Are you an aspiring wedding and event planner in the Akron, Ohio, area? Heather Porcella is already running a successful business, and she can show you how it’s done.

Heather Porcella considers it an honor to create a spectacular wedding that brings her client’s vision to life. As the owner of Truly Your Events, Heather was voted the “Best Wedding Planner for 2008” in the Akron/Canton Ohio area by the MyFoxCleveland.com Hot List. Her company has coordinated numerous events of various sizes, budgets and styles.

After graduating from Kent State University with a Bachelor of Science in Interior Design and a minor in Business Administration, Heather worked in Residential and Commercial Interior Design as an art teacher and as a floral designer. Her experience planning showers and weddings for friends combined with her education led her to create her own event-planning business in 2003. Truly Your Events offers the latest in wedding-planning trends including eco-friendly designs, full event coordination, and free initial consultation to provide clients complete planning services to help them save time and money and alleviate stress.

After becoming an LWPI Certified Wedding Planner in the spring of 2008, Heather agreed to share her knowledge and expertise with students in the Wedding Planning Institute’s certification course at the University of Akron. Heather will be teaching aspiring students how to become successful wedding planners by bringing personalized attention and creativity to every client’s occasion. “In today’s busy world, trying to plan a special event can be very stressful and time consuming. By providing solutions to the demanding needs of event design and coordination, you can allow the client to enjoy a stress free celebration,” Heather writes.

Candidates for the wedding-planning certification course at the University of Akron can register by calling Cheryl Beckwith at 330-972-6460 or by visiting http://www.uakron.edu/ce/schedules/WeddingPlanCert.php. The Spring 2010 session is scheduled to begin April 12, 2010, and will meet Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 to 8:30 p.m. for eight weeks. Tuition is $795 and includes classroom instruction, textbook, six months’ online curriculum and support access, and post-graduate job-placement assistance.

On Tuesday this week, President Barack Obama backed up his challenge to Americans this past February to take charge of our future by creating opportunity through higher education.

In a speech at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, the President announced the American Graduation Initiative, a $12 billion commitment to strengthen community colleges that gear curriculum for the needed jobs of the future with a goal of graduating an additional five million people with degrees and certificates in the next decade.

Later that evening, students at Macomb Community College attending the summer session of The Wedding Planning Institute’s Certified Wedding Planner course met with their instructor Lisa Smith, owner of Gabbi Grace Events, to take charge of their future and continue their journey to making their wedding planning business dreams come true.

Certified Wedding Planner Student at Macomb CC

Every year, the wedding industry continues to grow as more and more people are getting married and more couples are seeking professional help to plan their perfect wedding day while maintaining a reasonable wedding budget. Certified Wedding Planners are trained to do exactly that and are strongly positioned to succeed in the economy of today and tomorrow.

If you have dreamed of planning weddings for a living or are just curious to see if you have what it takes to succeed in this rewarding field, take a tour of our online and classroom course curriculum at www.cwptour.com. Your future as a Certified Wedding Planner awaits!

Over the past couple months, everyone at The Wedding Planning Institute has been dedicated to upgrading our online curriculum and migrating to our new elearning server. For the most part, the work is done and the transition was a success. We want to thank all of our students, instructors, graduates, and vendors for their understanding and participation during this process.

To introduce our new format and allow prospective students to gauge whether becoming a Certified Wedding Planner is the right career choice, we have developed an online tour of our wedding planning certification course. To take the tour, simply click the image below or visit:

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

Please continue to give us feedback on how we are doing here in the blog comments, through our websites, or by email at admissions@weddingplanninginstitute.com.

Over the next couple months, we will continue to upgrade our websites and roll out new wedding planning continuing education courses and a new online community for our students, graduates, instructors, and partners.

So please take a few moments and take a tour of the new wedding planning certification course!

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.

Professor Obama, The Education President

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

Today we send out congratulations to our graduating Certified Wedding Planner students at Delaware Technical Community College! WPI Instructor Marlo Greene, owner of Regina Lesley Event Artistry, provided us with pictures of her most recent graduating class and some of their classroom presentations.

Delaware Tech CC Fall 2008 Graduating Class

From left to right: Taisha Ellington-Johnson, Erica Smith, Kishayra Lambert, Marlo Greene (Instructor), Rose Dagg, Pauline Ferzetti, Kathleen Rossiter, and Tracey Walker. Not pictured: Christy Dutkiewicz.

Taisha Ellington-Johnson of www.EllingtonEvents.com

Erica Smith at eesmith3@verizon.net

Kishayra Lambert of www.DreamRealEvents.com

Rose Dagg of www.TwoHeartsEvents.com

Pauline Ferzetti at caitlinkellyweddings@yahoo.com

Kathleen Rossiter

Christy Dutkiewicz

Tomorrow we will post more pictures from Marlo’s class, including shots of class projects the student’s created toward earning their Certified Wedding Planner designations.

Congratulations to all of our Fall 2008 CWP Graduates from around the world!