As Certified Wedding Planners around the globe gear up their schedules for the spring wedding surge, we will attempt to help you keep up with current events and news throughout the wedding industry. Whether you are a veteran professional or just learning how to become a wedding planner, it is always a good idea to stay informed about what is happening in our wide-ranging and wonderful business.

We’ve all seen it in the bride who giggles over every planning detail. We’ve seen it in the tears of wedding guests who cannot control their emotional response to the pomp and circumstance. We’ve even seen it in ourselves whether at the beginning of our career, during a particularly rewarding client experience, or when we quickly squelch any consideration of doing something else for a living. It’s called wedding sickness and it seems to be spreading.

From Hollywood’s television and motion picture obsession with all things marital to brides with plans to spice up the ceremony as well as the boudoir, weddings are gaining popularity and prestige across all demographics. Wedding-related contests are being run with prizes such as a free bridal party spa day or a Valentine’s Day ceremony atop the Empire State Building. Weddings are being given as gifts by charities and businesses to the terminally ill and members of our armed forces.

Empire State Building Wedding

Newspaper and online fashion and style pages are featuring articles on wedding design trends, wedding cake styles, and red carpet bridal couture. Entrepreneurial companies are attempting to capture a share of the bridal dollar with pre- and post-wedding wear, online gemology lessons, and marryoke. Some unscrupulous and incompetent service providers are also targeting our market with empty promises that invariably lead to broken dreams.

Despite an ongoing economic crunch that has reduced spending on wedding-related goods and services on average, many brides and grooms are still willing to splurge on their once-in-a-lifetime event. In many states, the wedding industry continues strong as couples find ways to realize their wedding day visions without breaking their budgets.

Even grooms are getting much more involved in wedding plans, holding ‘man showers’, and sometimes turning the entire wedding theme into a videogame.

Halo Wedding

In Vatican City, Pope Benedict XVI, expressing dismay over the ease at which over 40,000 annulments are granted by the Catholic Church each year, declared that marriage is not as impossible as some would make it seem. In the United States, programs such as the Healthy Marriage Initiative are working with couples in areas not experiencing the same reduction in divorce seen nationally.

Some couples are expressing their belief that a healthy marriage begins with an environmentally healthy celebration. From recycled gowns and stationery to locally grown foods and flowers, the eco-friendly wedding is one of the fastest trends today. And more brides and grooms are discovering that going green does not diminish the grandeur of their event in the least bit.

Beach Wedding

As usual, the celebrity world is filled with news of weddings being planned, canceled, or otherwise denied. Actress Anna Faris is engaged to Anne Hathaway’s on-screen fiancé Chris Pratt. Saturday Night Live’s ‘President Obama’, Fred Armisen is planning a low profile wedding to actress Elisabeth Moss.

Just as actress Ione Skye exchanged vows for the second time with musician Ben Lee, Paul McCartney, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Naomi Watts were adamant that bliss with their significant others need not be wedded.

The battle for and against same-sex marriage continues across the nation. In California, a federal judge has ruled against blocking the names of supporters of the controversial amendment, Proposition 8, which was passed last November and effectively banned gay marriage in the state. New York’s recently appointed junior senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, is rumored to support marriage equality for same-sex couples.

Kirsten Gillibrand and Hillary Clinton

Following the recent success of another ban on gay marriage in Arizona, an effort is underway to gather the nearly quarter million signatures needed to put forward a bill to allow civil partnerships with rights identical to marriage. Washington State lawmakers are also considering expansion of a domestic partnership law to give same-sex couples all the rights and benefits enjoyed by heterosexual couples, without the title of marriage.

The discussion over marriage equality is continuing in council meetings in Iowa, in debates in Texas, and in courtrooms in Massachusetts. In Wyoming, a bill asking voters to amend the state constitution to deny recognition of same-sex marriages was introduced. Meanwhile, the online donor community eQualityGiving.org has compiled pro same-sex marriage statements from 34 Members of Congress representing 15 states.

Finally, no week would be complete without news from the offbeat. While some news channels relate anecdotal wedding mishaps and mayhem, others witness the carnage in their own back yards. Wedding crashers at a house reception in Lake Placid, New York were turned away when the homeowner responded to their unruly, uninvited behavior by shooting one of them in the foot. An Indiana wedding turned into a surreal-life version of the movie “Rachel Getting Married” when the uninvited sister of the bride not only crashed the reception, but attacked her newlywed sibling, pulled out clumps of her hair, and beat her to the ground.

Rachel Getting Married

And a Missouri woman was in shock, but determined to make her marriage work despite just seeing her husband-turned-bigamist marrying another woman on a televised mass wedding.

We’re thinking Pope Benedict might make an exception for this one.

Elections matter.

Perhaps one of the most heartening changes brought about by the latest presidential election is the renewed emphasis of the role of healthy marriages in our society. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michele Obama are being hailed not just as our new First Family, but as examples of what we should all strive for in our marital relationships.

President and First Lady First Dance

From election night predictions of a national, hope-inspired baby boom to their romantic, exquisite first dances on inauguration night, Barack and Michelle Obama have been lauded for their family values and for embracing the American dream of family first. Apart from the visible model, President Obama also appears to back up his conjugal disposition with legislative ambitions geared to both strengthen and promote marriage.

Just after noon on January 20, 2009, the Obama Administration refreshed the official White House website to include a family agenda that features expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act and reintroduction of the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act. At about the same time, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families home page was updated to reflect the new president’s intention to continue the ACF mission “to help couples, who have chosen marriage for themselves, gain greater access to marriage education services, on a voluntary basis, where they can acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to form and sustain a healthy marriage.”

But even our idea of who marries and why has changed over the years.

In August 2001, the American Sociological Review reported that while 90% of American women are predicted to marry at least once in their lifetimes, women who are educated and affluent are marrying more and divorcing less often than their poorer and less-educated counterparts. This “Marriage Gap” is evident when a low-income couple puts off marriage until they can “afford it” despite having children together and a high-income couple sets a wedding date with the idea of starting their family once married.

A majority of young Americans view marriage as a status one builds up to, often through cohabitation first, and definitely after one’s finances are in order. In his November 2004 article in the Journal of Marriage and Family, “The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage”, Andrew Cherlin explored how the institution of marriage has been weakened by changes in the social norms that define partners’ behavior. He also attempts to answer why so many people still marry or plan to marry when cohabitation and single parenthood are widely acceptable options. The symbolic significance of marriage remains high, but has transformed from a marker of conformity to a marker of prestige.

A 2001 survey by Barbara Whitehead and David Popenoe, titled “The State of Our Unions”, found that over 80% of young women feel it is more important for their husband to be able to communicate his deepest feelings than it is for him to make a good living. Nearly all unmarried respondents agreed that finding their soul mate, as opposed to someone who is a good provider or religiously compatible, is the most important factor in choosing a fiancé.

Cherlin’s findings also indicate that more and more people are viewing the wedding ceremony not as a symbol of their parents’ approval or a reason to have children, but as a statement and celebration of their own status and progress in life.

In the continuing evolution of our view of marital relationships, we can take our lead from the First Family or from our own feelings on why and when we tie the knot. But when it comes to creating the celebrations that connote the prestige, passion, and stability of the modern marriage, we take comfort in the creative and commendable work of Certified Wedding Planners everywhere.

Barack and Michelle Obama Wedding Day

Sacramento, CA – January 14, 2009 – Lovegevity’s Wedding Planning Institute (LWPI) provides a free wedding planning service that employs its graduates, saves brides and grooms money, and increases local wedding vendor business. Certified Wedding Planners are paid through partnerships with professional wedding vendors and offer their event planning services at no cost to engaged couples.

The program is designed to help aspiring and existing wedding planners start or grow their career while boosting local wedding businesses and reducing costs for brides and grooms. LWPI graduates work with bridal clients to select the best vendors to create their dream weddings. The Certified Wedding Planner is then paid by the vendor, allowing marriage-bound couples to stretch their wedding budgets further.

The Wedding Planning Institute’s Certification is internationally recognized by The Association for Wedding Professionals International and is offered through hundreds of accredited colleges as a classroom and online course. Students are trained by professional wedding planners and given the opportunity to assist at real weddings, tour venues, and network with wedding vendors.

“With the economy in crisis, it is imperative that companies such as ours innovate to help our clients and business partners. This program will save engaged couples an average of $1500 in wedding planning costs, insure that their wedding is planned professionally, and give our graduates a successful start to their career,” says Cho Phillips, founder and CEO of LWPI.

Wedding vendors and couples who are interested in working with the Free Certified Wedding Planner Program should visit www.Lovegevity.com. Individuals interested in becoming a certified wedding planner can enroll at www.WeddingPlanningInstitute.com.

The Wedding Planning Institute is a division of Lovegevity, Inc®, a national event planning agency. Founded in Omaha, NE in 1997 by Cho Phillips, Lovegevity has administrative offices located in Roseville, CA. The company helps thousands of couples each year plan for their wedding through a national network of Professional Certified Wedding Planners in an estimated 600 markets. Lovegevity’s Wedding Planning Institute exists to improve the skills of wedding and event planners with education and certification and provides opportunities to those seeking a career in the wedding planning industry.

For more information, contact Jerry Madson, at (877) 597-8166, ext. 912 or pr@lovegevity.com.

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Certified Wedding Planner (CWP) Career Track

Defined as the willful misappropriation, by a trustee, of a thing which had been lawfully delivered in confidence, this particular breach of trust concerned trusting brides- and grooms-to-be, their wedding money, and the owner of a wedding planning business named Custom Events.

In Jackson, Missouri yesterday, Michael Erzfeld, the wedding planner arrested in December on five counts felony credit card fraud, briefly appeared in court to waive his right to a preliminary hearing. He will return to court at the end of the month on separate felony charges of check fraud.

While Mr. Erzfeld’s alleged crimes involve stealing from customers of his defunct real estate class business, a half-dozen engaged couples have had to file lawsuits seeking the return of their wedding planning deposits when they should be spending their time preparing for their big day.

For the Certified Wedding Planner, there is no greater trust than that which is given by a bride- and groom-to-be. Beyond the trust of directing tens of thousands of wedding budget dollars, recommending the right goods and services to create their perfect wedding day, and handling countless wedding planning details, bridal clients trust with their hearts that the memories of their most important day will be handled in good faith.

They must rely on the planner’s word that the vendors and venues have been vetted. They need to believe that the planner is both competent and ethical. And they are potentially scarred for life when their trust is violated.

In a business where dreams are turned into reality, without trust there is nothing.

While in the midst of the engagement season, many brides and grooms are finding it more than necessary to prioritize their wedding budgets. Whether they are slashing guest lists, sharing vows with betrothed friends, bartering their time and skills for venues and services, taking weekend ‘mini-moons’, or turning a Taco Bell into a drive-thru chapel/reception hall, couples are demanding more for less from their Certified Wedding Planners and their wedding vendors.

Taco Bell Wedding Venue

According to The Wedding Report, the median cost of a wedding in 2008 dropped by 24% from the previous year. While wedding budgets in 2007 averaged $28,704, including almost $1,500 spent on wedding planning services, recession concerns drove wedding budgets down to $21,814 for the most recent year. The wedding industry overall, which boasted a market value of over $72 billion just a couple years ago, is estimated to reach just $61.4 billion for 2009.

Batering For Wedding Goods and Services

Meanwhile, as brides use creativity and bargaining to navigate the still unsettling economy, Certified Wedding Planners are poised to play a crucial role in helping squeeze the most value from wedding budgets in the form of vendor discounts and venue deals. Despite the average cost of the overall wedding decreasing dramatically, wedding planners and bridal consultants will be paid more money than ever to help couples match their eager dreams to their meager budgets.

Here are The Wedding Report’s projected earnings for wedding planners in 2009:

Week in and week out, dozens of wedding planning stories, some serious and some silly, challenge the Certified Wedding Planner to stay informed of wedding industry news and trends. To help you sift through the barrage of information, each week we will continue to offer a recap of wedding industry headlines from the past seven days.

While wedding planning is being accurately acclaimed as a profitable business option and some industry veterans are reporting business to be improving, many planners are utilizing innovative ways to raise awareness of their services. In an economic atmosphere of downsized budgets, deferred dreams, and wedding debt, some wedding professionals are writing wedding advice columns and sponsoring photography raffles.

In other efforts to counteract the effects of recession, planners in Texas shared their Bridezilla stories in a newspaper contest, County Hall registrars in Britain offered free weddings, and New York City spent over $12 million on new civil-wedding chambers in a bid to overthrow Las Vegas as the world’s top wedding destination.

Internationally, engaged couples in Taiwan have been rushing to the alter to avoid a superstitiously bad 2009, legislation in England is working to protect victims of forced marriage, and in a child wedding story that is more touching than troubling, two very young children in Germany were stopped by police as they attempted a New Year’s Day elopement to Africa.

Meanwhile, the ongoing battle over same-sex marriage rights continued in states, courts, churches, and legislative bodies. Proponents of the California Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage filed a lawsuit to hide the identities of donors to their cause amidst reports of threats and other backlash.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown advanced his challenge to the recent ballot initiative and repudiated a marriage definition bill he signed as governor three decades before. Former congressman and author of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act Bob Barr wrote an op-ed recommending that his legislation defining marriage as between one man and one woman be repealed in favor of states’ rights on the issue.

And in trying to make sense of it all, conservative writer Andrew Sullivan presented a patient perspective on human rights, family dynamics, and the healing power of love and marriage.

As usual, Hollywood had plenty to report from the matrimonial front. Secret weddings were revealed for “Dark Knight” and “Harry Potter” actor Gary Oldman and his fourth wife, jazz singer Alexandra Edenborough, as well as CBS “Late Late Show” host Craig Ferguson and his third wife, art dealer Megan Wallace Cunningham. Similar news was adamantly denied for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, although the former husband of Jennifer Aniston was clear that no adultery precipitated their divorce.

Celebrity couple engagement news included Alyssa Milano promising her hand to Hollywood agent David Bugliari, “High School Musical” star KayCee Stroh singing the praises of her finance Ben Higginson, and Jennifer Love Hewitt cancelling wedding plans with former fiancé Ross McCall. Black Eyed Peas singer Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson made news for her pre-nuptial workout and parties leading up to her scheduled wedding on Saturday to actor Josh Duhmael.

On the reported downside of marriage were Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and the upcoming movie, “Not Easily Broken”. And continuing the Hollywood trend of mining tragic comedy from the wedding genre, and in the process insulting at least half its audience, the predictable flick “Bride Wars” offered little more than a shallow perspective on good and bad cinematic bridal gowns.

As every Certified Wedding Planner will attest, a million things can happen between engagements and honeymoons that are unexpected, uncomfortable, or just plain unlucky. It is the job of the professional planner to help their clients avoid, overcome, or simply accept wedding day misfortunes without allowing them to ruin the love and excitement of their special day.

Elaborately planned weddings have been doused by rain storms, snow blizzards, and erratic sprinkler systems. Ecstatic brides and grooms have been blind-sided by renegade horses, violent illness, and postnuptial depression. Basically, if it can go wrong, there is a Certified Wedding Planner who has not only witnessed the mishap, but also found a solution with minimal disruption for their clients.

So who can blame Hollywood for going to the well of wedding mayhem one more time for the new movie, “Bride Wars”? Once again we are treated to the spectacle of people meeting, getting engaged, and watching in comedic horror as nothing else goes according to plan.

Fortunately for the uninitiated, this latest whimsical wedding tale stars Anne Hathaway, in what seems to be her film forte. In 2004, her “Princess Diaries” sequel found her battling an arranged marriage. Early 2008’s “Rachel Getting Married” featured Hathaway as an estranged daughter returning home just in time to wreak havoc on her sister’s wedding.

And coming in 2010 to a theater near you, the romantic comedy “The Fiancé” gives the matrimonially-challenged actress the chance to jilt her husband-to-be for some much needed self-reflection.

Hilarity will surely follow.

As a Certified Wedding Planner, it is important to keep an eye on wedding industry trends that affect you and your clients. For instance, you may have noticed that budget weddings are all the rage and decided to consult your preferred vendors to discover how brides and grooms can get the most value for their wedding dollars.

Or perhaps you found a wedding gimmick that will have the betrothed clamoring for your services. Planners in Clearwater, Florida can enter couples in a contest to be the first to hold their wedding on Valentine’s Day above a dolphin tank. In Houston, Texas, a New Year’s Eve wedding featuring an indoor snowfall and an Elton John impersonator was highlighted by a humble arsonist and the local fire department.

And for decades, nowhere has produced more gimmicky, low-budget weddings than Las Vegas. From ubiquitous Elvis officiants to the traditional drive thru wedding chapels, for decades the “Entertainment Capital of the World” has stood atop the wedding world in both kitsch and volume. But even the City of Lights is losing some of its luster in these troubling times.

First, a few weeks ago, snow snarled the city built in a desert. Next, the Associated Press diagnosed Las Vegas as suffering from identity crisis. Then, simply because she is zero-for-two, Carmen Electra declared the town no place for anyone’s wedding, let alone her next one.

But the biggest challenge to face the city in years has been issued from the other side of the country. In an announcement aimed at shifting the balance of power in the wedding industry, the Big Apple has taken aim at Sin City’s claim as the number one wedding destination in the world.

Downtown Manhattan Marriage Bureau

After opening Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 24,000 square foot reinvention of the Downtown Manhattan wedding bureau, Deputy Mayor Patti Harris served notice on the current record holder that New York City is poised to become the most popular place to tie the knot. The $12.3 million facility is backing up its audacious goal by offering marriage licenses for $35, ceremonies for $25, and sparkling fake diamond rings for $9.

No word if The King is planning a Manhattan encore.

Certified Wedding Planners are witness to some of the most heartfelt, poignant, and loving moments in a couple’s life as they travel together from “Will you?” to “I do”. Too often these days, wedding news dwells on brides and grooms choosing to either scale back their wedding dreams or take on wedding debt.

We are in a financial crisis so far reaching that thousands of formerly affluent victims of a decades-long multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme have watched their collective net worth plummet, 250-year-old wedding crystal and tableware legend Waterford Wedgwood has declared bankruptcy, and our most vulnerable citizens are losing the battle to keep their homes or jobs or sobriety and swelling the ranks of homeless, overwhelming support systems and reducing community productivity.

But sometimes, the news includes a story of human triumph over adversity. Sometimes, a tale of compassion reaches out through the morass to give us hope for a better day. Such is the story of newlyweds Pony Cook and Barbara Abbey. Faith, trust, and love came together this past New Year’s Eve with the wedding of a formerly homeless drunk and a middle school teacher.

You may find their story thrilling or even troubling, but because of their ability to have hope, two people have found happiness together.

And we are all better for it.

Barbara Abbey and Pony Cook

While the majority of families and families-to-be are cutting back on everything from dining out and vacations to reception menus and honeymoons, there is a slim segment of society that is not, and will most likely never, be affected by the current economic environment.

Super-affluent families, with net worth values in the eight, nine, and ten figure ranges, are helping to keep some Certified Wedding Planners and other wedding industry vendors busy and profitable in these otherwise bleak times with a continued propensity to spend lavishly on weddings and other emotional ceremonies.

In your market, what changes have you noticed in your higher income clients’ spending habits? Are you targeting fewer clients with bigger budgets or many clients with more modest means?