Whether or not you are in a formal wedding planner certification program there are subjects you can and should study that will help you be more valuable to brides, and perhaps even help you develop a niche business.

Here are 5 subjects that you can study on your own:

1) Food

You might never be a caterer but the more you know about ethnic food, organic food, vegan selections and the latest food trends, the more you can help your brides when they are working with their caterers. Visit gourmet stores and ethnic supermarkets, try new foods, take time to browse through farmers’ markets, watch the Food Network channel, and take cooking classes.

2) Beverage

Learn about wine, champagne and cocktails. Visit wineries and attend tastings and try some of the mixed drinks. Of course, drink responsibility. If, like me, you don’t drink alcohol, you can still visit wineries, learn from professionals and talk to friends who enjoy their glass of wine and occasional cocktails.

3) Classic Literature

Celebrity wedding planner David Tutera did a “Great Gatsby” themed wedding for a bride. Preston Bailey designed Joan Rivers’ daughter, Melissa’s, wedding with a “Dr. Zhivago” theme. Your brides might want to capture the feeling of a Jane Austen novel or one of Shakespeare’s love stories. If you are well-read, you have the knowledge you need to help brides develop interesting themes and weave details of  them throughout their weddings.

4) Cultures other than your own

You don’t have to belong to a specific ethnic or religious group to help plan a wedding for a bride who belongs to the group, but you do need to study and learn as much as you can about their traditions and customs. Even if you aren’t going to market your services to others, it’s worthwhile to learn about many cultures. You will be able to help brides who want to incorporate a few ideas from other traditions into their weddings to make them unique.

5) International Travel

Many brides today are well-travelled, or they wish to be, and want to incorporate ideas from other countries into their weddings. Although world travel is the best way to learn about another country, you can also learn by reading travel magazines and watching travel programs on television. Check if you can get the Travel Channel in your area.

Continue to learn and always strive to be the best you can be for your clients and yourself.

Color plays a big role in every wedding, it can set a tone or it can be a theme all on it’s own, so as a wedding planner you need to know how colors work together and how to use them to bring about the mood the bride wants to have at her wedding.

The best way to learn about color for weddings is by taking event design courses. However, if none are available in your area or if an event design program is out of your budget, local community colleges usually offer art, interior design, or fashion design courses that can teach you the basic principles of using color.

If you have not studied color before, the current, July 2011, issue of Brides magazine features a color guide with tips on selecting and coordinating colors. They also share a list of websites that teach more about color coordination. A favorite is Dessy which allows you to design inspiration boards that you can share with your brides.

Here are 3 tips on using color that you can learn from the article:

1) The right color table linens can make a big impact on the reception room.

For example, if the room looks boring and cookie-cutter, use warm colors like red and pink to give it an intimate feel. Or add jewel tones, emerald or amethyst, when paired with bronze or black they give the room some glitz.

2) Suggest bridesmaids wear neutral tones like gray or taupe and wear shoes or jewelry or carry bouquets in the wedding colors.

This will make the dresses more usable in the future and give the wedding a more sophisticated feeling.

3) Get inspiration for color combinations from everyday life.

A piece of fabric, artwork, flowers, and a favorite dress of the bride can all inspire ideas for great color at weddings.

If you need color and fabric samples for dresses or linens, read my blog post in which I posted links to places to shop for a variety of great fabric swatches.

Is it more important to get a formal education or to get experience to become a wedding and event planner?

This was asked of industry experts in the June/July 2011 issue of Event Solutions magazine.

Here are some of their thoughts about both -

The importance of a formal education:

-A community college or four year degree is valuable from a business and management perspective.

-Industry conferences and seminars are important for learning specialized wedding and event planning skills.

-Courses in oral and written communications, sales, marketing, accounting and hospitality management will teach planners how to have a successful business.

The importance of experience:

-There is knowledge that can only be learned through real world experience.

-You can only learn how to work well with clients by having face-to-face contact.

-The only way to learn to think-on-your-feet is when you are actual working on a wedding.

Conclusion – To be a fabulous wedding planner and a successful business person, you need to have both a formal education and experience in the business.

If you don’t have the time or money to go through a degree program or attend a conference, at least attend classes at local community colleges, or adult education programs, to learn the basics of business and take classes that will help you develop an eye for design such as interior design, fashion or costume design, architecture and floral design.

To get the experience you need, intern with wedding and event planners, florists, and caterers who handle many events. You can also get some experience volunteering to work on events for local charitable organizations. And, offer to help friends and family plan weddings and events for free until you have the skills and confidence needed to start charging for your services.

I receive a lot of questions about the education someone needs to become a wedding planner. Usually people ask about getting a wedding planner certificate or diploma, but I also occasionally get questions about whether you need to get a high school diploma or college degree and what classes to take.

There isn’t a requirement for a certification or degree to plan weddings or have a wedding planning business, so you can start without a formal education. But instead of thinking just about what the “official” requirements are, ask yourself these questions when trying to decide the education you need:

1)  Do the brides I want to work with want wedding planners who have certificates and diplomas?

In some niches, and in some geographical areas, brides will seek out planners with wedding planner certificates. Find out if this is true for the brides you want as clients.

2) If I wanted to work for someone else first, before I start my own business, would they expect me to have this certificate or degree?

Most employers, whether or not they are with the weddings and events industry, will want you to have at least a high school diploma. Planners may also want you to have taken courses in floral design, interior design, hospitality or wedding and event planning.

3) Do I have limited knowledge about wedding planning?

If you are not familiar with wedding planning beyond, perhaps, planning your own, you’ll need to learn how to plan weddings for others. (It’s not the same as planning your own event.)

4) Do you possess the skills needed to have a successful business?

Good oral and written communication skills, basic knowledge of accounting, marketing, and knowing how to give good customer service are a few of the skills you need to run a business.

5) What do your need to learn to be the best wedding planner for your brides?

Decide what you need to learn and pursue the education that would make you the best. It might be that you need to learn more about negotiating with vendors or designing spectacular weddings. Whatever it is, there are classes you can take on the subject.

Just because there are no “official” requirements for becoming a wedding planner doesn’t mean you can forget about getting an education. Always strive to be the best you can be for your clients and for yourself.

If you want an opportunity to see and hear celebrity wedding and event planners Preston Bailey and David Tutera in one place, save your money and take a trip to Event Solutions magazine’s conference and expo, “Event Solutions Idea Factory” which takes place February 27 to March 2, 2011 at The Composmopolitian of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nevada. Preston is the keynote speaker on Monday and David, on Tuesday. Both will speak about their careers and share how they get their inspiration and ideas. The conference also includes educational sessions and exhibitors showcasing the latest products for the industry.

If you like attending live industry events, Special Events magazine’s “The Special Event Tradeshow & Conference” takes place January 26 -to 28, 2011 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. This convention has different educational tracks for learning about food service, design, marketing your business and wedding trends. It also has a tradeshow with the newest wedding and event products.

I’ve attended these events a few times. Not only do you get to see and hear great speakers and see the latest products, you also get to meet and network with others in the industry. And, if you live in a cold climate, it’s a nice winter getaway.

Summer wedding and bridal fairs are a week or two away. If you are new to wedding planning or haven’t yet exhibited at a fair, take some time to attend one. You can see first hand how brides respond to different types of vendors, find inspiration for weddings you plan, meet vendors whom you might what to add to your network and get ideas on which fairs would be right for you to do in the future.

One thing you don’t want to do when you go to a fair as an attendee is market and hand out business cards. Besides being impolite and unfair to the vendors who have purchased booths, it is also usually forbidden by show management and could get you kicked out. 

 A couple of luxury events I heard about that will take place in June:

“Everything but the Dress” – June 13 – San Francisco, California

This is by Suite Five Salon, a hair salon in San Francisco, and features only the best wedding vendors, one in each category. That means, of course, that my friend Tracy Auseklis, of The Buttercream Studio, will be the featured cake vendor. As the name says, there will not be any wedding dresses at this event.

The Wedding Salon – June 14 – Miami Beach, Florida

A bridal event that features the top vendors in the industry who handle luxury weddings. The Wedding Salon holds events in different cities across the United States at diferent times of the year. It will be held in Chicago in October.

If you don’t know of any bridal fairs in your area, check bridal sites such as:

United States – WeddingWire.com and OneWed.com

Canada – Weddings.ca

United Kingdom – AllWeddingFayres.co.uk and GuidesForBrides.co.uk

Last weekend I received an email from someone who is interested in not only becoming a wedding planner but also an event designer. In fact, she preferred to be a designer versus a planner. An event designer designs and executes the look and feel of an event. Although many may specialize in weddings, they also design fundraisers, conferences, trade shows, corporate events, fashion shows, gala dinners, awards events (like the Oscars) and balls. Some do wedding and event planning, and certainly have knowledge and experience in the field, but usually they concentrate on event design and partner with a planner who can manage and coordinate the event.

There are schools, both online and offline that offer courses in event design. Their curriculum may include classes in floral design, color, fabric, decor, drafting, lighting, sound, staging, music, and special effects. If there aren’t any schools available in your area and you don’t want an online course, local colleges and universities often have classes in floral design, interior design and theater (my degree) that will help you learn the basics. You might want to also study history, architecture and fashion.

However the most important thing you can do is get experience, just as you do before becoming a wedding planner, and find professionals in the business who are willing to hire you as an intern or assistant.

Wedding planners and other wedding vendors are often targets for unscrupulous scams. Yesterday, cake designer Tracy Auseklis, owner of The Buttercream Studio, a fabulous wedding and special occasion cake boutique, wrote on her Facebook fan page about a scam. She was emailed by people who said their wanted a wedding cake but suspiciously asked that delivery charges be included in their bill. They would pay her extra so she could pay the delivery truck out of those funds. Thankfully, she realized that accepting extra money to pay a vendor, whom she did not know, didn’t sound right and refused the business. She later found that it was a popular scam against wedding cake designers.

Similar scams target wedding planners and there are others out there too. Here are 5 you need to avoid:

1) A bride and groom from another country email you asking you to be their wedding planner

The email tells you they found you on the Internet, were very impressed and want to hire to to plan their wedding when they move into your area to start a job or go to school. They offer to send you a cashier’s check for more than the amount of your fee and ask you to pay one of their wedding vendors with the extra money. Most people assume all cashier’s checks are good but they actually could take weeks to clear, beyond the time in which you would need to pay their “vendor.” Don’t accept cashier’s checks and never accept checks with large amounts of “extra” money that you need to pay to someone else.

2) You get an email or phone call saying you have been voted “The Best Wedding Planner in Your City”

I wrote on this topic last summer when I received an email telling me I won an award and offering to sell me a $200 plaque to post in my office. The company was selling plaques!

3) The Better Business Bureau (BBB) calls to say people are asking about your business

A representative from the BBB calls and says someone has inquired about your business, wanting to know if there had been any complaints against you. They, of course, are not able to share the details. But if you want their protection in the future, you can purchase a membership. This is the important thing to know and remember, the BBB is a membership organization.

4) Event and Wedding planning schools tell you that you are the perfect candidate

You don’t need a certification to become a wedding planner. However, there are schools online and offline that offer wedding and event planner training. If you decide you have to take a course, make sure you are very clear about what you are getting for your money. Many schools are very expensive and some are not legitimate, they don’t offer personal contact, have few training materials, don’t have trained instructors and aren’t available for questions. Check the Internet for comments about any schools you are considering before you enroll.

5) An online business directory emails you and says people are looking for more information about your business

They say you could be getting referrals but they don’t have full information about your business so they are turning people away. In order to get a full listing, you need to become a paying member of their site.

If you get requests from “potential clients” that sound unusual or are offered business “opportunities” that ask you for money, do some research. Check the Internet to see if others have encountered similar situations. Also, always trust your gut. If you feel the offer could be a scam, it probably is.

If you are interested in attending an educational conference and tradeshow and would like to see Las Vegas too, you might want to consider attending the Event Solutions Conference and Tradeshow that takes place March 8 – 10, 2010, at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The conference is for all types of event planners; independent wedding and event planners, along with corporate and association planners. Seminars are taught by the top experts in all areas. Topics for sessions include event planning, design and trends and navigating the challenges of having a business.

To learn more about the event, go to the Event Solutions website and download a copy of the conference brochure.

If you don’t already have a subscription to Event Solutions magazine, you can get a free subscription to their digital copy. It is well worth reading for information on news and trends in the event industry.

If you would like to learn from two top celebrity wedding planners, you may be able to get a chance to do this. Preston Bailey, event designer  for celebrities such as Oprah, Joan Rivers, and Jennifer Hudson, and who most recently designed Ivanka Trump’s wedding, and Marcy Blum, wedding and event planner to many celebrities, are holding The Process: A Mentoring Weekend With Preston Bailey and Marcy Blum, in New York City, March 5 to 7, 2010.

Attendees will be able to participate in designing and planning a major event and network with top event professionals.

They are only allowing 40 attendees and is only for planners who are serious about working and learning from the best. The investment is $5000.

There is more information on the Bailey & Blum website. You’ll also want to visit Preston Bailey’s newly redesigned website, especially the section that showcases the venues before and after Preston’s designs.

See more of Preston’s designs in his books; Celebrations, Fantasy Weddings, Inspirations, and Design for Entertaining.

Marcy has co-authored Wedding Planning for Dummies and Wedding Kit for Dummies with Laura Fisher Kaiser.

(Disclosure – Links to books are connected to my affiliate account on amazon.com which means I will get a percentage of their sale if they are purchased through the link. You can, of course, get them at any major bookstore online or offline.)