Wedding Planner

[lainey72]

I have always wanted to be a Wedding Planner so took a home course a couple of years ago. I decided this year I should start to put my theory into practice, I created a website and have started to advertise with various wedding sites and yell.com but have not had much success.

I get a regular number of hits per week to my website, but no enquiries. I have contacted wedding planners and hotels in the area to enable me to get work experience but nothing is available or they don't offer that service.


I really want to turn this into my full time business but am finding this difficult to get into since this will be a complete career change for me.

I would really appreciate any advice you could give me.

 

[NextPoint]

How many visitors per day are you getting? A conversion rate to sales of around 1% is not uncommon - 10% is considered to be very good, so you need to be making sure you're generating hundreds of visitors to start seeing sales.

Other things you should consider are that making the sale is the last part of the sales process - you should think about how you are going to get people to make enquiries. Why not put e-mail and telephone capture features such as for signing up for a newsletter? If you have this, you can provide them with more detailed information and learn more about their needs - once you know more about the specifics that interests your prospects, you can tailor your sales message to their needs.

You could increase traffic by improving both your on site and off site SEO. Improving the quality of the HTML code by taking out inline styleing, on page code and using more descriptive markup and file names will help on the site - plus having a strategy that will make people want to link to, e.g. a blog would be good for this.

How long have you been running your website?

 

[Alicatt]

Hi Lainey,

This is a tough one to get started in as so much depends on reputation/word of mouth. A website is unlikely to be sufficient to get you started although Nextpoint has some good suggestions.

If you have absolutely no experience it's going to be hard. I would advise you to work for someone else for 12 months - keep applying for jobs with hotels or event planners (watch out for competition clauses in your contract - you may need to put off launching your own business fo a while).

The other thing to try is to offer your services free to a number of couples so you can get some experience and testimonials. Social networking and wedding forums such as hitched are a good place to look (check the rules on advertising on forums - they vary).

All the best

Alison

 

[MrsPWN]

How about offering to plan a wedding as a prize in a local paper competition?

 

[redtreeland]

I think you your website needs some work to "sharpen" it all up.

 

[Zeal]

I think you your website needs some work to "sharpen" it all up.

I totally agree. We'er in 2010 now I know "pretty websites" aren't everything! But it works along side the content, vice versa.

If this is the only way people find you currently - personally (well, my partner who I just showed) would turn away straight away. Weddings in most cases are meant to be glamorous, she'd expect the person she's dealing with to have that 'feel' about them, including website.


What MrsPWN (liz, send you a pm ) has said is indeed an excellent idea! The moment you offer this, (providing how large the area is you cover) - this will drive a ton of visit's your way.

 

[ankitadas]

It's pretty good having own business of wedding planner. I and my fiance going to be marry soon and need some suggestions for wedding plans. Even we both are thinking to take wedding insurance.

Thanks

 

[gemd89]

I thought it was more for celebs and americans this wedding planner stuff.

It would take out the fun for me and also mount up costs i imagine?

Maybe a lealet or booklet with all your services, the steps of the wedding etc something like that..you could send out to people who sign up with your website.

Wedding fayres may be a good place to start? Theres one on 5th september

Gemma

 

[MotivateChange]

Hi there, I have over 20 years event experience and can offer the following advice.
1. your website needs sharpening up
2. you are not charging enough, there will be weeks and weeks of work in planning the average wedding and this doesn't even begin to cover your man hours, insurance, or overheads.
3. you need to be watertight on contracts as litigation within the events industry is very tight.
4. There are lots of people out there who use wedding planners but these are usually at the very top end of the market and your pricing structure would instantly put them off.
5. you really do need to have managed weddings and events before to say you are just breaking into the market without any event background would turn people off straight away.

I am sorry that this sounds really negative, so let me say something positive. Your enthusiasm shines through and I think if you can really understand the market place and want to do this as a career rather than a hobby you have a bright future, however you do need to get lots of experience first.

If you want any more advice or want to pick my brains just ask.

Good luck

Alison

 

[gemd89]

Agree about the site - would definately put me off.

http://www.lunarosa.co.uk/ - This site looks okay.

Theres someone on here faerie, does mood mood for weddings, you could do some of those for your site in a blog type of thing, also more information about planning timescales, details like locations, food, and all other details like this will help. And more colour to the website, more images of weddings, food, locations.

Gemma

 

[gemd89]

This site is quite nice aswell

http://www.oliviasoletoweddings.com/ladies-lounge/

 

[haley_kenneth]

The Wedding Cufflinks UK are designed simply for use with shirts which have buttonholes on both sides but no buttons. It may be also single or double-length cuffs, and may be worn either kissingor barrel-style, with one finish overlapping the extra.

 

[td2011]

Hi Lainey,

This is a tough one to get started in as so much depends on reputation/word of mouth. A website is unlikely to be sufficient to get you started although Nextpoint has some good suggestions.

If you have absolutely no experience it's going to be hard. I would advise you to work for someone else for 12 months - keep applying for jobs with hotels or event planners (watch out for competition clauses in your contract - you may need to put off launching your own business fo a while).

The other thing to try is to offer your services free to a number of couples so you can get some experience and testimonials. Social networking and wedding forums such as hitched are a good place to look (check the rules on advertising on forums - they vary).

All the best

Alison

Lots of useful response. I agree with a lot of what Alicatt has to say on the matter. Most businesses are tough to get started and often require experience in the field before starting alone.