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Leveraging professional memberships to grow your business

Published on January 1, 2020

As you grow your wedding event planning business, consider some resources you may already have at hand—your professional association memberships. A membership in a wedding event planning association helps strengthen your credibility as a wedding planner and connects you to a unique network of colleagues and resources that can enhance your business. Your association membership often includes benefits such as educational opportunities, access to the latest industry news, the ability to tap into the best practices in wedding planning, networking with potential brides and grooms, as well as relationship building with colleagues in the wedding planning field, and tools to help market your wedding event planning business.


5 benefits of professional memberships


  1. Education

    Professional development is one of the top benefits of joining an association. From annual conferences and specialized continuing education opportunities to online live webinars and virtual learning centers with on-demand content, you have access to many training opportunities in the wedding planning industry. By attending a course or meeting in person, you not only have the opportunity to learn about critical facets of wedding planning, but you also have the chance to network with other attendees, expert speakers, and vendors in the industry. Often a social networking hour during a conference will allow panelists like celebrity wedding planners and other notable wedding event gurus to engage with attendees, which is an excellent way to learn tricks of the trade and make connections for potential job referrals.


  2. News

    Associations have their pulse on industry trends and often offer breaking news or the latest developments that members can rely on to shape their businesses. When you tap into your wedding event planning association membership, you can learn about software, wedding products, publications, and other resources to enhance your business. Publications typically include blogs, weekly or monthly e-newsletters, and often even monthly or quarterly print magazines that feature notable wedding planners who are profiled showcasing their top tips and recommendations.


  3. Best Practices

    Chockfull of resources that help professionals set industry standards, associations are a wealth of knowledge as you are trying to grow your wedding event planning business. Blueprints for your wedding planning business including business plans, contracts, event timelines, checklists, and budgets may be readily accessible from experienced professionals. Taking advantage of best practices from your wedding planning association will help you flourish in your business development and in your career as a wedding event planner.


  4. Networking

    As with other similar social fields, wedding event planning is as much about who you know as what you know. Networking and building strategic partnerships with other wedding industry partners is the perfect way to fill in knowledge gaps and help expand your business. Through your association membership, you may gain access to venue and hotel owners, equipment business owners, photographers, videographers, content and social media marketers, florists and caterers, among others. Networking with your association membership is a platform for making connections, developing relationships and sharing ideas to grow your wedding event planning business.


  5. Tools

    Associations typically have websites, apps, and other content-rich resources to help boost their members' knowledge. Members-only access to industry data, contacts, and resources are among the top benefits you could have access to with your wedding event planning association membership. Additional perks of membership may often include value-added discounts for goods or services related to your wedding planning business.


Here are some wedding event planning associations to consider joining:



We hope this information is useful to you to attract more clients to your business. After you gain your clients, make sure they are protected with event insurance.

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By offering event insurance, it will not only protect your clients, but it can also protect you by potentially decreasing your own business liability risk for accidents due to negligence of the event host or honoree. Markel Specialty's event insurance is an easy and affordable solution for your clients – a free event insurance quote takes only a few minutes online or on the phone – that will help protect your clients (and you).

Free client materials! We can provide you with free brochures to help raise your clients’ awareness of the benefits of event liability insurance.

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