A woman starts to dream of, and plan her wedding right from when she’s just a little child but sadly, a lot of things come in the way of those plans; she grows up, gets a job, gets busy and even though she still wants her dream wedding, she barely has time to plan and organize it. This is where a bridal consultant comes to the rescue.
A bridal consultant is someone who is hired to help the bride to plan and organize her wedding. She takes the stress off the bride and takes the wedding as hers. She caters to all aspects of the wedding from the choice of Colours to the venues, the dresses, food decoration, music and a lot more.
A bridal consultant’s duty is to ensure that everything goes smoothly before; during and after the wedding and that the couple gets to have the wedding of their dreams without overshooting their budget. Some of the duties of a bridal consultant include-:
10 Duties or Responsibilities of a Bridal Consultant
- Obtaining a budget for the wedding from the couple and work strictly with it.
- Search for vendors for the wedding, negotiate and enter into a contract with them.
- Analyze and make a list of all the things that would be needed for the wedding.
- Assist the bride in choosing the perfect wedding colour and dress for herself and her bridesmaids.
- Planning and making honeymoon arrangements for the couple.
- Booking a suitable venue for the wedding.
- Co-coordinating all the vendors to ensure that they are available and on hand to perform their jobs.
- Design and send out wedding invitations.
The list is really endless as there are a lot of responsibilities that a bridal consultant undertakes, depending on the agreement with the bride. To be successful as a bridal consultant, an individual must possess the following skills-:
6 Skills You Need to Become a Successful Bridal Consultant
1. Patience
Being a bridal consultant, you have to be very patient and learn to cope with a lot of stress and negative attitude from some brides.
2. Listening skills
Also, you must learn to listen more than you speak and you must be very observant and responsive to your bride’s needs and demands. Never make it feel like you are imposing your opinions on them or pressurizing them to do things. Instead, you should learn the art of persuasion and learn to convince your brides to do the right thing.
3. Confidence
You must be able to show your clients that you know what you are doing. Confidence is actually attractive to prospective clients and if a person feels like you know what you are doing, they would be able to trust you.
4. Enthusiasm
This is yet another skill that you need. Even though it’s not your wedding, you have to share the same enthusiasm and excitement as the bride. When a bride sees that you are as excited about her event as she is, she would be convinced that you have her best interests at heart and would be able to trust your judgment.
5. Willingness to improve
You must also be willing to take steps to improve on your services and increase client satisfaction.
6. Think outside the box
You must be creative and always think outside the box to come up with unique themes for your brides. You might have to plan hundreds of weddings in a year and you have to keep improving on your services so that your weddings don’t become ‘cliché’ and boring.
How to Become a Certified Bridal Consultant Online
1. To start a bridal consultancy business, you have to determine the type of consultant you want to become. There are two major types of bridal consultants:
- The offline consultant
- The online consultant
The online consultant conducts her business through the internet without having to be there physically. She already has a list of vendors which she recommends and knows the right buttons to push to ensure that her brides have a successful event.
Her job is more like that of an adviser or co-coordinator and she gets paid for her services by the bride and gets commission from the vendors she recommends. An online bridal consultant offers limited services and may also cater to the groom and not just the bride.
Offline consultants or traditional bridal consultants meet face-to-face with the clients to discuss the bride’s needs and how they would be met. She is usually involved in planning and coordinating the wedding from start to finish.
2. Before you start a business as a bridal consultant, the first thing to do is to go for training. You would need to learn tips and tricks of the business and how you can help your brides organize their dream weddings without having them break the bank.
3. Obtain certifications-: You should also obtain necessary certification that qualifies and helps to boost your professional image as a bridal consultant.
4. Register your business and choose a catchy name for your bridal consultancy business.
5. Create a website for your business so that people can find, and do business with you easily.
6. Get a list of vendors that you can work with. Your vendors must be people who you can trust to deliver at all times.
7. Start attending weddings and other events. By attending weddings, you would be able to learn a lot and gather enough information and knowledge that you would use to serve your clients better. You would be able to study the things that go wrong in wedding planning and how to avoid them; you would also know how to develop unique wedding themes for your brides.
8. Although advertising is very helpful, bridal consultancy business is mainly referral based; you work with a bride, she likes you so much and she recommends you to her friends and family. You would need all the referrals you can get to succeed as a bridal consultant, therefore, you must always satisfy your clients and never forget to ask them to refer you to other people.
9. Create an attractive brochure for your business which would contain a list of all the services that you offer, your fees and the vendors you work with. This brochure is what you would present to your clients at your first meeting with them.