Hello, hello! Many of you have repeatedly asked for me to talk about my “other job” – Wedding Planning!
Yep, I am a professional trained Wedding and Event Coordinator. After planning my own wedding in 2009, I was inspired to see if I could make this a money-making endeavor since I had enjoyed it so very much. Besides, it capitalized on all the things I already do as an Engineer, which is manage schedule, budget, and performance (= event execution). Easy peasy, no?
In many ways, yes, it is!
October of 2009, I took a week long class given by the Association of Certified Professional Wedding Consultants (ACPW), which has been in place over 20 years and is nationally recognized. Prior to the class I spent well over 60 hours preparing and doing homework, such as designing a wedding from beginning to end, conducting interviews, and finding multiple vendors for about 25 different areas of suppliers. Phew!
I loved the class. Loved!
But being a wedding planner is tough work. You lose all your weekends from about April through October to attend events. And what’s more, you have to market, market, market – yourself! That may come easy for some, but the amount of networking events, social networking exposure, and legwork that is required is endless.
And the pay, well the pay can be big if you put your heart and soul in for years. Wedding planning can be quite lucrative, but to be frank, most wedding planners won’t break $50K/year.
(There is no way I can recap everything, so I’m going to cut out a lot – feel free to let me know in the comments if you want to know more)
Early 2010, I started my own business called Engineered Elegance by S (below is the logo I helped design):
I got my business license and enlisted by bestie as my partner. All was good. I had contracts in place, packages to order (Ballet Flats, Kitten Heel, and Stiletto were the 3 main ones 
)
We quickly made business cards and set out on the networking circuit, which often included meeting with various vendors at wineries, beautiful mountain locations, etc. And of course, there was food to test, cakes to nibble on, centerpieces to ooo and aaahhh over and officiants to chat with. Let me tell ya, this was fun stuff!
But just because you do this, weddings don’t just fall in your lap. You have to continously reach other to others, hand out your business cards, follow up with phone calls, assist for free until you have clout.
And frankly, that takes a LOT of time. Time I didn’t have the luxury of like I thought / hope I would 
So I scaled my expectations and decided to carry out my wedding planning as it fit in my life. And even if that just meant small consulting jobs here and there and assisting weddings when I had a free weekend, that was A-Ok.
In fact, it was perfect.
So when last weekend’s wedding opportunity popped out many months ago, I took it! I loved the couple, their vision, and how this ‘extra job’ would bring me happiness in my life.
Zoo recap wedding will come next week – this post is too long!
Preview:
yaaaaay!!! thank you for this! i’ve been so curious how you fit this in with your other job. I absolutely love the name of your business!! so cute and creative! you could defnitely use your blog to get the name out too. show details of your work. it’s definitely tough if you can’t put in full time effort. But if you ever decided to be a stay at home mom, this would be a nice gig to fall back on to maintain your sanity too! I can’t wait to hear more
I should spread the word more, but with baby on the way, I’m holding back before making any changes
I really enjoyed my wedding planning to and want to help others in their planning. Not sure if that means I want to be part of a wedding planning company part time or just help out in general. I have reached out to other brides in wedding forums and have given them all my DIY templates.
Thanks for writing about the process in becoming a wedding planner. It looks like a lot of work but I am sure it is rewarding too.
P.S. The wedding coordinator that I used in Puerto Vallarta resigned. Interested? lol
When my children are a bit older, I’d love to take one of my passions and make it a side job. I love my real job, but doing something from the heart is so fulfulling. Good for you!!!
It is so true..we have to incorporate things in our life that fill our soul!
This is so interesting. I’m actually taking a special events planning class right now. It is definitely harder than I thought it would be. I guess I had an idyllic view of what event planning would be. Meaning a view without numbers and calculators, lol. There is just so much that you have to think through and be accountable for. We’re planning a 5k and to be honest, it is sort of a nightmare at this point. Good for you doing that on the side! You must be insanely busy, though!
So glad you understand Liz — it’s not all socializing and eating. There are a lot of other details to attend to, which is why I had to scale my expectations with all the other stuff I have going on.
I am studying a batchelors in event management and it’s a four year degree. I’m in third year at the moment. I love it! I’d love to have a chat with you about it sometime because my dream is to move to the u s and work for a giant event mgmt company!
That’s fantastic Fiona — good luck!
I love that you do this! I think it’d be fun and it’s definitely the creative side that I enjoy, but I cannot imagine all the little details to attend to…
Sooooo many details…oye
How cool!!! I acouple years ago I started taking on random side jobs. Mostly teaching (though I was VERY close to becoming a barista at Starbucks—still a dream of mine). I just like being able to make money on the side doing something that is challenging but that I actually ENJOY! It’s a great feeling!
I kind of want to be a Sbux Barista too
How neat, we share a passion! Part of my job involves event planning – mostly corporate that includes high-end customer events and networking functions. The last company I worked for we did nothing but high-profile product launches, huge sales meetings, etc. It was very stressful but also exciting (something my current job lacks).
It is very time consuming and I find you get little thanks for the hard work. I don’t think I could do wedding planning, too stressful and brides can be a real PITA! That’s amazing that you find the time to run your side business, good for you!
Like with any ‘job’ there are downsides, but it a ton of fun and I’m always so happy when I get to be part of it and call it a success!
A zoo wedding sounds wild! I’ll admit, when I saw you tweet about it, my mind jumped straight to my dream animal inclusive wedding: Aquarium Matrimony. Then again, not everyone else is as fascinated by jellyfish as myself….
Aquarium matrimony sounds pretty damn cool to me!
Wedding planning would be a super fun career! It would def. take a lot of time meeting people and marketing yourself and your services! I love the names of your packages, it suits you well! I can’t wait to see the zoo recap! I bet the couple got some pretty wild pics!!!
I didn’t get to see all the pics they took, but I can’t wait to see ‘em too. I only could snap a few as I was busy doing a 100 other things
Wow, really interesting! I guess I never really thought about what it would take to actually be a wedding planner- sounds like it can get pretty intense! Good for you for figuring out a way to make it work for you.
Most definitely — you have to put it as a priority to really be very successful
Wow that’s awesome Shanna!! Thank you for sharing that with us…and if I only I new you when we got married
And I absolutely love the name of your packages…I think I’d chose Stiletto
I can’t wait to see the Zoo wedding recap, I bet it was amazing and an exciting, yet different, wedding to plan!
HAha, you’d go for all the all out package eh? I would too — for the name alone..hehe
That logo is brilliant! I’ve always wondered about your wedding planning job. I can’t wait to see the zoo wedding
I can’t imagine being that close to a giraffe. I was at the zoo on Tuesday and I swear seeing all those animals was like looking at a dinosaur — I couldn’t believe such things existed. Yes, I know I’ve seen zoo animals a million times but they’re still so strange to me!
It was pretty cool to be bystander so close to the giraffe..wild, just wild!
I looooved planning my wedding but I loved even more helping my best friend plan hers!!! Less stress for me since it wasn’t MY big day. What a great second job!!! I am sure you are fantastic at it!
That sounds really fun, you must be uber-organized to be able to do it! And this zoo concept sounds car-azy awesome. Can’t wait to see!
LOVE IT! As you know, i’m an event planner – i am also certified and have thought of doing weddings on the side but i definitely think i need an assistant because i’m already so busy at work!
I loved reading this
So glad you posted it. The logo is awesome..and I LOVE the name- it’s perfect..and so are the packages 
I think you would of been my IDEAL wedding planner- I just needed someone to help me on the day OF..I didn’t need help with vendors, or places..just with little stuff the day of. Thankfully it all came together great, but I would not of minded an extra set of hands.
I can’t wait to see the full recap of the wedding!
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