In this blog post I’m sharing how I got started as a wedding planner.  At my own wedding twelve years ago I knew nothing about wedding planning.  It’s funny looking back now, but I didn’t even know you were supposed to select a first dance song!  I mean come on, who doesn’t know that!

Planners were not as common as they are today so I didn’t have a planner and planned everything myself.  I did have a family friend direct the wedding thankfully, but I didn’t have any help planning.  Unfortunately, not having a planner and not knowing much about weddings other than the design part led to a lot of mistakes.

So many things went wrong which led me to where I am today.  I decided that I didn’t want what happened to me at my own wedding to happen to any other brides.  There were no planners in my town at the time so I thought what do I have to lose?  I can keep my full-time job and start a planning business on the side.  And that’s exactly what I did in 2010.

I would work as a dental hygienist during the day and then I would come home and stay up late trying to learn anything and everything I could about wedding planning.  I wanted to get certified as a wedding planner because I wanted to look professional and I wanted to learn what I needed to know to be a success.

I took the certification course from the Association of Bridal Consultants and while it didn’t teach me everything I needed to know to plan weddings it did teach me some tips and about wedding etiquette.  So much has changed since then so the course I took would be very dated now, but I’m sure they’ve updated it by now.

Do I think I needed the certification to be legit?  At the time I thought so, but now I know that’s so not true.  I don’t even mention anywhere on my website that I’m ABC certified.  Now, I’m not knocking the ABC at all because it’s great for some people, but I will say I ended up learning what I really needed to know to be a successful wedding planner the hard way – by trial and error.

I would spend hours upon hours searching google and I bought every book I could find on wedding planning.  And there are not many books out there about planning.  After about five or six year of being a planner, educators started popping up here and there and thankfully I propelled my business forward learning from online educators.

I don’t want other planners to waste years of their life trying to figure out how to plan weddings on their own like I did.  Why do it the DIY way when you can learn everything you need to know from an experienced planner who’s been there.

That’s why I got into educated new and aspiring wedding planners.  It’s my mission to teach new and aspiring planners everything I know so they don’t have to waste years of their life and their precious time trying to figure this planning thing out on their own.

Don’t let your business be your #1 like I have for the past twelve years.  That leads to failed marriages, putting things on the back burner that need to be at the forefront of your life, putting off having kids because hey, your business is your baby.

Learn what you need to know within a few months instead of spending every waking hour trying to learn on your own.

Get on the waitlist for Wedding Planner School today! Click here to get on the waitlist!

xo, Terrica