Wedding Industry Trends and Advice from Weddings Beautiful

Recently, we had the pleasure of interviewing Nancy Tucker of Weddings Beautiful. She provided some great insight and advice about the issues facing wedding planners today, along with some great ideas to help overcome challenges and have a successful wedding business.

What is the biggest challenge facing wedding planners today?

Today’s wedding planners face many challenges, including the growing DIY trend.

Planners often have to help brides once they get overwhelmed with all of the projects, and need to be prepared to pick up a situation and help. The trend isn’t going away, so wedding planners need to learn how to help make the DIY process easier for brides.

If you could tell a wedding vendor ONE THING to help them build their business, what would it be?

Build a good relationship with other vendors!

Go meet the local clergy. Volunteer at the flower shop. Offer to help set tables for the caters.

Meet absolutely everyone in person. Shake their hands and build a relationship. You want to be the person they call when they have a problem, the card they hand out when a bride asks, the first person that comes to mind. Social media won’t do that for you, but some face to face time will.

What trends/changes are you seeing right now in the wedding industry?

An increase in inexperienced wedding vendors.

People often don’t realize that it takes time to get set up, get certified, and build a stellar reputation as a wedding planner. Unfortunately, there are many, many people out there that had fun planning their own wedding and think they could start a business. These inexperienced, and uncertified “planners” often do not realize that nothing just falls into place. It takes talent and good training. Certified planners are often are called upon to come behind and fix the situation.

What advantages does a Weddings Beautiful certified planner have over the competition?

The Weddings Beautiful program is unique because students learn how to be a planner FROM a certified planner, and are also graded by an experienced wedding planner.

The top priority the program is to provide a well-rounded education for all students. The actual program is about 75% planning, and the other parts of it include a number of items: learning how to deal with clergy, a day in the life of a planner, setting up timeline, how to interact with all of the other vendors, marketing, demographics, public speaking…it’s really a little bit of everything.

Planners who complete the program are totally equipped to handle any type of wedding, and many students go on to specialize. Graduates are equipped to schedule, notify, and work with all types of vendors, from the bartender to the clergy and to make the day run as smoothly as possible.

A little bit about Nancy…

Nancy Tucker is the Director of Educational Services for Weddings Beautiful. She served as President for six years, and currently is in charge of the administration and grading of assignments.

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