To help the Certified Wedding Planner keep up with current events from the last seven days, we offer an overview of wedding news you may have missed.

Many businesses are using innovative offers to attract brides and grooms. Engaged couples are being promised a complimentary room each year for life when they book their wedding at New York’s Renaissance Westchester Hotel. In St. Louis, a wedding boutique is drawing business from all over the country by offering wedding gowns for pregnant brides and the Brides Across America campaign continued to thrill military brides with free wedding gowns.

A Wisconsin couple’s western-themed wedding included Garth Brooks and Slim Whitman as well as the entire wedding party on horseback. More couples are going green by choosing farms as their wedding venue. In venue tip news, backyard weddings are reported to reduce cost and enhance memories while creative draperies and lighting can be used to evoke a celebrity-style wedding.

Preferred wedding vendor lists are a crucial component of the wedding planner’s tool kit, but be wary of paid advertising masquerading as vetted referrals. Controversy over beach wedding permits in Hawaii reached the negotiation stage between religious groups and the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

A Minnesota police officer, in collusion with a local jewelry store, proposed to his fiancé using a highway billboard. Many husbands-to-be are becoming more involved in wedding planning, but wedding planners are cautioned to beware of Groomzilla.

Hollywood made its usual wedding news splash as Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green denied rumors of the end of their four year relationship and are planning an intimate wedding ceremony. Jessica Alba and Cash Warren intend to continue the Hollywood tradition of following an intimate ceremony with a second, tabloid-worthy wedding bash. Kelly Osbourne announced her engagement to British model Luke Worrell.

Today’s episode of the Rachel Ray Show featured the mass wedding of 33 brides displaced by Hurricane Ike, Lifetime Network’s show Get Married named wedding design guru Colin Cowie as its new host, and Ellen DeGeneres fought back tears on her talk show as a seven-year-old piano prodigy performed a song she had written for the newlywed host and her wife, Portia De Rossi, called “Once Upon a Wish”.

The continued fallout from the November 4^th ballot measures banning same-sex marriage in three states included a California Supreme Court challenge, boycotts and vandalism of supporters of the bans, and the Mormon Church receiving suspicious packages and threats for their perceived roll in the controversy. Meanwhile, gay marriages began in Connecticut, Vermont and Illinois geared up as the next battlegrounds, and Subway Restaurants and the eHarmony dating company responded to gay activists’ complaints by tailoring their businesses away from discrimination to be more inclusive of alternative lifestyles.

Internationally, schoolgirls in Scotland are learning how to become wedding planners in a class project designed to spark their imaginations and teach organizational skills and wedding planners in Bollywood are inspiring a generation of betrothed with elaborate wedding backdrops on television and movie sets. Brides and grooms agonized over rising wedding costs in New Zealand while a distraught father in India was awarded compensation for a wedding transportation no-show for his son’s nuptials.

Meanwhile, brides are being targeted by con artists in Australia and the British government moved to strengthen marriage by making pre-nuptial agreements binding and reducing the rights of cohabitating couples.

In wedding financial news, while the economy is apparently good for the wedding industry in North Carolina, a stock market watch site is questioning whether the wedding industry is good for the economy. The combination of fewer brides and more wedding vendors is driving the need to diversify and innovate to survive. Some wedding chapels are experiencing a drop in business and brides are responding to economic pressures by cutting wedding costs and taking on wedding debt.

In Arizona, delayed unemployment checks ruined one couple’s wedding plans. In the United Kingdom, the Ecclesiastical Insurance Company offered peace of mind to engaged couples strapped for cash and concerned about a wedding cancellation with a new wedding insurance policy.

The saga of rogue wedding photographers continued as a couple in New Jersey finally received their wedding photos after a two year battle. Not as fortunate, nearly 300 newlywed brides and grooms gathered in a Staten Island, NY hotel with hopes that their runaway bankrupt photographer or, more importantly, their missing pictures and videos had been located.

In offbeat wedding news, the internationally popular Second Life virtual world further imitated real life when the couple who married after meeting in the game planned to divorce after the husband was caught committing cyber adultery. In the U.S., Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested Jie Hua Zhou on charges that she arranged over 100 fake marriages for $20,000 to $50,000 each to help non-citizens bypass immigration laws.

On a happier note, a wedding ring thought lost forever off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii was found and returned to the gleeful newlywed husband and a wedding planning class at the University of South Carolina put their academic studies to practical use by planning a free wedding for a pair of their classmates.

“To those who can dream, there is no such place as faraway.” – Author Unknown

While no one knows how many engaged couples envision their wedding ceremony gracing an exotic locale in a distant land, as many as one in six of your clients will want to make their destination wedding fantasy a real life planning challenge. For the Certified Wedding Planner new to the fastest growing segment of wedding planning, the opportunity can be exhilarating and intimidating.

The decision to take the show on the road can be frightening for your client as well. In the early stages, your job is to help them weigh the advantages and disadvantages of nuptials on the road. While they can save money and reduce stress with weddingmoon packages and smaller guest lists, they may not enjoy navigating foreign legal requirements and missing family and friends.

With leading wedding destinations ranging from Las Vegas, Hawaii, and the Caribbean to South America, Europe and the Far East, and everywhere in between, it is vital to develop a basic game plan before attempting to service the travelling bride and groom.

Lisa Light, expert wedding planner and author of the best-selling book, Destination Bride, details five phases the Certified Wedding Planner must follow to turn a client’s destination wedding dream into reality.

Phase One: Organize your client’s thoughts, desires, priorities, finances, and other resources.

Phase Two: Perform due diligence on your client’s chosen destination beyond location to include specific venues.

Phase Three: Research and determine the services and service providers you will use including travel, accommodations, guest considerations, wardrobe, menu, and décor.

Phase Four: Confirm and reconfirm all the details to insure a flawless event.

Phase Five: Coordinate all the elements you have designed to ensure everything goes as planned and your client is able to relax and thoroughly enjoy their wedding celebration.

Even more so than with planning a local event, a destination wedding’s success is in the details. Additional logistics for including children in the ceremony, booking an exclusive venue, or arranging travel for the wedding party and guests can quickly become overwhelming without extensive forethought, research, and planning.

When time and resources allow, it is always best to visit venues and vendors prior to contracting their services. When time and resources are short, you should work to develop a relationship with a Certified Wedding Planner local to your destination who can provide referrals and testimonials on wedding service providers.

Destination weddings can be the most romantic, prestigious, and exotic events you will ever plan. How often you get to create your art amidst foreign ambience depends on your commitment to preparation and your aptitude for implementation.

“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, and penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” – Maya Angelou

They have been called many things: Millennials, Generation Y, Echo Boomers, Born Digitals, and even Trophy Kids. Nearly 80 million strong, they were born starting roughly a quarter-century ago, grew up on the Internet, iPhones, and TIVO, and will be sending the Certified Wedding Planner a Twitter query about your services tomorrow. Will you be ready with the right answer? Will you even get the message?

As the children of Baby Boomers reach marriage age, they represent challenges in both an increase in the number of weddings to be planned and a change in how we market to and service a new generation of brides and grooms. Last month, The Knot Wedding Network held a webinar for their advertisers titled: The Echo Boomer Bride and How to Market to Her. The following are highlights from the webinar put together by Alan Berg of the Wedding Marketing Insider:

Things you need to market to the Echo Boomer bride.

1.      Be personal. They care what is in it for them and not you. Welcome to the Me Generation.

2.      Know where they live. Online, message boards, MySpace, Facebook, etc. Over 97% of The Knot brides spend 5.1 hours a week on the site while they are at work.

3.      Your marketing has to be the best it can be because they have grown up in the age of exceptional advertising.

4.      If you want their attention you are going to have to work hard for it.

5.      Content is king on your website not flash or gimmicks.

6.      Keep your website updated with links that all work.

7.      If you don’t like something about someone else’s site don’t do it on your site.

8.      She doesn’t want her mother’s wedding.

9.      Direct mail still works; most vendors just stopped using it. No spam filters on their mailbox.

10.  Wedding magazines is still fastest growing magazine category.

11.  Today’s bride is as comfortable communicating with email as you are talking on the phone.

12.  Keep emails professional; proof read and spell check.

13.  She is going to shop around, so get over it and don’t pressure her to make a decision today. You’re not selling a used car. You’re helping someone plan a wedding.

14.  Don’t use auto responders to answer questions. Make it personal.

The Millennial Bride is very much used to getting what she wants, when she wants it. Recent surveys show Echo Boomer prospects are more optimistic and more demanding than previous generations. To achieve success working with the next generation of prospective clients, you will need to meet their expectations and communicate on their terms.

On her way to the wedding market, your potential bridal client impressively hurdles numerous obstacles to make it to your business doorstep. Before she leaves her house, she has to close the webpage telling her she can save thousands of dollars by planning her own wedding, shut off the television news reporting consumer confidence is at its lowest point in over two decades, step over the newspaper headlining congressional angst over the latest big business bailout, and ignore text messages relating the layoff woes of her potential bridesmaids.

Amidst the deluge of financial roadblocks, how does the Certified Wedding Planner clear the way for prospective brides and grooms to learn about and choose your services? As more and more people are forced to find ways to save money, wedding professionals must be innovative in their marketing and services to catch the eye and meet the demands of an increasingly frugal client base.

On the wedding and bridal marketing site WeddingBrand, founder Michael Brito stresses the importance of search engine optimization in an age where many brides and grooms use the Internet to make their wedding planning decisions. While having an informative and well-placed website is vital, survival requires doing more than simply hiring a webmaster and marketer.

For Andy Ebon of The Wedding Marketing Network, the value of getting out and pressing palms with your wedding industry cohorts is priceless. By networking with other industry professionals, the smart wedding planner can learn how others are delivering the flexibility and education desired by brides, as reported in a survey by The Wedding & Special Event Yellow Pages.

Deborah Crawford, BellaOnline’s SOHO Editor, concurs with the importance of a strong Web presence to exhibit your work and build your brand as well as a strong personal presence at wedding shows and industry events to elicit bridal clients and referral partners. She also recommends developing a niche that allows you to target your marketing to a specific segment of your local client prospects.

TART Marketing Director Michelle Hashemi advances online marketing to include positioning yourself as a wedding planning expert for local media and utilizing email and newsletter campaigns to generate customer interest. For reaching your client base more directly, consider setting up a blog, but do so with caution.

Wedding day memories are in the details. The ability of the Certified Wedding Planner to create signature events that match the dreams and desires of the client determines whether those memories are joyous and lasting or mundane and fleeting.

A couple’s wedding signature incorporates their personal interests and culture into the ceremony and other pre- and post-wedding events. By learning how to create a wedding day that is specifically personal and unique, you position your business to stand out.

The Wedding Planning Institute’s new Wedding Styles, Signatures, & Themes online course will teach you the art and science of developing signature weddings utilizing industry tools, techniques, and formulas. Throughout the course, you will develop a signature wedding portfolio to draw from and add to as you help couples realize their wedding day dreams.

Your online instructor, Marci Bridgeford, is a twenty-year veteran of the design and service industry. “This course will teach you how to weave your client’s personalities, likes, and desires throughout your event to create a customized, one-of-a-kind feel that leaves everyone talking for years to come,” says Marci.

WPI Online Instructor Marci Bridgeford

As the founder and owner of A Joyous Occasion, a Sacramento, California event planning company, Marci has combined her expertise in color, form, and function with her experience with event planning, design, and execution to create a unique and valuable course addition for wedding planning students.

Improve your career or business today by enrolling in this course for professional wedding and event planners.

To register, visit http://signatureweddingdesign.scribestudio.com/custom/7115/register.jsp.

For more course information, call 1-888-221-9988 ext. 9000 or visit:

 http://www.weddingplanninginstitute.com/wedding_styles_signatures_and_themes.html

With a 24-hour news cycle and the daily drumbeat of working in and on your business, staying informed of current events in the wedding industry is difficult for most Certified Wedding Planners. To give you a heads up on any wedding-related news you may have missed, here is this week’s wedding news roundup.

This week, celebrity wedding news included Jennifer Love Hewitt dishing on her wedding dress and honoring her fiancé’s Scottish heritage, British singer Leona Lewis dreaming of her future wedding day, a second take on the Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds wedding, and the UCLA cheerleaders as wedding entertainment.

Hollywood continued its love affair with all-things wedding related with the movie drama “Rachel Getting Married”. MTV scoured Maryland for young couples to share their wedding planning stress on its series “Engaged and Underage”. And “The Bachelorette” star DeAnna Pappas rebounded from her failed reality show engagement to host Lifetime network’s “Get Married” show.

Reluctance to discuss wedding plans made the news for celebrity couples such as Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel as well as Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson, but Beyonce’s refusal to sell photographs of her wedding to Jay-Z created the most buzz.

Even political celebrities got into the wedding news act when the first daughters-elect, Malia and Sasha Obama, were invited to a less than successful attempt at a mass dog wedding world record and Florida Governor Charlie Crist spelled out the particulars of his upcoming December wedding.

On the international wedding scene, this past Sunday was celebrated as the day a Hindu god and goddess married with 90,000 weddings across the country. During the auspicious marriage period running through December 12, over a quarter million weddings are expected to take place. In Shanghai, China, the city’s most famous and influential website launched a new channel of marriage information called “Hot Marriage” to provide wedding news, advice, goods, and services.

While weddings are about happiness and love, sometimes tragedy intervenes. In New Zealand, a widowed groom tried to do good and lost his bride, a bus carrying wedding guests suffered a fatal crash in Taiwan, and a virus outbreak at a wedding in Scotland killed one guest and sickened dozens of others.

The battle over same-sex marriage rights continues. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urged perseverance for proponents of gay marriage fighting for equal rights, protests marched throughout the country, and wedding industry businesses were caught in the middle. Meanwhile, Connecticut issued its first same-sex marriage licenses, New York State considered legalizing gay marriage, and a conservative pundit continued his crusade for marriage equality.

In other wedding industry news, a Nevada lawmaker is considering legislation to set a minimum age for wedding witnesses and The Motley Fool is bullish on The Knot after the wedding site’s surprisingly positive third quarter earnings report. A Las Vegas news team sought restitution for local brides devastated by another wedding business closing, a wedding photographer in Massachusetts left couples in the dark when it closed its doors, and a Texas con artist faked wedding planning certification and took unsuspecting brides and grooms for a ride.

Meanwhile, innovative Certified Wedding Planners and wedding vendors resurrected an abstinence contest, perpetuated their vocation, created business unity, revolutionized wedding photography, elevated wedding ceremonies, stylized wedding fashion, and influenced a burgeoning cottage industry.

Over the past year, dozens of major retail chains and entire shopping malls have been closing stores and downsizing employees to cut costs in response to reduced consumer spending and gift card buyers are being warned about the validity of their purchases.

Certified Wedding Planners have the duel challenge of keeping themselves in business while keeping an eye on their vendors’ businesses as well. Too often these days, bridal clients are being disappointed by wedding shops, florists, jewelers, craft stores, photographers, bridal shops, clothing stores, and consignment shops that are closing, often without notice, and leaving couples scrambling to reclaim deposits and fulfill their wedding day checklists.

The economic daily news is, at best, troubling. Taxpayer-funded bailouts for the mortgage, insurance, and automobile industries aren’t helping reduce foreclosure rates, cover uninsured families, achieve energy independence, or employ our legion of jobless workers fast enough to stabilize financial markets and raise consumer confidence.

With a new administration setting up shop at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in January, there are some signs of hope for the future for Certified Wedding Planners. In the middle of scandalous bailout-sponsored celebrations, credit card company defaults, and the U. S. Postal Service running in the red, some wedding vendors have innovatively survived certain doom and new locations are bringing better business to other vendors. Wedding planners are increasing the awareness of their value to brides and grooms and diversifying their business offerings. Optimistic developers and retailers are expanding existing and opening new shopping malls.

And entrepreneurs, such as you, the wedding planner, are being touted as the key group of business people capable of turning our slumping economy around.

Pam DuVal

Pam DuVal has had a passion for weddings and events for as long as she can remember. After years of planning events for friends and family, she decided to make her dream a reality and start her own business, Promised Hearts Wedding Planning.

Prior to becoming a wedding planner Pam was business office manager for nursing homes and assisted living facilities in the New Bern, North Carolina, area. She gained invaluable knowledge in dealing with people in stressful, complex situations. Her experience with finances as an office manager has helped her to plan and manage her business as well as plan events with any type of budget.

Working almost every wedding with her husband, Joe, Pam recently expanded their business by opening a retail/rental shop in downtown New Bern. By constantly searching for new and unique items, Promised Hearts Inc. carries everything a wedding planner needs for their next event; rental items, candelabras, specialty linens, candy stations, unique gifts, wedding accessories, anniversary items, and more.

Pam is a Professional Bridal Consultant, co-director of the New Bern area networking group, an active member in the New Bern Chamber of Commerce, and a certified Sandals expert. Pam’s main goal is to teach students that by providing an exceptional level of personal care, they can help their clients have a memorable and enjoyable experience from the time they start planning until the big day, regardless of the event size or budget.

As an instructor with Lovegevity’s Wedding Planning Institute, Pam strongly believes that having a professional certification in the wedding-planning industry gives her students “the training and credibility to become a trusted planner. Brides especially, must have confidence in their planner,” she says. “You will be spending a lot of time together and you must be able to have that level of trust.

“Wedding planning can be a great career that is fun and extremely fulfilling. It is exciting to see all the pieces come together the day of the event,” Pam adds. “To see the happiness on the bride’s face and to know that her big day has been a dream come true makes me happy. I just love what I do!”

Wedding and Event Planning Course
Carteret Community College
Morehead City, North Carolina / Carteret County, North Carolina
Sept. 13 to Nov. 15, 2011
Register for the course online

Over the past three months, The Wedding Report has compiled information from its state of the industry survey from over 500 wedding vendors. The resulting Wedding Industry Index gives the Certified Wedding Planner a snapshot of how well our industry is holding up through the current recession.

Current Sales – From August through October 2008, 37% of vendors rated their current sales as either good or excellent. Fair or neutral ratings were reported by 48% of respondents and just 15% considered their sales to be poor.

With many in the financial industry expecting poor results from wedding businesses, actual results from the third quarter have been surprisingly good for wedding industry stalwarts such as The Knot. Similar dismal prognostications are being floated for diamond and fine jewelry seller Blue Nile and for businesses affected by recent electoral challenges.

Average Amount Spent – Vendor responses for the past three months indicate the average wedding client increased spending 13% of the time and that 29% decreased their spending. Overall, a majority of 58% of vendors report their customers’ spending remained the same as in previous months.

Although the current economic crisis is squeezing consumer spending across the board, brides and grooms have been experiencing increased wedding costs for several years. For 2008, spending for the average wedding is expected to reach $28,704 and increase by almost $1000 more for next year. The Certified Wedding Planner can expect a modest increase on the average $1,483 spent this year on wedding planning services.

A new service by The Wedding Report, Cost of Wedding, allows wedding vendors and clients to view the average costs of different wedding goods and services as well as estimate the cost of a wedding in any area throughout the United States.

Couples Getting Married – The number of couples getting married during the past three months is mostly holding steady for 72% of vendors. Those experiencing an increase and decrease were 12% and 16% respectively.

With the winter months approaching, while the number of couples getting married will increase over the same time period last year, the inevitable drop in weddings during November and December cannot be avoided. Almost a quarter million couples wed during each of the past four months, but less than 200,000 will have weddings during the next two months, prompting many industry businesses to cut costs to survive.

Sales Expectations Next Three Months – For the fourth quarter 2008, wedding vendors are mostly optimistic with 39% anticipating good or excellent sales, 50% expecting sales growth to be neutral or fair, and only 11% of replies fearing poor future sales.

While the overall feeling from this survey is that our industry is holding strong, there is a reduction of respondents reporting excellent prospects for each category of 25% to 30%. For many wedding vendors, including Certified Wedding Planners, business success will depend on providing superior customer service, working closely with industry partners, and even considering a merger to supplement your appeal to an anxious client base.

Religion and marriage have marched hand-in-hand for millennia with couples tying their love for each other with their faith and spirituality. While marriage can be viewed by different cultures as a social, religious, spiritual, or legal union of individuals, religious ceremonies inspire brides and grooms with the promise of sacred blessings and lifelong celebration of their devotion to each other and to their creed.

For the Certified Wedding Planner, an understanding of how and where weddings are celebrated by different religions can be the difference between earning a client’s business and wondering why they chose your competition. Use this overview as a starting point toward a greater appreciation for the diversity of religious wedding venues in our world.

Christianity – While early Christians were not required to validate their marriages through a Church ceremony, the writings of Tertullian, Christian apologist or defender, seem to indicate that by the end of the second century, it became customary for nuptials to be blessed with a religious wedding ceremony in a church edifice. In 1545 A.D., The Council of Trent declared marriage as one of the sacraments of the church.

Judaism – Hebrew tradition does not dictate that weddings take place in the synagogue, although many couples choose to do so. Often performed outdoors, Jewish wedding ceremony requirements include the chuppah, a prayer shawl, veil, or other covering, that represents the marital home and the desire for God’s protection and guidance, and the supervision of a rabbi, but not a specific venue.

Islam – Traditional Muslim wedding ceremonies are often spectacular events and consist of three parts. The pre-wedding ceremonies, including the Manjha and the Mehndi, and the main day ceremony, called the Nikaah, often take place at the bride’s home, but can be held at the groom’s place, a Mosque, or any common venue. Post-wedding ceremonies include the Rukshat, the emotional ritual passing of the bride from father’s home to the husband’s house.

Buddhism – After consulting a Buddhist lama, or priest, to determine the most astrologically-sound date for the wedding, the ceremony can take place at the bride’s home, an outdoor location, or the temple. Before sunrise on the wedding day, a marital shrine to honor Lord Buddha is prepared at the wedding venue with food, candles, incense, flowers, and a statue or image of Buddha.

Hinduism – Although Hindu tradition suggests that Vedic wedding ceremonies take place on the ground outside and under a four-pillared canopy called a mandap, an indoor venue or the bride’s home is permitted. Performed mostly in Sanskrit by a priest or Brahmin, the ceremony includes a sacred fire to invoke Agni, the god of Fire, to witness the couple’s commitment to each other and to comply with the Hindu Marriage Act.