How To Become A Wedding Planner In Australia

Did you know that over 120,000 weddings take place in Australia each year? The Wedding Industry in Australia is seriously big business and is a fairly competitive industry. That means there is so much work for wedding planners, event managers, stylists and decorators to make their mark. You will need to work hard on your home based business to set you apart from other wedding planners.

Starting a business as a planner is one of the best small business ideas you can do if you love weddings, especially for stay at home moms. As a wedding planner in Australia, you will take on a range of roles – planner, creator, advisor, coordinator, stylist and decorator! Your people and organizational skills will be put to good use. Imagine having a fun, it is a creative and exciting job that lets you use your creativity to organize the happiest day of people’s lives!

Starting a business as a Wedding Planner is one of the best home based business ideas for mums, especially if you are juggling children and wanting to be around with them in their younger years. Many of the appointments with your clients will be after hours and you will most probably be a mobile service, so if you have a partner who can help you with your young family. This will make the perfect job as a home based bridal consultant. 

How Do I Become a Wedding Planner?

Even though there aren’t any formal requirements for wedding planners in Australia. It is a great business idea if you are organised and love weddings especially for a stay at home mum as you can work your own hours around your family.

Education is the key to gaining both the necessary knowledge to carry out your duties as well as earning support and respect from other professionals within the wedding industry who may at some point refer you to potential clients. You can see if this course is suitable for you – Wedding Planner course.

Step #1 – Get the Wedding Planner Certification

The most direct way to get started as a wedding planner is to obtain a professional certification. Most professional wedding planning certificate programs take less than three months to complete. Others offer college credits and enable you to start your home business right away.

There are many offerings of courses available both online and on-campus offering the necessary training needed to become an exceptional wedding planner. From certificate programs to master’s degrees, the options are endless and only limited by your career ambitions.

For on-campus programs, look at your local community college or university for a list of available courses. If you need more flexibility and freedom an online distance education course offering.

Valuable skills learned will include organizational skills, the latest trends in fashion, colours and design, budgeting, working with vendors, different customs and traditions, and handling different types of weddings and religious preferences.

Step #2 – Start the Business Idea

Once you have completed your educational programs or received your certificate, you will need to start your business by choosing your business name and choose a location in Australia. Think of a catchy name and prime location that will help get your business noticed. You will also need your own website, this is discussed later on.

One way to bring in customers is to advertise online and offline which include distributing business cards to wedding fairs, yellow page ads, brochures, flyers, affiliate marketing, and bridal magazine ads. Use a freelance graphic designer to design a modern-looking logo and stationery for your home based business. You will need a lot of marketing materials to promote your business, you can start with the main things first and then build on from there.

You do not need to promote yourself as a home based bridal consultant, just say you are a Bridal consultant. If your office is a home or in a building, it doesn’t really matter to your clients. Just as long as you are giving great customer service to your bride and grooms.

Step #3  – Get Online with a Google My Business Listing

You will want to invest in a FREE Google My Business Listing, (GMB) because brides are extremely busy with day-to-day living and often times career-oriented, therefore, they will have very little time to plan a wedding and will need to find you quickly and easily.

Google My Business listings enable you to get reviews from your previous Bride and Grooms, these are like GOLD – As 85% of visitors to a GMB listing will read the reviews. After each wedding alswasy ask the Bride and Goom for a review. Also, ask the parents of the bride and groom and even the venue and other wedding vendors to write a review for your business.

Step #4 – Set up your Home Office

You will want to acquire basic office furniture for setting up your office including a separate checking account dedicated specifically to your business. This will assist you to keep up with the income and expenses of the business separately from your personal finances.

Other basic office requirements include a computer, even a laptop, printer, mobile phone and a landline phone, filing cabinet, internet, and various office supplies. These days, lots of meetings with the brides are done at coffee shops so a trendy tablet or iPad for taking notes or showing pictures would suffice.

Step #5 – Get connected with other business owners in the Bridal Industry

More than just a degree and a creative spark, you will need to have an alliance with other wedding professionals in town to break into this industry. Familiarise and introduce yourself with wedding vendors such as caterers, suit hire stores, videographers, jewelers, florists, bridal shop owners, Wedding Cars, Reception Centres, and Wedding photographers, giving them business cards and brochures for easy referral to brides and grooms. Consider promoting other vendors that you like for your next wedding.

Attend bridal shows and always offer to help out in any way possible. By circulating your business card and participating with those already established professionals in the industry, you become part of an elite group that averages over 120,000 weddings in Australia.

Step #6 – Get a Website to promote yourself as a Wedding Planning!

A great-looking website with lots of good content and photos is one of the best promotional tools you will have that will give you leads to your business. Make sure the website is built on WordPress and has a very good SEO foundation. Look for a website designer that has a lot of experience in WordPress website design for local businesses. I can highly recommend Panda Websites, speak to Amanda Steele, she is a Melbourne Based Website Designer, but she builds websites for businesses all over Australia. The price of a well-built WordPress website starts at $3500.

A professionally designed website will give your potential brides the opportunity to review your services and other details of your business at their convenience. Your website should have easy-to-read articles and pictures, describe who you are, your expertise, certificates or diplomas obtained, all of the different services you offer and contact information. Make sure you have photos and even videos of yourself to build a quicker relationship with your audience. Add your website URL to the bottom of your business cards, social media and other forms of advertising.

Wedding Planning is a fairly competitive industry, you need to stand out from the rest. Do as much local marketing and online marketing as possible. This is a key to your new business idea.

Step #7 – Set up Social Media Accounts for your Wedding Planning Business!

As a home based business, you need to get noticed in the online world. In order to do this, you will need a strong social media presence. You may need to engage the writing services of a freelance writer to make your social media posts noticeable.

Set up Social media accounts such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn. Do regular postings on these to build your audience. Also, get reviews from previous brides too. Having a well-rounded social media presence is important for Brides and grooms as they are huge users of Social media, blogs and podcasts. This is where they will also refer you to others by sharing your posts, photos and information. Down the track, it may be worthwhile even doing a Social media course to help with your online promotion as a Wedding Planner.

Follow some female bloggers to see how they run their businesses in Australia. Learn from people who are doing a great job at running their own business from home.

Wedding Ideas For Planning A Wedding

Day In The Life Of An Online Wedding Planner

There are many online wedding planners in Australia that we have interviewed from Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Canberra, Darwin & Tasmania.

A day in the life of a wedding planner could include any of the following tasks:

• Meeting with the couple to identify their needs and special requests.
• Preparing a budget and ironing out the details to save money.

• Planning a detailed checklist for remembering items to do before the wedding day.

• Preparing the attendee list and ensuring all guests arrangements are made.

• Identifying ceremony/reception venues.

• Identifying and hiring wedding professionals and service providers including caterers, photographers, videographers, a beautician and/or a florist.

• Coordinating deliveries and services on the wedding day such as cakes, ice sculptures or special guest dietary restrictions

• Devising a backup plan in the event of a disaster, rain or COVID-19 lockdowns.

• You may need to get a lawyer to look over your contracts with the vendor to look at their COVID-19 Terms and conditions. You will need to see how each vendor handles the deposit and booking if the wedding has to be rescheduled due to lockdowns.

Being a wedding planner in Australia, as your own business, is amazing in many respects; it being the most testing, varied, emotional, exciting, physically demanding, creative and rewarding job you will have ever do working your own hours. There are so many business ideas and opportunities to choose from. When thinking about home business ideas for mums to work in their field of passion helping others, a wedding planner is a perfect choice.

Organising weddings and parties for clients in some of the most beautiful corners of this country combines the perfect balance of work and play.

Getting married is, for most people, is new territory and no longer involves a quick chat with a vicar or a celebrant and booking a function room and DJ. Today people want the memories of a lifetime…the ‘big movie’, and Australia is the perfect stage setting. With numerous paperwork procedures, strict time frames …it can be a minefield. More often than not, many couples don’t have the spare time or speak the lingo but they have the budget to throw an incredible party and celebrate in style.

As glamorous as it may seem, behind-the-scenes surprise becomes your worst nightmare and a wedding planner needs to be prepared for…anything.

From asking Aussie Rugby stars their underwear size, to chasing wayward priests on Vespas through vineyards, comforting emotional mother in laws, proof-reading speeches, chasing up toddler flower girls, refereeing rugby matches, re-routing helicopters and trying to convince barons that 120 drunk Aussies dancing to a live salsa band will not be a problem.

There are so many spectacular Australian venues you can work with, vary from luxury 5 star hotels on cliff-tops to spectacular beaches surrounded by family villa estates with their own vineyards and a country church.

Many of the venues are private properties that may not have hosted weddings before. If so, you must consider building new relationships and meeting incredible people with a staggering wealth of family history and inspiring vision.  The warmth and generosity of some property owners will be unparalleled and the secrets they share with guests are real treasures. Don’t forget to ask them for a review on your social media accounts and a Google review. 

Take a wedding planner course online!

To help you get on your way to success we have created the best home-based wedding planning courses you should take to get started to become a world class wedding organiser.

Here are two recommended resources to get you started:

1. AUS Academy of Wedding Event Planning 

They claim they are the only training company in Australia specializing in courses for wedding planners, event planners, wedding stylists and event designers who are accredited through Australia’s top two Bridal Associations ABIA (Australian Bridal Industry Academy) and ABS (Australian Bridal Service). This is an exclusive accreditation and our courses are the only courses to receive this award. This is true as we have researched these prestigious accreditations and have found that they are legitimate claims.

From their website they were founded in 2003 the Academy has created a highly sought-after range of courses and training tools to accredit wedding planners, event planners, wedding stylists and event designers in Australia. They started off with basic paper based wedding planning course we have undergone many course upgrades to bring the course into the 21st century.

The Academy are active members of ACPET (Australian Council for Private Education and Training) ensuring that the highest standards are achieved in course quality and we offer nationally accredited units through partnering arrangements with the registered training organisation, Quality Training Solutions RTO ID: 40474

They offer the following courses and their prices are as follows:

• Certificate in wedding planning (One-time payment of $1,495)
• Diploma in wedding planning, styling and design (One-time payment of $2,400)
• Diploma in wedding & event planning (One-time payment of $2,145)

2. Wedding Inc

Wedding Inc is a wedding course provider that we recommend because of their history of providing quality and value. Wedding Inc was the first professional training course for Wedding Planners in Australia in 2004.

Since then they have trained hundreds of individuals who have gone on to become business owners and professionals in one of the largest industry segments in Australia.

From their website online, they claim that they are an Australian company and knows the Australian market. Their success is based on first hand knowledge – having run a successful wedding planning business we are more then willing to share our experience and knowledge with you!

Wedding Inc. courses are endorsed by the Wedding Planning Association of Australia. They encourage all their students to be members of the Wedding Planning Association for ongoing Industry support.

Their courses are 100% practical and designed for people who want to run their own business or work in the wedding and events industry. Wedding Inc. has trained many hotel and reception venues in Australia and around the South Pacific.

We have played an active role in training resorts in Fiji and New Zealand (Malolo Island, Hilton Fiji, Turtle Island, Fiji, Treasure Island, Fiji).

They offer the following courses and prices:

• Diploma in Wedding & Event Planning ($1,250)
• Diploma in Wedding Planning ($1,035)
• Certificate in Wedding Planning ($800)
• International Diploma – Weddings ($1,500)

Get Online With Wedding Websites in Australia

There are many wedding websites in Australia that you should host your clients wedding on. These host websites will make your life and your client’s life easier and more organized. These will make a huge impact on guests and best of all they aren’t costly at all. Definitely, the benefits outweigh the costs.

Some of the websites we recommend are as follows:

1. Easy Weddings

This wedding website provides planning tools such as to-do lists, budget planners, suppliers, guest list, wedding invitations, seating planners and wedding websites. It is definitely the all-in-one go-to website for wedding planning.

2. Modern Wedding

The Australian modern wedding site is a must-go to get organized, it has a great wedding planning tool your clients can use. This site offers a checklist, budget manager, guest list, seating planner and supplier shortlist. The one drawback was that there was no website to host the wedding on to collect wedding invitation RSVPs.

Get Styling with Your Wedding Receptions

Wedding styling is very similar to interior decorating or merchandising as it brings all the elements of the design to life. These skills are essential when planning wedding receptions.

By getting in touch with your creative side, it allows you to develop theming concepts that make a ‘wow’ statement for your clients.  By taking wedding planning courses, will learn the necessary skills to decorate and style real weddings. Experience will be gained in overall theming and decorating, chair styling, draping, table layouts, and centerpiece design.

We recommend that you look online at Pinterest websites to gather ideas for different themes. There are so many valuable and free resources online. You will gain the skills, knowledge, and confidence you need to oversee all the details of a wedding, and to prepare for a magnificent event, as well as obtain the money-back for tuition and support for the key elements of running a successful Wedding Planner business.