Career choice: wedding planner

Becoming a professional wedding planner is the perfect career for someone who loves the sheer grandeur and romance associated with weddings.

The wedding and events planning industry is exciting, creative and fast-paced, but it is not always what the movies portray it to be.

Event planners have long and stressful working hours and mostly work on weekends, as that is when events usually take place.

To be a wedding planner, you need to be a very creative person and have great attention to detail.

It helps to be a naturally organised person as well because you will be dealing with every aspect of the wedding and will need to keep track of what you have done and what you still need to do, all the while making sure you are within the couple’s budget.

Springs resident and local wedding planner Chantal Rossouw says that it is a great way to keep the creative juices flowing.

“You need to have great people skills and the passion to plan and create something from nothing.”

Some sort of qualification is needed to become a planner, just because you successfully planned a birthday for someone doesn’t mean you can go into a career in planning.

Chantal says that a Wedding Planner or Events Management Certificate or Diploma is needed.

“You study for approximately 12 to 24 months and this can be done through Intec College. I did a Professional Catering Course in which they gave me similar information to do wedding planning.”

There are three ways of working as a wedding planner. You can either work for a wedding and function venue as their in-house planner, you could work in an events planning company which covers a variety of services like wedding planner, décor and flower arranging all in one, or you can go the route of starting your own wedding planning business and being your own boss.

Becoming a wedding planner may be challenging, especially as the profession becomes more competitive.

“In a manner it is somewhat difficult to create a name for yourself because of the ‘bigger’ names, but it is not impossible if you work hard and produce great ideas and quality service,” says Chantal.

There are two parts to being an events and wedding planner, those are the planning and execution.

Careful planning leads to a flawless execution. How long before the wedding the couple comes to you determines how busy you will be, but as the big day creeps closer, you need to be able to handle the pressure and long hours you will have to work.

Chantal says despite all the cons of the industry like long hours, late nights, early mornings and dealing with difficult clients, the rewards of the job are worth it.

“Seeing the end result and the happiness and satisfaction of a client at the end of the day, that feeling is priceless.”