Money is a touchy subject in a lot of ways and can be something that leads to tension if you don’t manage it properly from the start. A huge part of wedding planning also has to do with being able to help your clients manage their budget, their money, and also their payments.

I have found these two things to be a good way to avoid money issues:

Create a budget before you get hired: This might be an unpopular opinion but one that I have used and seen so much success with. I recommend creating a budget for a potential client after a consultation to give them a realistic idea of what they might have to spend for their wedding. A lot of couples have ideas for their wedding that do not match their budget so it is important to paint a realistic picture for them so they have a sense of what a budget that matches their vision could look like and then they get to decide if they are willing to make compromises to stay in budget or if they want to increase their budget to match their visi...

The job of a wedding planner is tasking on your time and sometimes finding balance with work and life can be difficult. One thing I always recommend is making sure you have certain days during the week where you get to focus on working on your business and not just on your business.

It can get tricky and hard to do this because the demands of work never end. There is always that one extra thing you have to do for a client and one extra task that is outstanding and sometimes it feels like a lot to manage but I have learned in order to build a successful business you have to create structure around your work.

Choose one day a week where you don’t schedule meetings and you can use this day to focus on reviewing your goals for the business for that month or quarter and create plans and strategies on how to achieve them. You can use this to also create your social media posts, no client work just work you need to do for your business.

You can have a certain hour of the day may b...

 Hi people, so I did a blog post recently on the importance of networking and I thought I should go a bit further about 3 things to do after meeting a new vendor.

If you end up going to a ton of events and networking but you don’t do anything with it, it is a wasted experience, and you end up not seeing any benefits. I share some of this in the course “Advertising Your Wedding Beyond Social Media.”

So here are 3 things you can do after meeting a new vendor

1. Follow: Follow the vendor on social media, it costs you nothing to do that, and as the saying goes one good turn deserves another.

2. Appreciate: If you do a tour with a venue, it is okay to send them a thank you email. Address it directly to the person you met and just simply thank them for taking the time to show you the property and let them know you will look forward to working with them in the future. To stand out from the crowd, you can take it a step further and send a thank you card with a handwritten note,
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 One challenge I had with inquires via email was it sometimes felt like a back of forth of many different emails to the potential client to get a meeting confirmed.

Some emails would go something like this:

Couple: Hello, my name is Nini, I would like to find out more about your services for my wedding next year.

Me: Hello Nini, congratulations on your engagement and thank you so much for reaching us to RAE Affairs. This must be an exciting time, what’s your fiancé’s name? We will love to talk with you about your wedding vision, please let us know a good time for you to talk. Thank you.

Couple: Thank you for the response Shile, my fiancé's name is Josh, I am available to talk anytime from 3pm-6pm on Thursday.

Me: Thank you for the feedback Nini it is great hearing from you, unfortunately, Thursday won’t work because we have a food tasting at that time. Does anytime on Friday or Saturday work for you? I am pretty open and flexible for both days. I will look forward to your feedb...

Happy New Month people, have you heard there is a wedding boom? It has been termed the boom of 22, but in reality, I think it Is here now. The residual effect of the pandemic was not only weddings moving and getting rescheduled but also one of the effects was newly engaged couples who held out on setting dates until restrictions were lifted. Now that things are starting to better with the pandemic, everyone is looking into having an event. From weddings to birthday parties, PEOPLE ARE BOOKING!

So how do you handle the demand of inquiries and consultations without being overwhelmed? One-word “SYSTEMS.” In the course “processes and systems for your wedding planning business” I share some important tools and that exist to make the job of wedding planning easier and more manageable.

One tool that will certainly get you together and keep you organized is Planning Pod. It is a great all-in-one event management software for event planners and venues, and it helps to simplify how you m...