Wedding Planning Business Plan

Do you want to start wedding planning business?

Do you want to start a wedding planning business? Well, if you have a passion to plan events along with good management skills, you can certainly enter into this venture. The biggest benefit of starting this business is that it requires the least capital investment as compared to many other businesses. You can start this business in a small office with a small team and a little inventory comprising of mostly office and stationery products. Secondly, this business starts yielding a profit as soon as it is launched.
Finally, this business never gets down since 2.3 million couples wed every year in the US and nearly $72 billion dollars are spent annually on these weddings. Considering these stats, it is evident that this business can prove immensely profitable provided that you plan it successfully.
So, before you move on to starting this venture, you will have to prepare a comprehensive business plan which will establish the basis of your company’s future operations and decisions. If you are wondering how to write an effective business plan then here we are providing you the business plan of a wedding planning business startup named ‘Kelly Weddings’.

Executive Summary

2.1 The Business

Kelly Weddings will be a bonded, insured and licensed wedding planning business, located in the Manhattan borough of the New York City. We aim to serve the nearby residential community of the city by proving them the highest quality wedding planning services so as to make their weddings the best events of their lives.
Kelly Weddings will be owned and operated by Kelly Rin who has been associated with the wedding planning industry for more than 10 years and is best known for her creative ideas, innovative décor accents and exquisite attention to details. Having a decade-long experience in this industry and tons of social connections, she is undoubtedly the most suitable person for this venture and knows how to start wedding planning business.

2.2 Management

Kelly will manage the overall operations of the company while she will be assisted by some of her friends for the startup. Initially, she will hire a small team for managing and operating the company. The team will primarily comprise of decorators, photographers, inventory managers and sales executives along with other necessary personnel.

2.3 Customers & Services

Our target market will be the residential community of the New York City. The community comprises of well-established residents who can easily spend extravagantly on their weddings. We will offer various services to our esteemed customers like menu planning, venue planning, accommodation planning, budget planning, event decorating, etc. Our customers can either avail any of our individual services or they can avail all services as a wedding package. As per the theme of weddings, customers can either choose from our set of pre-defined themes or may get a customized theme created specifically for them.
Wedding planning industry is really a competitive one since there are more than 39,000 registered wedding planning businesses in the United States, as of 2017. Our two biggest competitive advantages will be offering of the individual wedding services and our unparalleled customer service. Considering these two aspects, we hope that we can excel all of our competitors.

2.4 Target of the Company

The target of the company is to become the best wedding planner business in the New York City within the next five years and to balance the initial cost of the startup with earned profits by the end of the first year.

Company Summary

3.1 Company Owner

Kelly Weddings will be owned and operated by Kelly Rin. Kelly has been associated with the wedding planning industry for more than 10 years. She has been working at executive positions in various event planning companies throughout the United States for creating memorable and unique weddings. Kelly is best known for her creative ideas, innovative décor accents and exquisite attention to even the tiniest bit of details. She is capable of planning everything from a party of two to a party for thousands. Kelly is expert in planning stylish, personalized, unique and unforgettable weddings irrespective of the number of the guests.

3.2 Why the Business is being started

Kelly has been planning, organizing and executing school events since her high school days. She is extremely passionate about planning events and parties, especially weddings. That’s why she became associated with some of the biggest event organizers of the United States and has planned the weddings of many celebrities and high-profile clients. Ultimately, her clients recognized her creativity and at their urging, she decided to start a wedding consultants business.

3.3 How the Business will be started

You have to consider many aspects before you think about how to start a wedding planning business. Being associated with this industry, Kelly successfully planned everything about her business including the required personnel and inventory.
The office of Kelly Weddings will be located in Manhattan borough of the New York City. A 300 square feet office, which was previously used by an IT firm, has already been procured on lease in the center of the main commercial district of Manhattan. In addition to renovation works, the company will procure office furniture including four filing cabinets, five work desks, couch and chairs for customer waiting area, and a round table with chairs for the meeting area. The financial experts have forecasted following costs for expenses, assets, investment, and loans for the start-up.

The detailed start-up requirements, start-up funding, start-up expenses, total assets, total funding required, total liabilities, total planned investment, total capital and liabilities as forecasted by experts, is given below:

Services for customers

At Kelly Weddings, we will make sure to create a unique, personal wedding that will be beautifully managed as well as artfully designed. Kelly Weddings will primarily be a wedding consulting company but we will also provide following services:

• Contract review & negotiation
• Venue & vendor selection/ management
• Menu & caterer selection/ management
• Accommodations & travel coordination
• Budget & timeline development/ management
• Event design including ceremony, room décor & tabletop

Customers can avail any of the abovementioned services or a complete wedding package including all of them. Our weddings will be completely customized to reflect the personality of every couple.

Marketing Analysis of wedding planning business

The most important component of an effective wedding planning business plan is its accurate marketing analysis that’s why Kelly acquired the services of marketing experts to help her through this phase. It is only after this stage that a good wedding consultant business plan could have been developed. After identifying the local market trends in the New York City, the marketing experts and analysts also helped her to select the best site for establishing the main office of the company.
The success or failure of a business totally depends upon its marketing strategy which can only be developed on the basis of accurate marketing analysis. Marketing analysis is a must-do thing before you even think about how to start a wedding planner business. Therefore, it must be considered before developing a wedding planning business plan sample. There are four main steps to carry out an accurate marketing analysis which are to identify the current market trends, identify your target audience and potential customers, set out the business targets to achieve, and finally set the prices of your products and services.

5.1 Market Trends

Wedding planning industry is one of the biggest industries of the United States. Its market can be estimated by considering the fact that more than 2.3 million weddings take place each year in the United States. In other words, more than 6,200 weddings take place daily in the United States. Another important factor behind the vast market of this industry is that people don’t mind to spend extravagantly on their weddings. For instance, the citizens of the United States spend more than $72 billion each year on their weddings. Considering these figures, it is clearly evident that the wedding planning industry can be immensely profitable provided that you plan your business successfully.

5.2 Marketing Segmentation

Kelly Weddings will be a Manhattan-based wedding planning business and will target the community living in the residential zone of the city located at 10 minutes’ drive from our office. Before starting a wedding planning business it was crucial to analyze the market segmentation of the future customers of our services. A successful and efficient marketing strategy business plan can only be developed after we completely know our potential customers.
The community consists of all types of people from varying backgrounds. As per the financial position, nearly half of the community has a monthly income ranging from $40k to $50k while nearly 10% people have incomes even around $100,000. Our experts have identified the following type of target audience which can become our future consumers:

The detailed marketing segmentation of our target audience is as follows:

5.2.1 Couples aged 20-35 years:

The first target group will be the couples lying in the range of 20-35 years. These couples are usually getting married for the first time and hence are even willing to go to lengths in order to make their wedding day the best day of their lives. These people often like modern party-style weddings with glamorous lights and latest music. Since most of the people get married while they are in between 20-35 years of their age, this target group will be the biggest consumer of our services and our marketing strategy will be specifically built to target them.

5.2.2 Couples aged 35-45 years:

The second target group will be the couples lying in the range of 35-45 years. These couples have a sober nature as compared to the first group and hence the themes of their wedding are more decent and classical. In addition to that, these couples are usually getting married for the second or third time of their lives hence they don’t spend extravagantly on their weddings. Considering the needs of this customer group, we have developed economy packages so as to target them.

5.2.3 Couples aged 45+ years:

The third category includes senior people with ages more than 45 years. Since the number of such weddings is negligible as compared to the previous two groups, this target group does not play any significant role in defining our marketing strategy.
The detailed market analysis of our potential customers is given in the following table:

5.3 Business Target

We aim to become the best wedding planners of the New York City within next five years of our startup. Our main business targets to be achieved as milestones over the course of next three years are as follows:

• To achieve the net profit margin of $10k per month by the end of the first year, $15k per month by the end of the second year, and $25k per month by the end of the third year
• To balance the initial cost of the startup with earned profits by the end of the first year
• To open up a second company office by the end of three years in San Francisco, and a third office by the end of five years in Los Angeles

5.4 Product Pricing

Product and service pricing is one of the most important factors in deciding the strategy for an event planning business. Selecting the price for the services is a difficult task, especially for the startups, because one has to attract customers while yielding a profit at the same time. After considering the market demands, we have priced all our services in the similar ranges as of our competitors. The reason behind our pricing policy is to achieve the minimum attractive rate of return which would not be possible in case of offering our services at low prices.
Customers can avail any of our individual services or they can avail all services as a wedding package. Currently, we are offering the following two packages:

• Economy Package: Starting from $5,000
• Luxury Package: Starting from $20,000

The exact price of our services and packages depends on the number of guests. As per the theme of weddings, customers can either choose from our set of pre-defined themes or may get a customized theme created specifically for them.

Strategy

Like marketing analysis, sales strategy is also an important component of your business plan so make sure to plan it before you even think about how to start your own wedding planning business. The key to develop an effective sales strategy is to conduct a thorough competitive analysis so as to know what business aspects are missed by your competitors.

6.1 Competitive Analysis:

As of 2017, there were more than 39,000 registered wedding planners in the United States and the numbers are still on rise. Likewise, there are hundreds of established wedding planners in the New York City that’s why we have a really tough competition ahead of us. Considering the immense competition in this field, one has to provide highest quality services so as to survive in this competitive industry.
Our biggest competitive advantage will be the offering of individual wedding services. As of now, all wedding planners in the New York City offer complete wedding packages but we will allow our clients to choose any of service/s they want. Secondly, we will treat every client with utmost respect and make sure that they get more than what they had expected from us.

6.2 Sales Strategy

After carrying out a detailed analysis, our experts came up with the following brilliant ideas to advertise and sell ourselves.

• We will advertise our business in relevant business magazines, newspapers, TV stations, and social media.
• We will introduce our company to corporate organizations and key stakeholders by sending introductory letters alongside our brochures.
• We will offer a 25% discount on our services for the first three months of our launch.
• We will offer a 40% discount on all of our services on client’s referral.

6.3 Sales Forecast

Considering the quality of our services and our unparalleled customer service, our sales pattern is expected to increase with years. By analyzing our market segmentation strategy, our experts have forecasted the following sales on a yearly basis which are summarized in the column charts:

The detailed information about sales forecast, total unit sales, total sales is given in the following table:

6.4 Sales Monthly

Our monthly sales, as forecasted by our experts, are as follows:

6.5 Sales Yearly

Our yearly sales, as forecasted by our experts, are as follows:

Personnel plan

Kelly has been associated with event planning industry for about a decade. During her career, she developed a lot of business and personal friends, many of which will join her in this venture. She has been thinking about starting a wedding planner business for the last couple of years and now she is fully prepared and all set to enter this industry along with her team of friends. Having a decade long experience in this industry and tons of social connections, she is undoubtedly the most suitable person to know how to start wedding planning business.

7.1 Company Staff

Kelly will act as the General Manager of the company and will initially hire the following people for the startup:

• 1 Accountant to maintain financial records
• 2 Sales Executives responsible for marketing and discovering new ventures
• 4 Decorators to decorate the venues
• 2 Photographers to capture the beautiful moments of the memorable events of our customers
• 1 Inventory Manager to manage the merchandise needed for events
• 2 Drivers for moving the team between different places
• 1 Front Desk Officer to act as a receptionist
• 1 Security Officer

To ensure the best quality service, all employees will be selected through vigorous testing and will be trained for a month before starting their jobs.

7.2 Average Salary of Employees

The following table shows the forecasted data about employees and their salaries for next three years.

Financial Plan

After deciding the strategy and personnel plan of the company, the next step is to develop a financial plan which covers the cost of startup, inventory, payroll, equipment, rent, utilities and describes how these costs will be covered by the earned profits. Financial plan is also an important component of a wedding planner business plan template, so make sure to pay a lot of attention to it. The Kelly Weddings’ financial plan outlines the development of the company over the next three years and is specifically developed to achieve both the company’s short-term and long-term objectives.

8.1 Important Assumptions

The company’s financial projections are forecasted on the basis of following assumptions.

8.2 Brake-even Analysis

The following graph shows the company’s Brake-even Analysis.

The following table shows the company’s Brake-even Analysis.

8.3 Projected Profit and Loss

The following charts show the company’s expected Profit and Loss situation on the monthly and yearly basis.

8.3.1 Profit Monthly

The following graph shows the monthly profit, as forecasted by the company’s financial experts.

8.3.2 Profit Yearly

The following graph shows the yearly profit, as forecasted by the company’s financial experts.

8.3.3 Gross Margin Monthly

The following graph shows the monthly gross margin, as forecasted by the company’s financial experts.

8.3.4 Gross Margin Yearly

The following graph shows the yearly gross margin, as forecasted by the company’s financial experts.

The following table shows detailed information about profit and loss, and total cost of sales.

8.4 Projected Cash Flow

The following column diagram shows the projected cash flow.

8.5 Projected Balance Sheet

The following table shows detailed data about pro forma cash flow, subtotal cash from operations, subtotal cash received, sub-total spent on operations, subtotal cash spent.
The following projected balance sheet shows data about total current assets, total long-term assets, total assets, subtotal current liabilities, total liabilities, total capital, total liabilities and capital.

8.6 Business Ratios

The following table shows data about business ratios, ratio analysis, total assets, net worth.

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