Planning Tips, Your Event Career
Choosing an Event Planner VS. Wedding Planner Certification
There are so many avenues you can take in event planning—you just need to find out what you’re passionate about! Wondering which kind of program is for you? Read on to see if your career goals line up more with an event planning certificate, or if you should specialize with a wedding planner certification!
Consider the clients
Your choice of planning courses really does depend on who you want to work with throughout the course of your career. You may be the type of person who enjoys being in control of plans and having the opportunity to bring your own designs to fruition. Or, you might like working directly with clients to build a custom design for their big event. Gaining experience is the best thing you can do to find out what speaks to you!
Reach out to other event planners in your area, or consider volunteering to help out at a public event. You’ll gain insight into what planning is like in different sectors of the industry. This will help you make an informed decision about what type of event you really love to plan!
You might find that you’re an excellent wedding planner, and adore throwing gorgeous engagement events. You could fall in love with planning corporate events and giving employees a great place to mingle! You might even become enthralled with planning anniversaries. Whichever you choose, make sure you enjoy working with that type of client!
Choose exciting events
Every event planner is different. From the designs they create to the clients they cater to, there’s various parts of planning that speak differently to each person. If you try to plan a wedding and find you didn’t enjoy it—don’t specialize in weddings! Just because you have the experience, doesn’t mean you’re stuck in that career path. Once you’ve planned one event you have the knowledge to work on others. There will be a learning curve if you choose to change directions, but you’ll be way happier in the long run!
Choosing your career path is about finding a rewarding job that gives you both personal and professional fulfillment. Planning events is supposed to be a fun challenge! Make sure that whichever contracts you decide to take on, you’re going to get something out of them (and we mean emotionally—not monetary!). Making money is one thing, but you should never be miserable in your job!
Basically, love what you do and do it well.
Research your audience
Before choosing a specialization, you’ll want to research the potential client base in your area. This can help you find out how much effort will be needed for marketing and promotions. Although every business needs to promote itself, you don’t want to put in a hefty investment if you’re not going to get new clients in return!
Consider this scenario: your neighborhood consists of many young couples, between the ages of 25-30. There aren’t many big corporations in your area, and you enjoy getting to know your clients and connecting with them personally. It’s quite obvious from this view that your best bet is to choose a wedding planner certification—it ticks all of your boxes! You have the possible client base, there aren’t big local companies that would hire you to plan their events, and you enjoy working with your clients rather than simply planning everything for them.
For younger clients, you also have the potential to plan events like bachelorette parties, birthday parties, engagement parties, etc. So having some experience in both event and wedding planning would be a bonus!
Determine your salary
I know we mentioned that fulfillment is more important than money (and we stand by that!) but you do need to support yourself. Event and wedding planners make a pretty penny, and you should be getting paid for every bit of your hard work! It’s not always an easy job, after all.
If a high salary is really important to you, consider luxury wedding planning or working for a big corporation. These positions tend to offer larger salaries, as well as bigger event budgets to work with. Like planning glamorous weddings? Target luxury clients. Enjoy a stable office job? Apply to a company. Be competitive and keep learning—that’s the best way to land top event planning jobs!
Choosing between an event planning course and a wedding planning course can be a hard decision for some. Both careers have so much potential! Whatever you choose, follow your heart—and don’t be intimidated!
