President Barack Obama, interrupted by three dozen standing ovations in his first official address before Congress, challenged Americans to better compete in the global economy by creating opportunity through higher education.  

“And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training,” Obama said to a joint session of Congress. “This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma.”

For the Certified Wedding Planner and those who aspire to become a wedding planner, this call to action, backed by billions of dollars for education stimulus in recently approved economic legislation, from a president who committed over a decade of his life to teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, is timely and reassuring.

In an economy in crisis, opportunity awaits those who seek betterment through self improvement and career training. Whether it is through a certification program or continuing education, each of us owes it to ourselves and our society to step forward and take charge of our future.

 

 

Get Married with Colin Cowie

It seems that everyone is weighing in on how brides and grooms can realize their wedding day dreams on three-fourths of previous year’s wedding budget averages.

 

Lifetime Channel’s Get Married host Colin Cowie, in his new book Wedding Chic, offers these seven tips for the budget-savvy bride:

1.       Dream big: Small ideas get small results, so put budget aside while envisioning your dream wedding, then figure out what you can afford.

2.       Cut your coat according to the cloth: It’s better to do five things correctly than ten things on the skinny.

3.       Consider a destination wedding: Weddings can take place anywhere, so think beyond the exotic beach and think about a bed-and-breakfast or country inn.

4.       Opt for a fantastic DJ: Instead of a big orchestra band, find a great DJ who can create great background music and just as easily keep the guests moving on the dance floor.

5.       Invest in a trusted wedding planner: A professional is there to ease some of the pressure while bringing your vision to a reality.

6.       Design a signature drink: Rather than serving an open bar, offer guests a specialty beverage that is as delicious as it is memorable.

7.       Create monochromatic flower arrangements using one type of flower: When bundled en masse in short ceramic vases, whether roses or carnations, tulips or spider mums; these flowers are beautiful and impactful.

For anyone studying how to become a wedding planner, Cowie’s tip to invest in a trusted wedding planner combined with a strong economic outlook for the wedding industry is great career news.

For brides and grooms hoping to get the most wedding bang for their wedding budget buck, hiring a Certified Wedding Planner is the best advice they can take.

 

By understanding current wedding trends, Certified Wedding Planners and those learning how to become a wedding planner can provide value and solutions to their clients during continued economic unease.

According to research compiled by The Wedding Report:

Areas of spending decline from 2007 to 2008

·         Wedding dress fell by 31%

·         Rehearsal dinner fell by 34%

·         Spending for a DJ fell by 6%

·         Bridesmaid bouquets fell by 36%

·         Gifts for attendants fell by 38%

·         Wedding invitations fell by 34%

·         Engagement ring fell by 30%

·         Photographer fell by 26%

·         Videographer fell by 24%

·         Wedding cake fell by 33%

·         Wedding favors fell by 9%

·         Reception food service fell by 53%

·         Limo rental fell by 24%

 

The current economic state is the primary factor for most spending declines, with smaller guest lists and lower-priced vendor options also contributing.

Areas of spending increase from 2007 to 2008

 

·         Tuxedo/suit increased by 47%

·         Ceremony location increased by 108%

·         Bride bouquet increased by 1%

·         Brides wedding band increased by 21%

·         Grooms wedding band increased by 38%

·         Reception bar service increased by 12%

·         Reception location increased by 15%

·         Reception rentals increased by 84%

 

Combined reception and ceremony events led to the increase in location costs while a de-emphasis on engagement rings led to higher-priced wedding band choices.

Happy Valentine's Day

 

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” - Robert Heinlein

This Valentine’s Day, many engaged couples, new and perpetual, are taking the opportunity to celebrate their impending nuptials by working on their wedding plans. Many Certified Wedding Planners are gearing up their businesses for another very busy wedding season. Many wedding venues and vendors are speculating, innovating, rehabilitating, and reinventing their approaches to try to succeed in what promises to be a strong, but changing, wedding market.

 

“Love conquers all.” - Virgil

As many as one out of every ten engaged couples says “I will” on Valentine’s Day. For many couples, a fantasy wedding will be very much based in the reality of tough economic times. While many will choose discounts, others will choose debt to finance their wedding day dreams. The couple who won the Clay Hill Farm $25,000 green wedding contest is the fortunate exception to the wedding budget rules.

 

 “What I need to live has been given to me by the earth.  Why I need to live has been given to me by you.”  - Author Unknown

Inspiration for turning Valentine’s Day green can come from decadent vegan chocolate cakes and dissolvable dresses. It can come from recognition of the impact the gift of millions of greeting cards, boxes of chocolates, and flowers has on our environment. Wherever it comes from, the desire to make your Valentine’s Day celebration eco-friendly shows your love for our planet and benefits us all.

 

“When love is not madness, it is not love.”  - Pedro Calderon de la Barca

‘Party planner to the stars’, Colin Cowie may travel in the mad world of celebrity weddings and events, but his heart is apparently in the right place. His steadfast rule states: “If you make anyone on my staff cry, you get your check and your contract back.” In a Hollywood culture of musical marriages and laissez-faire engagements, integrity is a welcome attribute.

 

“Who would give a law to lovers?  Love is unto itself a higher law.”  - Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy

While Valentine’s Day is providing a much needed economic boost for wedding planners, venues, vendors, and marriage bureaus nationwide, engaged couples in New York, California, Nevada, Texas, Illinois, Utah, and every state in between were recently denied the right to marry. This week marks the 12^th anniversary of Freedom to Marry Week. As we celebrate the holiday of love, named after Christian martyrs, let us remember that the struggle for marriage equality continues.

 

And perhaps someday soon, we can all agree that our world is better off for all the love it can muster.

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” – Dr. Seuss

Peace and Love

 

When Pam DuVal, Certified Wedding Planner and Instructor at Carteret Community College in Morehead City, North Carolina, opened Promised Hearts, Inc., she turned her lifelong passion for weddings and events into a successful business helping countless couples realize their “Day Of” dreams.

 

 

In recognition of her excellent quality of service, responsiveness, professionalism, value of cost, and flexibility, WeddingWire, a leading wedding technology company, has awarded Promised Hearts their 2009 Bride’s Choice Award™. Out of over 100,000 wedding vendors in the WeddingWire community, Pam’s business is rated among the top three percent nationwide.

Everyone at the Wedding Planning Institute is extraordinarily proud of Pam for the excellent work she is doing for her wedding planning and rental clients, as well as the incredible lessons and example she provides for Carteret’s certification students. It is especially impressive that this award was determined exclusively by surveys and reviews from actual newlyweds.

 

“We are excited to launch this annual award program to honor high-performing vendors based solely on the experiences of our WeddingWire community,” according to Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s CEO. “This year’s recipients have set the bar high, exhibiting excellent service and expertise in the wedding industry.”

Although Pam’s current classroom session is well underway, you can contact Carteret Community College about the upcoming summer session at 252-222-6204 or learn how to become a wedding planner online.

Pam is hosting the Lejeune Bridal Gala in Jacksonville, North Carolina on Sunday, February 15, 2009. For brides attending the show, there will be many door prizes, including:

·         Spa Day Pass and teeth whitening session courtesy of Planet Beach Contempo Spa

·         Two $300 Gift Certificates courtesy of MM Digital Photography

·         12”x18” sheet cake in a variety of flavors (Serves 50) courtesy of Kathy Canby Cakes

·         Gift Certificate for an engagement, bridal or portrait session with an 8×10 fine art print courtesy of R. D. Decker Photography

·         Certificate for a custom aisle runner courtesy of Chapel Runners

·         Cake knife & server courtesy of Promised Hearts

·         11 x 14 photo frame courtesy of Uniquely You Photographs

·         Wedding music CD & songbook courtesy of The O’Neil Brothers

In addition to the growing list of door prizes, the first 100 brides to attend will receive a free goody bag filled with tons of gifts and saving from our vendors.

For more information for interested vendors or brides, you can contact Pam DuVal at 252-671-6939 or visit www.LejeuneBridalGala.com.

Congratulations to Pam and her husband and partner, Joe, on their much deserved recognition and continued success of all their endeavors.

Apparently, even Kevin Jonas may not be safe.

 

While Disney, in addition to offering buyouts to 600 of its theme-park executives, is considering “right-sizing” the Jonas Brothers singing group, record numbers of layoffs continue in every state in the country. The Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported the national unemployment rate rose to 7.6 percent, on the backs of nearly 600,000 newly lost jobs, in January. Over the last 13 months, the United States has lost over 3.6 million jobs. It is estimated that over 11 million Americans are currently out of work.

While the government attempts to help through economic stimulus, revamped health insurance rules, expanded layoff notification laws, or misguided business advice, it is ultimately up to each of us to bring enough value to our employer, our clients, or our career choice to survive the current recession. For current and aspiring Certified Wedding Planners, the value you bring to your client will determine your business results today as well as your business referrals tomorrow.

 

On the job seeking website, Career Builder, the advice given to help recession-proof a job can be directly translated into similarly protecting your wedding planning business.

1.      Seek out additional responsibility: An employee will take on different responsibilities and get involved in long-term projects. The Certified Wedding Planner business owner will offer a diverse menu of services ranging from simple to complex and insure she is responding to her clients’ every need.

2.      Be a team player: While an employee will proactively share information and resources to benefit the work of others, the CWP business owner will create a system of open communication with her clients to avoid any details being overlooked.

3.      Offer up ideas: Proposing cost-saving or revenue-enhancing ideas makes an employee invaluable to a company. Implementing cost-saving and value-enhancing wedding planning trends and techniques makes a CWP business owner invaluable to her clients.

4.      Toot your own horn: For the employee, it makes sense to highlight the accomplishments and contributions of herself and her peers. For the CWP business owner, it makes good business sense to satisfy clients to the extent that referrals and positive word-of-mouth buzz results from each event.

5.      Stay positive: Employees should ignore rumors and stay focused on their work. CWP business owners should recognize local and industry challenges and stay focused on improving their business offerings and results.

 

 

Whether you are an employee trying to avoid or survive a layoff or an employer trying to avoid making layoffs, the value of the relationship will determine the outcome. Whether you are a veteran Certified Wedding Planner or you are just learning how to become a wedding planner, the value of the relationships you create and maintain with your clients will determine the outcome of your business dreams.

As we try to do most weeks, we have searched high and low to compile current events and news from the wedding world to help today’s Certified Wedding Planner keep an eye on our ever evolving industry. If you have a wedding-related news item you want to share, leave a quick headline or summary and a link in the comments section.

For those of you considering whether you want to become a wedding planner, encouragement is just a web click away. Not only is the overall wedding industry holding strong in the face of unprecedented economic turmoil, but wedding planning is enjoying resurgence as a wise budget decision for the bride and groom as well as an excellent career choice for the planner. For many of the millions of workers displaced by layoffs and outsourcing, the decision to become a wedding planner will come from a personal inspiration or the simple fact that marriage rates are rising during the recession.

Of course, there have been challenges to our industry due to financial concerns. Many businesses are struggling as the market is dialing back spending. As weddings no longer adhere strictly to set traditions or trends, successful industry vendors are adapting the meet the needs of cost conscious clientele.

 

 

Today’s brides are considering secondhand wedding gowns, scrutinizing which wedding elements can be downscaled, and eliminating unnecessary extras in order to maintain a tighter wedding budget. Successful wedding planners understand that while no wedding is perfect, our job is to create a wedding experience that is perfect for the client.

Across the spectrum, weddings continue to be a hot topic for contests and giveaways. This week, Essence Magazine wraps up their ‘Will You Marry Me?” contest. Five grooms-to-be from around the country are finalists to win a $50,000 dream wedding. The winning couple will be chosen by readers deciding which of their video proposals most deserves the grand prize.

An Ohio newspaper is running a ‘Once Upon a Wedding’ contest in which essays written by its three finalists will be judged to determine who wins $9,000 in wedding goods and services. The Get In Touch Foundation is sponsoring a bridal event where they will give away brand-new wedding gowns as door prizes. After sharing with a radio audience how she was saving money for her wedding by moving in with her parents, a Tennessee woman received numerous offers of free goods and services from wedding vendors, venues, and a Certified Wedding Planner.

Other businesses are using innovation and creativity to improve their wedding market performance. Upscale hotels are seeking to stand out as the perfect wedding venue through in-house planners, customized packages, and room discounts. The Four Seasons Hotel in Palo Alto is hosting a ‘Wedding University’, a day-long interactive educational affair that focuses on how to cut wedding costs in a shaky economy.

Supermarket chain Safeway partnered with WedNet to launch an online window shopping and budgeting tool that allows brides to make design, cost, and portion decisions on wedding cakes, flowers, and wines. Pronuptia, a United Kingdom wedding shop, is gaining market share by establishing a reputation as the place to go for plus-size wedding gowns. A Virginia town is enticing couples to enjoy a destination wedding at an exotic locale without leaving their home town.

 

 

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, wedding promotions are naturally in the air. The Florida Botanical Gardens will team up with a local barbershop quartet and a county court clerk to host a free group wedding on February 14^th. At the Detroit Science Center, any couple who becomes engaged at the opening of their new Star Trek exhibit will have their photo taken on the Starship Enterprise and be entered into a contest to win a ’Star Trek: The Exhibition’ Ultimate Wedding Package.

In wedding venue news, as Las Vegas’ fortunes falter, New York’s newlyweds celebrate in record numbers. Elsewhere, couples struggled to relocate their celebrations as venues were shuttered through bankruptcy and disaster. At one end of the venue spectrum, an Illinois couple exchanged vows in a Wal-Mart garden center. At the other end, Hawaiian wedding planners are in court fighting to keep their state’s legendary beaches accessible to newlyweds from around the world.

Regardless of budget level or geographic location, brides and grooms everywhere are embracing the environment along with their wedding dreams and choosing eco-friendly alternatives to traditional wedding planning solutions. 

 

 

 

The celebrity world continues to give and take when it comes to nuptial news. Singer, songwriter Lisa Loeb married Conan O’Brien’s music coordinator, Roey Hershkovitz, last weekend at a restaurant in New York City. After a covert courtship on the set of the Fox Television series ‘Fringe’, costars Anna Torv and Mark Valley revealed that they had secretly celebrated a holiday wedding.

 

 

Keeping true to the engagement season, Mark Wahlberg is reportedly planning a Catholic wedding and Clare Danes and Hugh Dancy will follow the standard ‘costars to newlyweds’ script. The music world heard rumors of Jennifer Hudson’s plans to marry Davie ‘Punk’ Otunga and Eddie Van Halen’s engagement to stuntwoman-turned-publicist Janie Liszewski. Meanwhile, Sarah Jessica Parker may either fear divorce-induced poverty or deny anything is wrong with her marriage to Matthew Broderick, but she definitely regrets the black wedding dress she wore at their 1997 wedding.

On the television, the CBS Network is diving headfirst into wedding programming with the drama pilot ‘Marriage’, a matrimonial dissection, and the reality-documentary ‘Arranged Marriage’, a controversial series exploring the Eastern tradition of selected mating among Western couples. The show is already drawing comparisons to the 2003 Fox Television show ‘Married by America’, in which viewers voted on which contestants got hitched.

 

 

In a storyline seen by many to be a step forward in the marriage equality debate, the ABC soap opera ‘All My Children’ will stage daytime television’s first gay wedding next week. In reality, two famous lesbian couples seem to confirm the conventional wisdom that any marriage has a fifty percent chance of surviving. Julie and Hillary Goodridge, lead plaintiffs in the landmark Massachusetts lawsuit that lead to legalized same-sex marriage, are reportedly heading for divorce. Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi, however, are reminding people of the loving way Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn used to look at each other.

 

 

In California, on March 5, the state Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on whether to allow the gay marriage ban approved by voters last fall. In that record setting ballot battle, the Mormon Church has acknowledged that while its financial support for Proposition 8 was more than previously disclosed, its contribution was an insignificant portion of the $83 million total spent for and against the proposed constitutional amendment.

In New Hampshire, the state legislature is debating three separate and opposing bills on same-sex marriage. A same-sex civil unions bill in Hawaii has reignited the battle over marriage equality rights in the Aloha State. And just as Vermont lawmakers introduced a same-sex marriage bill, their counterparts in Wyoming voted down a similar measure.  

 

A city judge in Manhattan ruled that under New York law, same-sex marriages that are valid elsewhere should be recognized in the Empire State. Across the Hudson River, a state judge in New Jersey agreed, but only for the purpose of divorce. In Maine, supporters and opponents are lining up for an anticipated bill proposing legalized gay marriage.

The ongoing fight between marriage equality and traditional marriage values appears to have no end in sight. States are debating, experts are weighing in, countries are deciding, television networks are advocating, and everyone involved seems confident in the certainty of their beliefs. History suggests we, as a society, will find a solution. It just may take several decades.

 

In other wedding news, an Arizona couple, who will form their own marital team in April, was on separate sides for last Sunday’s Super Bowl. When the Pittsburgh Steelers captured their record-setting sixth championship, the groom-to-be won a bet that means his future wife will pay for their upcoming wedding. A Georgia couple, five decades after their first no-frills wedding ceremony, renewed their vows with three generations of their family on their fiftieth wedding anniversary and finally enjoyed their first piece of wedding cake.

The Reverend Ed Taylor, the ‘Marrying Minister’ of the Smoky Mountains, has performed an estimated 85,000 weddings over the last three decades. His retirement after Valentine’s Day will not help the four Whitaker sisters of Annapolis, Maryland, who each have weddings scheduled in 2009. Congratulations and good luck to the entire Whitaker family!

We told you it was a great year for weddings.

 

As the Internet has matured over the past decade, more and more consumers, including your prospective bridal clients, are utilizing social networking, ecommerce, and application websites to research, compare, and share information on all manner of goods and services. What was unthinkable just a few years ago is now commonplace: brides and grooms are making wedding planning decisions and hiring wedding vendors based solely on information they received from cyberspace.

Highlighting this trend was the news last week that The Knot, the top-rated wedding-related website for 2008, has purchased WedSnap, a site aiming to be the future of weddings by engaging web-savvy brides. In addition to a web-based wedding budget planning application and a wedding website search feature, the acquisition also includes the most popular Facebook wedding application, Weddingbook.

An example of a regional social network geared toward the wedding market is Seattle-based Avant Bride. Featuring a directory of over 1,000 local wedding businesses, this website encourages brides to read and write vendor reviews, share their experiences through blogging and forums, and attend events to meet vendors and each other.

The Wedding Report, a research company that tracks and forecasts wedding industry trends, estimates the 2008 online wedding market was worth over $16 billion and accounted for approximately 13% of the total ecommerce retail market. Future projections indicate that online wedding sales will experience growth rates between 7% and 10%, reaching almost $23 billion over the next four years.

For the Certified Wedding Planner, it is vital to understand that eight out of ten engaged couples use the Internet for some or all of their wedding planning needs. The following table details the top ten reasons brides and grooms go online:

With the majority of newlyweds under the age of 27, it is natural that the percentage of the wedding market business conducted online will continue to increase. Each subsequent generation of brides- and grooms-to-be are more comfortable and more adept at finding solutions on the net. To continue to succeed in this evolving marketplace, or to successfully learn how to become a wedding planner, today’s CWP must not only be aware of the trends, but incorporate the technology of those trends.

According to recent surveys conducted by The Wedding Report, one out of three couples today use a social network site to communicate wedding information to their friends and family. That percentage will rise to more than half participating over the next few years. It is predicted that within ten years, nearly three out of four engaged couples will use social networks to replace traditional methods of sharing wedding details.

Today’s Internet is called Web 2.0: the trend toward technology and design aimed to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration, and functionality of the web that includes social networking, video sharing, wikis, and blogs.

Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media and creator of the Web 2.0 term and concept, defines it as “the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”

Even as we seek to understand and incorporate the advances and opportunities of the integrated and interactive web, technology continues to march forward. Internet experts are currently debating the definition and structure of Web 3.0, sometimes called the Semantic Web. Most agree that the next generation of the web will center on a pervasive, dynamic usage of Web 2.0 designs across newly invented technologies.

If you are asking what this means for your business, Shane McMurray of The Wedding Report has an answer:

· If you are not sure what social networking is, learn it. Read articles, books, or take a class, it should be a vital part of your business model going forward.

· Figure out how you can use or integrate social networking into your business model.

· Look at ways to integrate technology with your business processes. Think about the communication gadgets the younger generation is using. How will they communicate with you? How will they buy your products or services?

· Get connected. Set up profiles on social networks, connect with others, and promote your business.

How will you incorporate Internet interactivity and engagement into your wedding planning business?