{"id":1853,"date":"2013-08-02T16:23:34","date_gmt":"2013-08-02T20:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weddingsforaliving.com\/?p=1853"},"modified":"2016-08-11T14:07:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-11T18:07:29","slug":"wedding-planner-certification-is-it-required","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weddingsforaliving.com\/wedding-planner-certification-is-it-required","title":{"rendered":"Wedding Planner Certification, is it Required?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you&#8217;re planning weddings professionally, do you need to be a certified wedding planner?<\/p>\n<p>I get that question a lot.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, there are no licensing requirements if you want to charge for your professional wedding planner services. So the answer, technically, is no.<\/p>\n<p>This partly explains why being a professional wedding planner is such a popular career choice.\u00a0 With such a low barrier of entry, anyone who believes that they have the necessary skills (whether they truly do or not) can create\u00a0 a website, print a batch of wedding planner business cards and voila!<\/p>\n<p>Truth is, many of the high-profile and celebrity wedding planners that you see and hear about are not actually certified.\u00a0 Because, honestly, being a certified wedding planner is only as good as the wedding planner certification program that you take.<\/p>\n<p>You can learn a lot about being a wedding planner by simply immersing yourself and, well, planning weddings and other special occasions.<\/p>\n<h3>Hands-on Planning Experience is Priceless<\/h3>\n<p>While being a certified wedding planner lets the world know that you&#8217;re serious about what you&#8217;re doing, don&#8217;t underestimate the importance of learning everything you can about weddings on your own.<\/p>\n<p>Each one of those social events, weddings, parties and showers that you&#8217;re passionately helping your sister and\/or friends with, count!<\/p>\n<p>As you work on these types of events you should:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Build your wedding planner portfolio.<\/li>\n<li>Track how many hours it takes you do certain tasks (very important when you&#8217;re ready to price your wedding planner services)<\/li>\n<li>Collect glowing written testimonials from the host of each event that you work on, in exchange for your labor of love<\/li>\n<li>Objectively decide whether or not you could imagine doing this for a living<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Continue your self-imposed learning sessions by reading wedding planner books&#8211;wedding etiquette books are a treasure trove of info.<\/p>\n<p>Keep an eye on what&#8217;s trending in national and, more importantly regional and local wedding planning and bridal magazines.<\/p>\n<p>Get out there and talk to and offer to help local professional wedding vendors (not just the wedding planners).<\/p>\n<p>Attend wedding industry events&#8230;immerse yourself in the wedding industry while you decide whether certification is for you or not.<\/p>\n<h3>Do your research.<\/h3>\n<p>And, if you&#8217;re certain that wedding planner certification is a must for you, be sure to do your due diligence.\u00a0 There are so many wedding planner training courses available; it&#8217;s enough to boggle the mind!<\/p>\n<p>Take the time to compare wedding planner certification syllabuses &#8212; i.e. the specifics of each lesson that&#8217;s being taught.<\/p>\n<p>Get the true story by connecting with active and recently-graduated students.\u00a0 Ask:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is\/Was the course worth the money?<\/li>\n<li>Is the wedding planner certification program focused on wedding planning theory?\u00a0 Or, does the course involve hands-on wedding planner training and activities, too?<\/li>\n<li>How knowledgeable were the course instructors?<\/li>\n<li>Is the certification course affiliated with or recommended by any of the established <a title=\"Find a Wedding Planner Association\" href=\"https:\/\/weddingsforaliving.com\/wedding-planner-association\">wedding planner associations<\/a>? (A good sign)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Again, wedding planner certification is a good move in the right direction, but it certainly isn&#8217;t required.<\/p>\n<p><strong>HAPPY PLANNING!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Should you get certified?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[293],"tags":[87],"post_series":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Wedding Planner Certification, is it Required? | Weddings for a Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/weddingsforaliving.com\/wedding-planner-certification-is-it-required\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wedding Planner Certification, is it Required? 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