There are many life, business, personal, and emotional lessons I have learned along the path to becoming a Wedding Planner, some of which I wish I would have learned sooner and some of which I just need to keep reminding myself of today and every day.
Maybe you’re where I was then – trying to figure it all out, not really knowing up from down when it came to career paths.
I hope you find this blog post helpful, inspiring and, most of all honest.
What I wish I could have told my younger self about becoming a Wedding Planner
Becoming a Wedding & Event Planner wasn’t at the top of my career choices. I wanted to be a dolphin trainer, then at some point I wanted to be a vet, then a marine biologist. I held on to the marine biologist idea for a long time. I loved being in the water, I was obsessed with Sea World and I even had that Barbie where her skin changed to this pearly black wetsuit when she went in water (complete with a killer whale accessory).
The path is never straight.
I’d say all three of those are the farthest you can get away from a Wedding Planner. I’m not even sure when I was growing up I knew there was a job such as a Wedding Planner. One thing I knew was I loved helping my mom with all the social and church events she was a part of. I remember setting up decor, putting out tables, serving at dinner theatres, and that feeling and energy that comes when people enter a room for the first time.
There’s always something to learn. Pay attention.
After helping my mom so much, I knew a lot of the ins and outs, the start and the finish of all of these events, and it brought a sort of foreign confidence to an otherwise shy and introverted kid.
As I kept helping my mom, I found other things I could be a part of or volunteer at, and that I could actually get a job with these skills.
I worked at summer camps, ran church productions, taught Bible lessons, riding lessons, volunteered on event committees, youth groups, decor teams, conferences, and just found a bit of a voice in leading. I definitely didn’t know that this was a form of leading at the time. It was more just me being able to share something I was good at and really enjoyed.
You don’t always have to know before trying.
High school was coming to an end and I honestly had no career objectives at all. I didn’t want to go to university, I didn’t really want to be a lawyer, or get married and have babies right away, and I for sure knew enough about money that just heading into school with no direction was a bad idea. I knew one thing I wanted – travel. I knew I wanted to go to Australia.
My mom was moving to the city and I didn’t have much reason to stay behind in our small town so I went with. After working for a year, I headed out to Australia. I still didn’t really know Event Planning could be a job, but it turns out that when I was out there, I ended up doing a mix of all the sorts of things I do as an Event Planner now.
Everyone has a home. It just might take a few knocks to find yours.
When I got back, I did a year long leadership training program followed by a year long creative event internship and I was SO in my world. I had finally found it: a place where all these things, these skills, these talents married together and what, this is actually a career? No way!
I thought that was that – it was that “easy.” I mean, after 20 years of not really knowing how to put it in words, but I was always taking steps toward being a creative. I didn’t know it at the time; I didn’t even know it was a term or a title. Generally, I thought I was a bit weird growing up. But it’s a thing: “I’m a creative.” I still didn’t (and don’t) really call myself that but it felt really nice knowing I had a place.
Nothing is as easy as it looks.
After many long nights and early mornings, many events, lots of great teams and volunteers, lots of productions, sets, installs, tear downs, and a lot of stress, I realized two things:
1) I was in the right field, but 2) I was in the wrong space.
We all start somewhere. And I would say my career path to becoming an Event Planner started here. It was one of the hardest choices I had made up until then but it was time for a shift.
I thought “A Wedding Planner. That seems perfect.” I had the skills, I had the leadership ability, and so I started walking in that directions. I did some research and then received some very bad advice: “You can never make a living as a Wedding Planner.” My hopes were dashed. I took stock and decided I just needed something stable for a while so I went into the world of 9-5 (aka, hell for a creative).
Anything can be worked through.
I had a battle in my early teens with severe anxiety (and the panic attacks that come with it) but spent a lot of time working it out. I knew that if I wanted to get anywhere good, I needed to get out of there. I forced myself to make small choices, then bigger choices, then just thinking through choices of any type – anything that might one day come my way – and trained myself that none of this need slow me down. And that changing your mind is ok. Any time I started to go there (those of you with anxiety, you know those trigger places where you can feel yourself starting to lose control), I told myself “What’s the worst that can happen?” and I would go all the way there. And really, most of the time, it’s all in your head. “This is the worst, ok, so now what would you do with the worst?” Anything can we worked through, I told myself. The answer is always “Yes, I can.”
Use what you have to your advantage.
I always thought that my bossiness was a problem. From a young age I always knew what I wanted. After dealing with my anxiety issues, and keeping them in check, being decisive became second nature, but I never wanted to push it. I didn’t want to be that bossy person. But when you’re a boss, it’s hard to hold that lion in. After years of fighting it I realized that it was useless and that I better figure out how to use it to my advantage or I’d just be miserably hiding within myself.
Some people are just made to be the boss.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I was doing horribly at my 9-5. Steady income or not, everything I was doing on the side was bringing 100% more joy than what I did as day job.
It took a long time to feel ok with being so bad at being an employee. I felt really guilty for a long time but I went down a path until I realized it lead the wrong way and it was time to machete my way through the woods.
Sometimes you just shouldn’t listen to anyone but yourself.
I decided it was time to get back to that 20 year old self, that one who really wanted that creative life, that one who knew that with childlike faith, she could do it.
I didn’t know the exact steps or the path to get there or any of that, but being a thinker, researcher, and planner to the core I knew I had the skills to figure it out. Outside noise was telling me that this still wasn’t a career path, but I figured that if I couldn’t find a way in, the worse case scenario was “there’s always McDonald’s.”
Going back will probably always be scary and there’s no shame in that.
In the back of my mind had always been the thought that I might go back to school. The trouble with that thought was that I had always been a poor student. I had been in special classes since I could remember and I didn’t learn a second language because I couldn’t seem to even learn the first (I’m still not that great with grammar and spelling – ask my proofreader! ha!). But the idea of going back to school seemed so right, so I took the jump: I applied, got in, and ran with it. Yes, scary the whole way through. Also hard the whole way through. I even remember crying once during break when a teacher was trying to help me through a lesson (hello, 13 year old self’s anxiety! Long time no see!). But I did it, graduated, and learned a lot.
Biggest thing: It was time to just give this career Event Planning thing a go.
Blogging is good practice.
I had started blogging shortly after my year in Australia and had been blogging ever since so all that practice (and online education) really came in handy.
I got a website up, put an ad on kjiji (I know) and just took in everything I could find about the career and life of an Event Planner.
Some skills are universal. Don’t undervalue any of them.
I was amazed at how many of the basic skills I had to do the job and to do it well. I was also amazed that the simple act of good customer service brought me referrals. There are a lot of things out there that seem super common sense but as I worked, I realized more and more that maybe they weren’t actually that common. A lot of the things I had learned, and skills I sharpened growing up, quickly began to elevate me and my business early on.
Slow and low is the best way to cook.
Things take time. Just like deciding to really go for it and becoming an Event Planner took time, so would building a business, an income, and then a profit. The motivation was everything. I honestly didn’t have a fallback plan (I mean, I was joking about McDonald’s but that was about as close as I got to a Plan B) and I think that’s what pushed me the most. The more I dug into it the more I wanted to be an Event Planner. The more I had tried other things in the past the more I knew they weren’t right for me. I wouldn’t consider myself a very patient person, but it’s a skill you need to have when you’re an Event Planner and you’ve done everything you can think of to do to bring in business but you’re still not fully booked. Sometimes things are just not in your control. Faith, patience, and a lot of knowledge about SEO have generally worked really well for me.
Not every season will be the same.
It’s easy to think because you had 33 weddings this year you’ll have 33 or more weddings next year. Not every season is the same. Not every market is the same. Not every couple is the same – all things that, honestly, I think we should be thankful for.
One of the things I love the most about what I do is that it’s always different. I wouldn’t say I’m ever bored, at least not in the conventional way. When I get bored now, I get to decide if it’s time to have an educational day, or a day where all I do is things that inspire me like blogging, or exploring, or documentary watching. Variety in the work and clients is what makes this job so interesting. There is always newness, something fresh and exciting around the corner.
Be thankful in all of it.
It’s so easy to lose sight of where you came from on your way to where you want to be. I forget (often) what it was like when I booked my 3rd wedding and I felt on top of the world. Or the year I had 8 weddings and I was just so ecstatic. And then the year I had 18, then the year I had 28, then 33, then 35, then all of a sudden I have this amazing team, a great community of vendors to work alongside, and I’m living my dream. I want to live in a constant state of thankfulness. I want to be able to see and remember each step it took to get here, to be proud and thankful for all the strength, people, guidance, and grit it took to get here.
And I want to tell my younger self to just keep going. All the different potential paths, all the u-turns, all the moments lost in the woods are worth it.
P.s. I LOVE this “Starting a business?” blog post – it’s a must-read!
