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#1 Way To Make Money In A Wedding Business: Offer Virtual Wedding Planning

Guess what?

Your brides, grooms, and wedding couples are quarantined at home just like you are.

Guess what, again?

This is not stopping them from planning their wedding or looking for wedding vendors to hire.

Armed with Zoom, Google Hangouts, or Skype (to name a few), you can easily go into virtual planning mode with your current wedding clients. It is likely that some of you were already doing this, especially if your wedding couples are from an area different from where the wedding is being held.

Almost anything you can do with a client in person, you can do virtually. You can even tour some venues virtually.

Virtual consultations with potential clients also allow you to continue with your wedding business as usual.

In some cases, you can even “coordinate” a wedding virtually. Guests can “attend” virtually. The wedding officiant can marry them remotely. It may not be exactly the same as their in-person wedding but…

BTW: This works for just about any type of wedding vendor.

So, go ahead. Create a virtual wedding planning package and add it to your website OR adjust your current packages to include a virtual component (at least for the time being).

#2 Way To Make Money In A Wedding Business: Host An Online Workshop

Remember, you are a wedding expert. Everyone wants to learn from an expert. Share your knowledge with wedding couples that cannot necessarily hire you to plan their weddings for them for the foreseeable future.

Pick a topic that is near and dear to wedding couples’ hearts and then host a paid online workshop on it. If you are a wedding planner, you can host a series of workshops — covering each planning aspect of a wedding from budgeting + guest lists to hiring vendors + creating a song play list for the DJ.

You can host live workshops or you can record the workshops and couples can watch the videos at their convenience.

Whether you host a live workshop or a recorded one, your videos do not have to be super professional, edited to perfection, etc. The point is it does not take a lot of money or time to create these workshops so the fee you charge to brides + grooms is almost pure profit.

If you have any questions about the systems or technology you can use to host your own workshop series, please let me know. Drop your questions here or email me at km@weddingplannercopy.com.

#3 Way to Make Money In A Wedding Business: Create A Workbook/Ebook

You can apply all of your wedding planning knowledge to create a wedding planning workbook or ebook for wedding couples. It can have similar content to what an online workshop would have (so everything from budgeting + creating a guest list to hiring vendors + creating seating arrangements).

You can type and create in Word + convert it to a PDF. You can create it in Canva + turn it into a PDF. You can sell it from your website, using your own ecommerce cart or something free like WooCommerce.

Now is a great time to create + sell a workbook. Brides + grooms are home. Many of them are bored. Something tangible like this gives them something to do + jumpstarts their wedding planning  — even if they can’t hire you right now to plan it for them.

#4 Way to Make Money In A Wedding Business: Wedding Design/Plan In A Box

(Doesn’t have to be an actual box)

Think mood boards + dress fabric swatches + room layouts.

Have a consultation with a client. Have them fill out a comprehensive questionnaire. Gather All. The. Deets.

Then…

You design their wedding. You can send it to them digitally OR package it up in a wedding box, tie a bow + ship it to them. Up to you + them.

(I’m a little wary of actual boxes these days, myself.)

When they open your box, they’ll have everything they need to take your plan to put together their custom wedding.

#5 Provide Wedding Supplies

When I was a wedding planner, part of my website was an online store, where wedding couples could buy accessories, favors, etc. I had relationships  with wedding suppliers so that when I received an order through my site, the supplier would dropship the order directly to the customer.

You can start a free ecommerce store using WooCommerce through your WordPress website. You can sell other companies’ supplies or you can sell your own.

If you normally make specialty favors for your wedding couples, for example, package up all the materials couples need to assemble their own favors. Same could apply for invitations.

I used dropshipping for a LONG time as a revenue stream for my planning business. It was a way to hit the DIY couples that were all over the country + not likely to use my planning services.

I also used it as add-ons for my planning couples.

#6 Promote Someone Else’s Wedding Products Or Services

This is along the same lines as dropshipping but it’s a little different. When you promote someone else’s wedding product or service, it’s known as affiliate marketing.
Promote, market + sell another wedding product or service + you receive a commission.
Some of the ways you can promote an affiliate product/service:
  • Blog posts
  • YouTube videos
  • Social media posts
  • In your own information products (ebooks, free PDF downloads courses, etc.)
  • Resources page on your website
  • It is best to promote products and services that you have used or your clients have used.
If you want a complete course on affiliate marketing, check out Michelle Schroeder’s course Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.
I took this course + found it extremely helpful.

#7 Offer A Membership Site

Sell memberships to couples that gives them access to a vault of wedding planning resources + 1:1 help. You can charge a monthly membership fee to wedding couples.
The vault can contain planning worksheets, planning information, lists, calendars, templates, etc. It can also provide 1:1 access to you for advice and guidance.
You can update + add information as needed but this tends to lock in wedding couples for 12 months or so. Of course, you can create different membership levels + put limitations on their access to you.
Creating a membership site on your existing website is a great way to capture couples planning their weddings both near + far.
Please let me know if you have any questions about any of the ways. I am happy to help! Drop a comment below or email me km@weddingplannercopy.com.