention of honing my craft so that I could be the very best operator on site. I knew that in order to execute and run a successful wedding day, I needed to fully understand what it took to set up event space, to cook and produce food for hundreds of people, and what the service standards were that needed to be obeyed and adhered to. Not because I read about a 1 per 75 rule in a book, but because I watched a bartender get crushed at the opening of doors. My years in retail taught me how to sell to a woman in a dressing room, which has helped me understand what a bride wants to look and feel like while shopping for a wedding dress. There is no amount of book knowledge that will ever substitute for starting from the bottom and working with your own two hands in every facet of the industry you are entering.

2. READ: Equally important to the real-world experience is reading about business. This doesn't necessarily need to be about the wedding and events industry. When I want to engage my mind, I seek to learn from others who have become icons in their own space. Books such as Shoe Dog, written by Phil Knight (the founder of Nike) and inspirational how-to guides from the likes of Tim Ferris and Gary Vee have helped me learn about the business side of being a wedding planner. Reading books gives you the opportunity to learn directly from people that you respect and admire, that you would likely never get to meet. My own personal goal is to read 2 to 3 business or autobiographical books a month. Start with one book, and you will quickly find it addictive. Not a reader? Listen to them on audiobook!

3. INTERNSHIPS: When I was working at the Bellagio as a wedding coordinator, I offered to come in on my own time to learn how to capture and edit video. Back then,, we were working with VHS! I spent about two months working in the darkroom for free so that I can understand how to quickly cut a ceremony and turned around for our couples. I spent another month and a half in horticulture learning how to make a bouquet and boutonnieres. While I was a hostess, I volunteered to set up for large parties so that I could figure out how to set up and teardown around.

Interning may sound like real work experience, and to some extent it is. The difference is, when you're an intern you work for free. There is this idea that working for free is bad. No one wants to work for free anymore. But the truth is that an internship is an investment that you make in yourself. You are paid not in money, but in education and experience.

I get emails and DM's weekly from people who want to come and "work a wedding for free" I never accept these offers for a few reasons. First, my clients deserve to be serviced by top-notch, skilled professionals. I will not disrespect their experience or violate their trust by allowing someone who has not been fully trained on hand. It simply is not worth the risk, and my clients deserve more. Secondly, in order to make the process of an internship beneficial for the intern, I need to be able to spend time with them. I want to be able to give them real access and knowledge, to go over their questions, and to fully explain how I work in a one on one setting. On a wedding day, my focus is my client and I simply cannot do both at once.

So how exactly do you get an internship that will help you while not taking away from the person you're interning for? The trick is to offer to do the grunt work. Offer to respond to emails or direct messages. Offer to schedule social media. Offered to sweep up someone's floral shop, or wipe down rentals. It's not about being in the front of the line and doing the glamorous work. An internship is about you doing the grunt work and learning by osmosis. It's about you being around the real nitty-gritty so that when you are ready you have real-world, behind-the-scenes knowledge that you simply wouldn't have otherwise.

4. FREE CONTENT: Today you are reading and watching a video on the types of education you need to become a wedding planner. That in and of itself is a part of your education. There is a tremendous amount of free content available on YouTube and on Podcasts, blogs, and digital downloads. I can tell you firsthand that I have absolutely learned and picked up tips and tricks on how to run my business by listening to the podcasts and watching the videos that others in my industry have created. Spend your time following and studying the wedding professionals that you admire. Watch how they work if they share behind the scenes videos. Study their style. If they create content, download everything they offer. This will give you a strong basis for developing your own set of skills.

5. Last and Finally….PEER TO PEER LEARNING: Of all the things I've suggested you do, none of them are as valuable as peer to peer education. Conferences and associations put a lot of time and energy into bringing out guest speakers that will present on highly specialized topics that you can learn from. Organizations like WIPA, ILEA, and NACE are amazing for peer to peer education. Conferences and educational events produced by The Knot Pro, Wedding MBA, and Engage are built on the idea that we learn best from each other. These activities are so worth it, and I will say that even with 20+ years of experience and my degree, the most important things I have learned have come from others that are in the trenches with me. If you cannot join an association, enroll in an online course. Personally, I love online courses and am forever enrolled in something. There are also a number of Facebook groups both private and the public that has been created specifically for peer-to-peer education in the wedding planning space.

You may have noticed that nowhere in this video did I say that you needed a college degree or certification because you don’t. That does not mean that I don’t value the degree - I do! I love learning and believe that you should attend college if you have the ability to do so and if you truly enjoy the process. A degree is something that no one will ever be able to take away from you. However, I don't believe the book smarts are the only pathway to success, and when I think about what traditional upper education has turned into I think about that line from Goodwill Hunting where Will says, “You wasted $150,000 on an education you could've got for a buck-fifty in late fees at the public library."

The greatest indicator of success is someone who is committed to continuously learning. My best advice is to read everything you can. Listen to podcasts. Watch videos. Sketch, design, and play. Get a job in the industry. Intern on your off days as often as you can. Volunteer to work on every event you possibly can, because nothing will ever take the place of real-world experience.

So to Emma and anyone else wondering about what kind of education you need to be a wedding planner, I hope this helps! I also hope it encourages you to send in comments and questions. I really do read them and try my best to create the content that YOU need. It is my way of giving back to an industry that has given me everything in terms of professional success and happiness, that has allowed me to make a living while building a life.

Interested in my courses? Watch the video above to the end for a special code that will enroll you today and give you a one-hour consultation with me.

Always…a