When my husband and I got married, we chose a fairly small venue: a winery that was located in a church built in Missouri in the 1860s. Since the venue and the staff were small, we dealt with the manager of the entire place. However, many venues that are also used for other things (i.e. resorts, hotels, public gardens, etc.) usually have an event manager who presides just over weddings.

A venue’s wedding event manager has a lot of responsibilities to carry. Moreover, if something goes wrong, she is probably the one who will get blamed. The venue’s wedding manager has to get everything set up to the bride’s specifications, not to mention coordinate with any outside
service providers, such as caterers, ministers, florists, and the bride’s wedding planner.

Destination weddings may carry additional responsibilities. For example, the venue’s event manager may be communicating with the bride and making plans when she has never actually seen the venue in person, which makes it more difficult to plan and increases the chances that the bride may not be happy with the results. And don’t think that this only happens in popular vacation destinations such as Hawaii: Even weddings in Michigan may be destination weddings.

You may also find you have more responsibilities in a venue that is really popular for certain kinds of theme weddings, such as castle weddings. In these instances you will probably find that the bride wants everything to be “authentic” or match her theme perfectly, which may give you some extra work to do.

In general, though, I think being a venue’s wedding event manager would be fabulous. What an exciting and happy thing to help people plan their weddings as your career!

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,