Help Plan for a Wedding and Prepare for a Marriage

In 1996, the U.S. Congress found that marriage is the foundation of a successful society. The financial impact of divorce on families and society in general is so profound, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 included provisions for funding $150 million each year to promote healthy marriages and fatherhood. With the societal costs of divorce estimated to be over $112 billion annually, governmental efforts amount to an ounce of prevention that will not lead to a cure without considerable help.

According to the Administration for Children & Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a healthy marriage is a mutually satisfying relationship that is beneficial to the husband, wife, and children (if present). There must be deep respect for each other and a commitment to ongoing growth, the use of effective communication skills, and the use of successful conflict management skills.

Wedding planning can be costly and stressful, but the Certified Wedding Planner can turn the planning process into an opportunity for a couple to gain the knowledge and skills they will need to have a healthy marriage. Not all clients will look to you for this advice. You will, however, serve them well by having relationship education resources available for brides and grooms looking for help with more than vendors and venues.

Nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, and more than one-third of those occur when one or both spouses are between the ages of twenty and twenty four years old. According to the Journal of Family Psychology, premarital relationship education is associated with higher levels of marital satisfaction, lower levels of destructive conflicts, and higher levels of interpersonal commitment to spouses. A study in the March 2006 issue suggests that couples who receive premarital education have a 31% lower chance of divorce.

The Certified Wedding Planner is uniquely positioned to lead newlyweds into a better understanding of what it takes to maintain a healthy relationship. If you focus your clients on planning their wedding as well as preparing for their marriage, you will do your part to help continue to lower the divorce rate and strengthen the institution of marriage as well as our society in general.

The Certified Wedding Philanthropist

What do you get for the bride and groom who already have everything? Many Certified Wedding Planners are helping clients celebrate their nuptials with the art of giving while receiving. Keeping charity in mind, there are numerous ways to design a wedding plan that appeals to the better angels of our nature.

Cards for Causes allows a couple to create customized wedding stationery that promotes their favorite charity and donates 20% of the purchase toward that cause. Recipients are alerted to the donation and encouraged to make a contribution of their own.

When setting up a gift registry, organizations such as Just Give, the I Do Foundation, Global Giving, and Changing the Present provide options that either encourage guests to donate directly to a choice of more than a million charities, donate a portion of a gift’s purchase price toward the couple’s chosen beneficiary, or provide gifts that are sent directly to a cause in the couple’s name.

One unique gift registry, Ten Thousand Villages, features Fair Trade products handcrafted by fairly paid artisans in thirty-two countries around the world. Some couples choose to request donations to benefit a local charity. A couple in Washington, D.C. created a perpetual scholarship fund for the groom’s alma mater and requested their guests make donations that benefit disadvantaged children.

For goods and services for the ceremony and reception, consider attending a show such as the Get Hitched, Give Hope event taking place in Seattle this evening. Coordinated by six wedding industry professionals, including wedding and event planners as well as wedding vendors, the event requires participating vendors to donate an item or service to be auctioned or raffled during the show to benefit Brides Against Breast Cancer.

After the “Day Of” events are complete, there are many options for continuing the spirit of giving. Brides Against Breast Cancer is holding a charity wedding gown sale in Los Angeles at the end of the month, with similar events taking place throughout the year around the country. Other options include contributing leftover reception food to a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter, delivering the wedding flowers to a local hospital to brighten patient’s spirits, and donating the wedding gown and other attire to a local thrift store, the Salvation Army, or an organization like the Princess Project.

Many charitable organizations provide wedding favor signs to be used as table place cards to inform guests of donations made in their name and describe the significance of the charity to the couple. If the favored charity is local or does not provide a favor sign service, many stationery companies allow you to create your own donation cards and envelopes.

After the main events, the new husband and wife can continue their philanthropic journey by turning their honeymoon into a life changing event. The travel service i-to-i.com arranges trips overseas to meet new people, get immersed in a new culture, and make a difference abroad. Destinations include Africa, Asia, South America, and Australia where celebrating wedded bliss can be coupled with working with local children or wildlife and helping a local community or environment.

Wedding related charity allows the joy of the “Day Of” to reverberate into the future. The simple act of helping others while enjoying their good fortune can multiply the blessings of your client’s union and help set their marriage on the path of goodness and hope.

The Value of the Certified Wedding Planner

Adam Shankman, director of the 2001 hit film, The Wedding Planner, has announced plans to make a sequel, which will reportedly be produced by Madonna. As a Certified Wedding Planner, you can expect another influx of people wanting to enter the field and increased interest in brides and grooms considering hiring you.

Amidst all the impending hoopla, how does the experienced CWP stand out and show the value of your knowledge and know-how? How do you differentiate your services and results so that your prospective clients find you and not the hobbyist with little training, but tons of inspired confidence?

Brides and grooms today are interested in competence and efficiency. They are using the Internet to research financing, venues, and everything in between. They are also learning about the good and the bad of hiring a wedding planner.

You have the expertise. You know how to find the perfect, unique venue and even how to get the groom involved in planning. The question you have to answer is: Why should a bride and groom hire you?

The wedding blogosphere is filled with attempts to answer this question. At Wedding Planning News, Ideas and Answers, brides and grooms are given a quiz to find out if they should hire a wedding planner. On Wedding by Color, a recent blog entry addresses brides that feel like they were behind in their planning and do not know where to start. The 3 O’ Clock Wedding site features an article titled “How Wedding Planners Help Couples Deal with a Challenging Event.”

Most CWP veterans are using websites and blogs to help establish their value to their clients. Whether you find your prospects through the Internet, word-of-mouth, or more traditional advertising, your job and your business success depends on your ability to communicate your value to the potential client in your first meeting.

You are Only as Good as Your Worst Vendor

More and more these days, your clients are asking you to do more with less. For the Certified Wedding Planner, understanding how to balance the desire to cut costs with the need to maintain your business reputation means avoiding choosing an unproven vendor because of a lower price.

An area where many couples look to reduce their budget is wedding photography. According to The Wedding Report, this year Americans will spend over $3 billion on wedding photography and over $1.4 billion on wedding videography. On average, couples who hire professional photographers can expect to spend between $1,956 and $3,912 to capture their most precious memories. In uncertain economic times, it is understandable that many brides and grooms are seeking alternative solutions.

Although problems with irresponsible or dishonest vendors have been around forever, recent news stories are highlighting post-event nightmares with wedding photographers. In Missouri and Illinois, the Better Business Bureau has received dozens of complaints over the past eighteen months of photography studios failing to deliver fully paid for wedding albums. Other nightmare wedding photography stories are reported in California, Pennsylvania, the United Kingdom, and China.

Fortunately for some wedding photography nightmare survivors, resolution, if not absolution, is on the way. To preserve your business reputation, you need to help your clients to avoid the torment in the first place. Here are some common sense tips you and your client need to take to insure their memories are captured and delivered as promised.

• Before choosing a photographer, check with the local consumer affairs office and the Better Business Bureau to get an accurate history of each vendor under consideration. Not only should a photographer be experienced in wedding photography, the bride and groom have to feel comfortable working with them. The CWP should also contact references, including bridal clients and wedding planners, for vendors she or he has not worked with previously. Be sure to research and choose a photographer as soon into planning process as possible.

• After choosing a photographer, be sure to detail in writing everything including the price, the style of the photography, and the form and delivery dates for the final products. Although it is tempting to choose a low price package, brides and grooms need to remember that their wedding photographs and videos will be the enduring memories of their special day. While you need to help them avoid paying too much, you must also steer them away from deals that are too good to be true. Final payment should be contracted to be due upon delivery of the agreed upon final photographs and albums.

• When working with the photographer, make sure your clients and their wedding party are on time and ready to have their photographs taken. It is never a good idea to rush through the often very long list of photos that need to be taken. In addition to being punctual, make sure your bride and groom are relaxed and looking their best. Their tranquility and confidence will show through the final pictures and be a lasting testament to your skill and mastery of your craft.