Listen in as the host of the Wedding Industry News Series, Aisha Garnett, unravels the shocking tale of a bride swindled out of a whopping $12,000 by her seemingly trustworthy wedding planner. Laurie Hartwell, founder and CEO of the Certified Wedding Planner Society, shares invaluable insights, highlighting the critical need for couples and wedding professionals alike to thoroughly vet vendors before shelling out any cash. Discover the essence of contracts and direct payment transactions in safeguarding couple's hard-earned money.
On a brighter note, are you geared up to handle the imminent wave of engagements? Krisy Thomas, Vice President of the Certified Wedding Planner Society, joins us to discuss how the industry can capitalize on the engagement season. Learn why the speed of your response to inquiries is a game-changer and why an updated website showcasing your qualifications and certifications is vital in attracting potential customers. Brace yourself for an insightful session to help you stand out in the cutthroat wedding industry. Tune in now!
www.cwpsociety.com | info@cwpsociety.com | IG: @cwpsociety | FB: @cwpsociety
Listen in as the host of the Wedding Industry News Series, Aisha Garnett, unravels the shocking tale of a bride swindled out of a whopping $12,000 by her seemingly trustworthy wedding planner. Laurie Hartwell, founder and CEO of the Certified Wedding Planner Society, shares invaluable insights, highlighting the critical need for couples and wedding professionals alike to thoroughly vet vendors before shelling out any cash. Discover the essence of contracts and direct payment transactions in safeguarding couple's hard-earned money.
On a brighter note, are you geared up to handle the imminent wave of engagements? Krisy Thomas, Vice President of the Certified Wedding Planner Society, joins us to discuss how the industry can capitalize on the engagement season. Learn why the speed of your response to inquiries is a game-changer and why an updated website showcasing your qualifications and certifications is vital in attracting potential customers. Brace yourself for an insightful session to help you stand out in the cutthroat wedding industry. Tune in now!
www.cwpsociety.com | info@cwpsociety.com | IG: @cwpsociety | FB: @cwpsociety
Welcome to the Wedding Planner podcast brought to you by the Certified Wedding Planner Society.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Wedding Industry News. It's November 2023 and I'm your host, ayesha Garnett, certified Educator and Master Certified Wedding Planner with the Certified Wedding Planner Society, where each episode covers something old, something new, something borrowed and some news. Let's jump right in. According to Fox26 News, in Houston, one bride says a local wedding planner swindled her out of $12,000. Savannah Hawthorne got engaged in March of 2023 and immediately started planning her big, extravagant backyard wedding, currently set for this December. In the midst of all the excitement, she took on hiring Jennifer Smith, a local wedding planner in Houston, who was initially referred to her by one of her close friends who was also using said wedding planner. At the time, hawthorne stated that her friend had nothing but wonderful things to say about the planner. Therefore, she felt comfortable solidifying the planner, hawthorne claims. The planner immediately mentioned that she put down deposits on her own personal credit card in the amount of $5,600 for rental items they'd previously discussed and that Hawthorne needed to pay her directly. With a bit of hesitation, hawthorne coughed up the funds for the deposit, but it wasn't until the second request for funds came about for the final payment that Hawthorne told Smith not to book any more vendors on her own personal credit card and that she and her fiance would need to see paid invoices before giving her any more funds. Smith showed paid invoices and Hawthorne sent the other half, totaling another $5,600.
Speaker 2:As time passed, hawthorne received a call from the same friend who referred her to Smith, who also claimed that Smith stole $9,800 from them. Hawthorne then reached out to the vendor who was supposedly supplying all the rental items, and their reps stated nothing had been paid. Both Hawthorne and the rental company tried contacting Smith and, after many attempts from the vendor, the original order was eventually canceled. Hawthorne finally contacted the planner and her response was quote I'll pay you back over time. When Fox26news asked if there was a reason, hawthorne stated she didn't give us a reason. She kept saying there's no reason. That's going to be good enough. Fox26news in Houston also tried reaching out to Smith with no luck, and they've stated that her social media pages have been deactivated and or they are now private. Hawthorne has since filed a police report and solidified another venue, and Fox26news is doing their research to see if other complaints arise from the same wedding planner.
Speaker 2:Now, as a certified wedding event planner, it's imperative that we do our due diligence in vetting our wedding vendors before adding them to our approved vendor list and before referring them to work with our clients. We want to make sure that we are truly working with professional wedding vendors to avoid instances such as this. Joining me to weigh in on this topic is Lori Hartwell, founder and CEO of the Certified Wedding Planner Society. Let's jump right into my first question. In reading this story, there were a ton of red flags to indicate that this clearly was not a professional. There was no mention of any contracts, consultation or any homework done by the bride to make sure that this wedding planner was, in fact, a legitimate, professional wedding planner. Now, in her defense, the planner came highly recommended, but even still, I do some homework. How important would you say it is for potential clients and wedding professionals to vet other wedding pros before working with?
Speaker 1:them. I think it's obviously very important for everybody to do their due diligence. Whether you are a couple or if you are a wedding professional, we all need to know who we're dealing with, especially because weddings are. When you're dealing with weddings, it can just be so much money. You're dealing with thousands and thousands of dollars. It's really hard for me to trust anybody with that kind of money. Now I want to make sure that we make it really clear that I don't think any money should ever pass through the wedding planner. So to me that's the red flag.
Speaker 1:If a wedding planner or anybody in that kind of role is saying I need this amount of money to put down towards all of these wedding professionals, that should be a very clear indicator that your money might not actually make it to them. So what does a professional wedding planner do in this case? Well, we are the ones who are reaching out to wedding pros. We get quotes and we make sure that the money goes directly from the couple to that wedding professional and that there are contracts signed between the wedding professional and the client. That's not going to just protect the wedding planner me as the wedding planner but it protects the client, it protects the wedding pro. It protects everybody.
Speaker 1:So it is that there are so many red flags, like you mentioned, that it was a little overwhelming, to be quite honest with you. So I don't want to put all of the blame on the couple for not having necessarily done all of their due diligence, but it's important for couples to be a lot more cautious. When you're dealing with that much money. You should probably be checking into them. But yeah, if any wedding planner especially wedding planners, because they're different than corporate planners if any wedding planner says, okay, I'm going to pay all of your wedding professionals here, pay me $10,000 for the first payment, another 10,000 on your second payment, maybe another 10,000 on your third payment, this to me is a red flag.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and especially without showing an invoice or showing evidence that hey, here's the quote. You know that's a no-no.
Speaker 1:Well, and I would want, as a couple if I was getting married, I would want to meet these pros. I want to know more about the company that's going to be providing me with all of these things. So yeah, there is a lot going on and obviously they were very trusting. Probably, you know kind wonderful people, but you know they learned a very, very big and very valuable lesson here. I just wish it didn't have to be to where they lost so much money. This is just awful.
Speaker 2:Now, as the founder and CEO of the largest wedding certification program in the nation, you know firsthand what our clients and potential clients should be looking for when it comes to hiring, in my opinion, what should be the very first vendor which is a true certified wedding planner. As it relates to this story, what advice would you give current wedding planners and even aspiring wedding planners on how they truly need to show up as a professional in the industry?
Speaker 1:Oh, there's so many things here. Great question, really great. Question Number one you need to make sure that you are in fact certified so anybody could just wake up one day and say that they're a wedding planner because maybe they read a wedding magazine. That does not make you a professional wedding planner. It is really a lot of work. Did you know that it's actually rated number three of the most stressful jobs in the world being a wedding planner? It's a lot. There's a lot going on here.
Speaker 1:So in order to be a professional, you have to understand how everything works. You can't just make things up as you go along, and I feel like that's what happens with those wedding planners I'm going to put quotes around that that kind of just wake up and are like you know. I think weddings might be a great place for me to kind of break into. The problem with that is they don't know how the industry works and the proper ways to allocate funds. And sometimes and I I would like to give this other wedding planner the benefit of the doubt Maybe she meant to do the right thing. I have no idea what, when I'd love to always give people the benefit of the doubt Maybe she thought oh, I'll replace the money and I'll pay all these wedding pros. But that's just not how it works.
Speaker 1:Professional, certified wedding planners get quotes from the wedding pros that we feel would best suit our couples. Then we provide those quotes. We set up meetings, we have great discussions with the wedding professionals. We make sure that they are meshing well with the wedding pros that we are wanting to set them up with. Once all of that's taken place, then we have our clients get a contract. We read it over, we have the couple sign the contract, pay the deposit not to me but directly to the wedding professional, and it all is just very seamless and everybody is on the same page. So it is just really, really important that if you are interested in being a wedding planner, that you find out what the ins and outs are. And I was actually just watching one of those judge shows on television a couple of weekend ago and there was a wedding planner on there, and again, I'm going to go ahead and put some quotes there, because this planner did some of the very similar things.
Speaker 1:I showed that you were just talking about this Smith person out of Houston. She collected the money and was paying the wedding pros, and I feel like that actually does a huge disservice. And she was getting sued by the couple because the couple didn't feel like they got what they paid for. Well, it's because you took so much control out of the couple's hands. We have to remember that this is the couple's big debt.
Speaker 1:They should be the ones in control of whether or not they are going to be putting that deposit down, signing that contract with that wedding pro, and we are the kind of conduit in which that takes place. We are the person who is going to be the administrators and the executors of all of those situations. We tie everything together, we keep track of all of the millions of details, but we should not be the bank. We're not the bank and I feel like that is going to be such a big lesson. I just wish more people understood that and that is a huge flag that so many couples need to know and understand that if your wedding planner is asking for money upfront and they're planning on using that money to pay all of the other pros, that can be very problematic. The only money that a wedding planner should be asking for is the one that would cover their own fee.
Speaker 2:That's a great advice, lori, and I know sometimes a lot of vendors think that when we work with our clients, our clients are off limits. They have to go through us, and in some cases that is true, but we do also want our clients to have a relationship with the vendors as well.
Speaker 1:We do and we are going to be the single point of contact. Obviously, when a couple hires us, we're going to be the single point of contact and I know that Chrissy and I did a podcast just on single point of contact. So if you're interested, go back through that, Look for that particular podcast, because it was brilliant. And wedding planners are single points of contact at different stages. It kind of depends on what package our clients have actually chosen to go with when it in regards to our services. So if they chose just a month of or wedding day management package, then our single point of contact status is going to start anywhere from six to eight weeks prior to the wedding day and what that means. That single point of contact status. What that means is that means all conversations need to include us.
Speaker 1:So if I get hired as a full service wedding planner, then my single point of contact status has to happen from the very beginning, Right when I was hired, all the way through the end of the wedding day. That means I have to be a part of every conversation. That doesn't mean that I'm the only person allowed to talk to the couple. It means that I have to be a part of every email you send to the couple and every email that the couple sends to the wedding pros. Why? Because, as the wedding planner, the person who's responsible for incorporating every single detail into the wedding day and executing it seamlessly if I have missed anything or if they don't tell me something, then I'm unable to do my job effectively.
Speaker 1:So there's a difference between this being a single point of contact versus not giving the wedding pros and the clients any way to have discussions amongst one another. So be the single point of contact where everybody can still talk but includes everyone that's involved. That's the key here. So, yeah, I love that you even brought that up. Aisha, Thank you for saying that. No, problem.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, lori, for joining me and sharing your expertise on this very topic. Now onto something borrowed In this segment. We feature information from an alternate source that I feel you would be interested in. For instance, cnn Business says after 2023 wraps up, get ready for a spike in marriage proposals. As the wedding season comes to an end and the fast approaching engagement season starts, there's an expected rise in marriage proposals.
Speaker 2:According to Signet Jewelers, the largest jewelry company in the United States, the pandemic played a tremendous role in the decrease of sales on engagement rings. As relationships were heavily impacted, people were forced to stay inside and avoid socializing outside of their immediate family members. According to Signet's proprietary data, this definitely created an engagement gap, since most couples get engaged on average a little over three years after they start dating. Now, with the many pre-pandemic lifestyles on the rise, including dating, signet, who also owns big time retail jewelers such as Zales, jarrett, k-jewelers, blue Nile and Diamond Direct, says the loan and proposals is expected to bottom out this year and engagements will make a comeback starting in early 2024.
Speaker 2:Signet CEO, virginia Drosos, says about 2.8 million couples on average get engaged every year in the United States, and just last year alone, that number decreased to 2.5 million. This year is expected to level out between 2.1 and 2.2 million, but looks like it's gonna be on an incline over the next three years. In 2024, signet anticipates engagements will be between 2.4 and 2.5 million. Signet is confident in these numbers due to their customer data platform tracking, and they are looking forward to these stats, as 50% of their overall sales comes from the sale of wedding jewelry. Here to weigh in a bit further is Chrissy Thomas, vice President of the Certified Wedding Planner Society. Thank you so much for joining me today, chrissy Of course, I'm excited about this topic.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about the jewelry.
Speaker 2:I guess Reno diamonds a girl's best friend, anybody's best friend, exactly. Let's get into this topic. So Tis the season for us to be gearing up for engagement season. What's your take on the increase in engagements? Are you seeing a comeback, with more and more couples in your market getting engaged?
Speaker 3:Yes, and I have to agree with the article that you just shared with us and not just in my market, but I think overall, everywhere, there is definitely an increase in engagements, and it's specifically because I feel like things are slowly getting back to normal.
Speaker 3:Things are getting back to how it was pre-pandemic. I look at engagement season not just as regards to everyone's getting engaged, but for us wedding vendors, I like to call that this is our booking season. This is when we need to be on top of our game, because we are going to see a major influx of engaged couples reaching out to us. How can we be prepared for that, especially if these numbers, or what he's predicting is going to be true, wow, that's going to impact us in the most positive way possible, especially after 2020, 2021. Even where we had to do a lot of pivoting, where we had to do a lot of adjustment and it was quite frightening. There were things that we had to do with our business, and it's scary and I feel like we're now starting to get at a pace where it feels like we're getting back to normal and we're able to go back to how our businesses were pre-pandemic.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that we're getting back to a good sense of normalcy. Now I know you mentioned it's booking season for us when it comes to engagement season. So if these projections are spot-on, there's plenty of couples for every wedding professional to onboard, and I even see another stream of income for certified wedding planners to even incorporate proposal planning into their services. What advice would you give wedding professionals on how they can prepare themselves in business for the expected 2.5 million engagements for 2024?
Speaker 3:First off, I love that suggestion. That's another stream of income. That could also be another stream where you're not having to take away a full Saturday or a full weekend to plan someone's proposal. That also is a great idea for marketing and a way to get in with a couple before the wedding planning process even begins Like that's a win-win in my books. I love that idea. I'm so glad that you shared that.
Speaker 3:Now is the time before engagement start rolling around. You know that engagement season for those of you who may not realize that's going to be around that holiday season, so they typically see engagements happening around Thanksgiving upwards to Valentine's Day, where all these proposals may be taking place. So, as a wedding professional, we need to make sure there are certain things that we have set up to accommodate all of those inquiries that are going to be coming in. One thing I'm going to suggest is take a look at your website. I feel like we spend so much time on our social media pages that we forget about our little website, but in realizing that your social media is what I consider that first touch point, that is where an engaged couple may find you, but their ultimate goal and your ultimate goal is for them to end up on your website. So if your social media and your website do not look like the same company need to do some updating. You also want to make sure that the links work on your website or your social media, making sure there's no broken links, making sure that you can make it as easy as possible for a couple to reach out to you to be part of their wedding day.
Speaker 3:I think at this point, when people are looking at your website and reviewing you to possibly be on their vendor team, they're giving you a quick glimmer. You know I say you know couples don't read anymore. They're not reading the long paragraphs about how you like to walk on a beach and how you love your dog. They're looking for key points of are you certified, are you a licensed and insured vendor? What are your qualifications? Those are the things that you're going to want to highlight and make sure is quick and noticeable for engaged couples, because that's what they're looking for. They're looking for someone who's professional. They're looking for those people and if it's buried in a paragraph, they're going to skip right to you and go to the next wedding plan or the next wedding professional who looks more credible, even though it's in your website. If it's too, if you can't see it, they're not going to inquire with you. So take some time to review your website, make sure that it looks just as good as your social media pages, and also making sure one big thing, I think during this engagement season that I've noticed when I reach, when I reach back out to couples who've inquired with us, a lot of them are saying oh, thank you for getting back with me so quickly. Yeah, you were the one of the few wedding players who got back with me.
Speaker 3:Why is it taking a salon to respond to these engaged couples? They are excited, ready to give you money. Why is it taking you four days to get back in touch with them? I don't know about you, aisha. I like excitement. I like excitement and I also like money, exactly so I'm going to pop right in their excitement bubble. I'm going to respond back to that inquiry within 12 to 44 business hours, meaning if they inquire with me on Friday, I'm working on Saturday, I'm resting on Sunday, they will hear back from me by Monday, but if they reach out to me on Monday, I'm going to get back to them, hopefully by the end of the day on Monday, you know, just within my business hours, because I know they're reaching out to other wedding planners. So if I'm one of the first that gets back to them, one of the first they schedule a consultation with nine times out of 10, I'm going to be the one that they book.
Speaker 3:So look at your policy, look at what you're doing when it comes to emails and responding, and if you are keeping up with your business and I know right now too, in some markets this is also our busy season with all weddings but that doesn't mean that we get to ignore these engaged couples who are getting married. During our busy season, I've seen a lot of these emails, and Lori and I had a whole, I believe, podcast or topic about automating yourself out of business, where you're seeing these auto emails that say hi, thank you for reaching out to Southern Sparkle. It is currently our busy season. I will get back to you within three days. Yes, it is our busy season, but for me, when, if I was an engaged couple and I saw that, my first thought would be oh gosh, she's too busy to add me to her workload, let me find another planner, and that's you losing business without you even realizing that you're losing it. So reconsider those out of office responders.
Speaker 3:Figure out how you can reply back to these couples within the 12 to 24 business hours during your busy season and that you know that's just going to be a matter of time blocking an hour out of your day in the morning, an hour out of your day in your afternoon just replying back to these couples, because they deserve that.
Speaker 3:And I've been there. I've been engaged, where I am so excited and ready to get started, and I'm waiting days and days, and that it just makes me sad because I feel like that sense of excitement is gone and I want to hop in that bubble with them. I want to be part of this journey with them. And what an honor it is that as soon as they get engaged or when they start planning, they're considering me to be a part of their wedding day. So, as business owners, keep that in mind that, even if you are drowning in inquiries how amazing is that. What an honor it is that you have all of these couples who want you to be a part of their wedding day. So it's here. Get your business ready, get your social media ready. Figure out your game plan when it comes back to responding to these couples, and I'm excited for what 2024 and 2025 is going to look like for the wedding industry.
Speaker 2:I love it. I'm excited too. It's one of the time of year.
Speaker 3:I think of that song and I'm like you know, most people think about Christmas music and the trees. I'm like, oh, I'm thinking about proposals, I'm thinking about expectations, I'm thinking about seeing engagement rings. That, to me, is the most wonderful time of year. I love a good engagement season.
Speaker 2:I do too. Thank you, no problem. Thank you so much, chrissy, for joining me today. Of course, next up is our old and new segment. This is where I'll be discussing an old trend and what's replacing it Now.
Speaker 2:When it comes to weddings, we all know that many couples can't wait to create their wedding registry, adding multiple items to their wedding wish list, from home decor to those must have, items that they've been eyeing since the start of their engagement, items that they've handpicked exclusively for their friends and family members to scour multiple websites, being the first to take dibs on and purchase for the happy couple, from the top luxury retail stores to the local favorites or online websites. Wedding registries are convenient. Wedding registries created from the favorite stores of couples are all traditional and couples waited out to see what items have been purchased prior to the big day. While couples are still holding to the faithful, trusty wedding registries with retailers, some are opting towards cash registries, creating registries for things like their honeymoon, also known as the honeymoon fund, or they're simply creating a newlywed fund in hopes to maybe use those donated funds for their first time home purchase, home renovations, travel or some other big ticket item. Not all couples are able to have the most beautiful wedding and put down for the purchase of their first home, all at the same time. Those are two of the most common life changing events that one will experience. So, instead of choosing one over the other, couples are giving their guests the option to take part in helping them out. They're adding cash registries to the mix by using sites like Hitched Zola, honey Fun and the Not Just to Name a Few. This gifts couples the option to add links to their wedding websites from the start and ask for those monetary gifts with no cash value limit, of course to help start their savings pot or simply add to it.
Speaker 2:Some may say it's inappropriate and distasteful to ask for monetary gifts, and others may think it's totally fine, but sometimes guests would prefer to just give those monetary gifts instead of visiting a website to see what hasn't been taken off the list of the many items that couples have chosen. Not to mention, guests would rather spend their money on something that will actually be used by the couple. Everything has its pros and cons. Some of the sites have a one-time setup fee, some may take a percentage of every donation, and some may even share the guest information with the third-party source. So I suggest educating your couples on making sure they are doing their due diligence in choosing the right site if they decide to go this route Now.
Speaker 2:We all know how expensive weddings can be, and once couples take on the responsibilities of creating the most beautiful day of their lives, they are often left with having to budget and put off making decisions such as their honeymoon or their first-time purchase for another year or two. So for those couples that are opting to incorporate those cash registries into their wedding registry options, one thing is for certain they are giving their guests the option to choose. Cash registries are making their way to wedding websites and couples are getting closer to the chance of planning their honeymoon or making their first biggest home purchase together as a couple, with the help of their wedding guests, of course. Just make sure you are there for your couples to help them see the trend through in the most appropriate way possible. That wraps up our November 2023 Wedding Industry News. Thanks for joining and listening in. We look forward to having you join us next month here on the Wedding Planner Podcast ef series.