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A Wedding Business Podcast - Tips and tricks to, grow and sustain a amazingly successful wedding business in a way that's is fun and gives you tons of freedom.
Welcome everyone to the Wedding Pro Academy Podcast. I'm Nicole, your host. I'm an expert in the wedding industry and I've personally built two 6 figure businesses from the ground up. I am obsessed with building businesses that make lots of money but do so in a way that also create luxurious amounts of freedom. So, if you're looking to build, grow, or scale a wedding business in a way that doesn't burn you out, and you'd love some guidance from someone who has done just that, this podcast is for you.
Nicole:Each week I'll cover strategies, ideas, tips, and tricks that will give you your dream wedding business too. Thanks so much for tuning in today! Let's dive in! Hello everyone! Welcome to another episode of The Wedding Pro Academy!
Nicole:Today we're going to talk about what it takes to build a business a wedding business in 2026 and specifically I'm going to answer some of your questions around money, around business operations, around navigating a partnership which is something I have a lot of experience with. So these are questions you guys have had for a 6 figure wedding business owner around money business and partnerships. Okay question one what systems or processes saved you sanity as you grew? Well you're gonna try you're gonna learn how to build systems and processes the busier you get. There's like no avoiding it you have to have systems and processes in order to grow and I have navigated this just by figuring it out as I went.
Nicole:But I had to implement a lot of systems in order to take on more clients. So some of the more simple things are just having emails that you send all the time, having ones that you save that you can copy and paste. So for new clients that reach out, do you have a set email for different types of clients that you can copy and paste and personalize? Or are you hand typing, personalizing every single one because that is insanely time consuming and unnecessary. You should have a, you know, a list of draft emails that you use all the time that you can copy and paste.
Nicole:So that would be the first simple thing I would implement. And then having a project management system. So important. Once you start having like 10 clients, I mean I will often have 30 weddings at a time going on and I needed to find a project management system that I could organize all of the wedding information in. So for me I use Basecamp.
Nicole:I know depending on what you do you'll find one that's right for you but I needed a spot where I could put in files, I could copy and paste emails, I could organize discussions, I could add tasks, I could, you know, give out tasks to my team, and I need it all to be super organized and all in one place. Basecamp is excellent for this if you're a wedding planner, but if you're a photographer, might use a different system. I also have a system for billing. So initially, I was doing all of this myself, but eventually, as I grew and started making more money, I hired a bookkeeper, which was the best thing I ever did because I don't love billing. I'm not you know, it's not my sole calling to be invoicing and billing and looking at the numbers and all that.
Nicole:I just don't love doing it. And so I hired out for this, and it doesn't cost actually that much money. I also use QuickBooks, which at first I tried to figure out myself and do it all myself, which I realized very quickly that this isn't worth my time because I freaking hated it. If you are a creative type person, you're probably going to hate it too. And so it was so much easier for me to just hire someone and pay them to do it because they could get the work done so much quicker than it would take me to watch all these YouTube videos and figure it out.
Nicole:So those are some of the systems and processes that I have in place now. And I started implementing them basically as soon as I realized there was a problem that needed, you know, addressing, couldn't be sloppy if I was taking on so many weddings. And the more weddings you take on, the cleaner you're gonna need to be with your systems. The next question is how do you manage cash flow during the slow seasons? Well, what you do is you create payment plans for all of your weddings.
Nicole:So and you probably already do this, maybe you don't, but what you should be doing is I usually when I book a wedding sometimes their wedding is not for a year out so there would be a payment plan on when they have to make payments for their package right so it'll usually be split into three or four payments. The first payment comes in as a deposit, and then the rest is divided into three payments. And this way, throughout the year, you're having multiple payments come into your account. So even when things get a little bit slow, you still have money coming in so you don't feel stressed out. You don't feel in lack.
Nicole:And so setting up your business this way allows you to have consistent money so you can pay out your team so you can do all the things that you need to do so you can market even when you're not booking weddings and this also allows you to not get in an energetic place of lack where I don't have enough. I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't know if I'm gonna make it. I don't know if I can pay my bills. Once you get there, it gets really hard to book weddings because you're in this desperate mode, which is what you don't wanna do.
Nicole:So you wanna stay in an even place of knowing you always have enough and splitting up payments this way really helps with that. Okay next question what financial mistakes do most wedding planners make? Well, trying to do it all yourself, that's one of them, and being sloppy about it. So if you're not the kind of person that is naturally, you know, loving doing invoicing and billing and then you miss, you know, payments and you're miscalculating shit and you're not good with taxes and all of that, hire out. I know you don't wanna spend money, but it could be the best investment you ever made.
Nicole:And there are always cheaper options. So don't only go to, like, the people in your town. Like, look on the Internet. That's how I found my bookkeeper. He's not in Hawaii.
Nicole:I'm in Hawaii. Like, he is on the East Coast, and he does my bookkeeping for me. And I found him just by asking around, like and just by Google research. So find someone that works within your budget that can help you out. And if you have to do it yourself, create a system for that too.
Nicole:So I would spend one day a week just managing my books, managing my money, making sure all of that had a process. I actually still do have a money day. Every Thursday, I have a money day where I balance everything out. I look at all of my numbers. I have multiple businesses, so I need to know how much is coming in from each business.
Nicole:I pay off all my credit cards. I make sure I know how much I made that month that month, how each business is doing because when I am on top of all of that, I feel safe. And if you feel safe and in control and on top of it, you're not giving out this, like, you know, needy, desperate, need to book more weddings kinda energy because you know what's going on. When you don't know what's going on, when you don't feel in control, when you don't feel like you've got a handle on it, that's when your brain starts to go bananas and if your brain isn't feeling safe then you know there's really no point in having a business you need to create safety for your business to grow so that is a part of learning how to be an entrepreneur creating this safety with your money with yourself. Okay next question is how did you know when to hire help versus doing everything yourself?
Nicole:For me, I hired help as soon as I could. I used to have a partner who just did not believe in outsourcing anything. She wanted to do everything herself because she didn't want to spend that money, but I always saw it differently. You know, I always saw the the benefit of having a team that worked under me who could give me my time back so I could be fully available to be the business owner to grow the business to make it better to develop the systems to figure out how where the business needed to go. And if I was doing all of the, like, nitty gritty work every day, that wouldn't give me the capacity to think that way.
Nicole:So as soon as I could, I hired a team. I always have had a small team under each of my businesses where I I have them do all the the daily work. So they do the wedding planning. They do the the constant communication with my couples, and I train them to run the business exactly the way I would do it. So I would say as soon as you can hire, hire out.
Nicole:And even if it's just one person, one really good person can make a huge difference in what you allow yourself to do and how you are able to grow your business. Next question is how do you protect yourself legally and financially after dealing with a dishonest business partner. Well, I had to learn this one the hard way. If you go back through my podcast you can listen to my story about my partner but what I would do if I were doing it all over again is if I was gonna have a partner I would have a partnership contract legally drawn up at the very beginning stating what each of you are in charge of. I also would not give all of the financial reins.
Nicole:Like, I would not put one person in charge of all the money. So what happened with me is that I had my partner in charge of all the bookkeeping and all the money because I thought she was better at that. I would never do that again. What I would do is hire a bookkeeper, someone neutral who could handle all of that, who is in charge of that, who gets to oversee all of that. That way you are both in the know of what's going on and there's no, like, urge for one partner or another to to be slimy about stealing money and stuff.
Nicole:Like, you wanna make sure that you guys each have very specific job roles. All of that should be outlined in the contract and you should do it legally. You should both sign it. You should both have an agreement and also have terms. What happens if someone doesn't follow the agreement?
Nicole:How do you end your partnership? Have a plan for that ahead of time. Because if you don't, you're gonna end up getting screwed like I did. So and it might seem awkward to do that at first. I get it.
Nicole:They're your friend. You're gonna start a business probably with someone that you like that you're friends with. You don't wanna have to bring up this kind of weird shit, but it's not weird. This is just business. It is just a plan on how you're gonna run the business and what you're gonna do in case you split it's not personal.
Nicole:So next question is looking back were there any early warning signs that your partner was stealing money? Man honestly I was just so trusting it was a hard lesson because I trusted everyone so fully that I was unaware that people would even consider stealing especially not you know one of my best friends and I wasn't looking for it so I don't think that there was something I would have seen but if I was checking the bank accounts if I was like paying better attention which I'm not blaming myself for because I just saw the best in her you know it was there was no way for me to catch it unless I was looking for it. But knowing what I know now, I would never leave all of my passwords, of my money with someone, anyone, you know? I actually now don't even give my bank account passwords to my accountant. I have, you know, I sent him the credit card statements and all that to balance the books, but I don't give him access to my bank.
Nicole:And before, when I had a business partner, she had access to everything because we were both on the account. But looking back, I don't I can't think of an early warning sign. I guess the one thing was when she used to give our our books to our accountant, she would have these printed spreadsheets. And everything was so detailed and so precise that I never questioned them. But there was a weird thing that was happening where I would she would tell me that, you know, I'd only get paid this much amount a month, which was, like, at the time, something like $2,500 a month or 3,000 a month or something, which didn't really make logical sense to me because I knew we were doing more weddings than that.
Nicole:And I was like, well, then where the f, you know, is the rest of the money going? She was like, oh, well, we need to keep it in the bank account in case we need to pay out stuff. And I was like, okay. But something in my gut told me, like, wait a minute. There should be a huge chunk of money in our account then that we get at the end of the year, but there never was.
Nicole:And I always just sorta blew it off even though I had a gut feeling that like, shouldn't we be getting more money in our pocket? Like why are we doing so many weddings and I'm only getting paid $3,000 a month? What the fuck? But I didn't actually look into it because I just trusted her. I think anytime you get a gut feeling about something like don't blow it off like dig into it trust it because those gut feelings are almost never off.
Nicole:Next question is what safeguards should every business owner put in place from day one? Well, if you're having a team or hiring out a team, I would definitely make sure that you're on top of them, that you're you have some kind of system where you cross check everything until you know they've fully earned your trust. I would not give anyone on my team access to my bank accounts, my passwords, all of that. I would keep all of that separate. I would also hire an external bookkeeper as soon as you can or handle the money yourself.
Nicole:The part with bank accounts is that because there's at certain point once you start making money there's so much money moving in and out it's hard to track it you know every day and so you don't want people having access to that you want to keep all that separate. I would not give access to my bank accounts, to my checking accounts, to, you know, any of that to to anyone, like, no one. Unless it's someone like a bookkeeper. Even then, I don't even do that. But I would be very careful about that.
Nicole:That's something that I wasn't aware of early on and something that I was very, like, loose with. I would not do that ever again. It was a hard lesson. Next question is how do you rebuild trust in people after you have a partner that stole from you? Well, it's pretty hard once you've had that experience.
Nicole:I wouldn't say it's hard to trust people. I would just say I'm not as naive with how open I am with access to my money, my stuff. I am a lot more cautious about who handles my money and I treat it like a business now. It's not just like a, you know, a nonchalant thing. I'm like, I have someone that handles invoicing, billing.
Nicole:I have a separate person that handles taxes. None of them have access to my bank accounts. I do the checks myself to my employees. I handle a portion of the money myself, and then I have people on my team that handle parts of it too. But the actual access to my money is only accessed by me.
Nicole:And I think that's how it needs to be just because it's your money. It's your business. Like, that belongs to you. Don't open that up to anyone. Did that situation change the way you lead and manage your business today?
Nicole:Yes. Absolutely. It totally did. I I would not put someone in charge of my money, like I said before. And if you're gonna have a partner, have all of that outlined in the beginning.
Nicole:Like, have a plan for what your partner does. What are her roles? What is she in charge of? What does she have access to? What specifically is she supposed to do?
Nicole:And what are you supposed to do? And what happens if she doesn't do it? And how do you communicate with each other? How do you work together? What happens if there's a problem?
Nicole:Do you have a plan for that? How do you guys get paid? Who pays out? All that needs to be discussed ahead of time, and you should have meetings about this shit to, like, talk about it and figure out a plan that works for both of you because very quickly things can get messy in a partnership and you don't want that. So if I'm being completely honest, I would not have a partner again.
Nicole:But if you are in the beginning stages of building a business and you do have a partner, make sure you have a plan in place. Don't take chances with opening you know, just just flying by the seat of your pants and saying, we'll figure it out as we go. Like, no. Make a plan in the beginning. Stick to it and make it legal.
Nicole:Because even if you don't end up, you know, having to to use that plan, you both know that if someone were to screw the other person over there would be consequences. Right? And you don't want to put yourself in a position like I did where the other person can take everything and you basically have no consequence. So I would set all of that up early. So those are some of the questions you guys had on money, on business operations, on partnership problems, and what it's like to build out a partnership.
Nicole:Let me just add one more thing about partnership. If this is your first build business and you have a partner, this can actually be, you know, I talked about the negatives, but there are a lot of positives. One of the things I think that was so helpful for me when I was first building my business with a partner is that we really could rely on each other. When shit got hard, when it felt like nothing was working, we could, like, commiserate together and come up with a plan and work together to figure it out. And feeling like I wasn't alone in it made me feel like I could give more.
Nicole:Like, it was possible for me to keep going for longer because I wasn't doing it alone. I wasn't all on my own and trying to figure it out. In my first couple of businesses that I tried and failed, I was doing it alone. It was very easy to give up. But when you have a partner, you're more willing to stick it out.
Nicole:So partnership does have benefits. All I'm saying is that you do need to outline outline and contractually make it legal what you guys are in charge of, how the money works, and, like, would happen if the partnership were to dissolve. Maybe, like, after three years, you meet and you decide both of you get to make a decision. Do we keep part as partners or not? And what would be the process of dissolving that partnership?
Nicole:Maybe it's just in the contract that it says that. That way, it doesn't get weird. You know? If in three years you're like, oh, actually, I wanna take the business this way and you wanna go that way. So, like, let's split without things being messy.
Nicole:Like, have a plan for that right in the beginning. That would be so helpful. But partnerships can be very rewarding and be very helpful in helping businesses to grow, especially if you guys are both ambitious, both hardworking, both good at different skill sets, and you work together well and you like each other it can make the business so much more fun and you know it can be a major building block for your business to take off but just have a plan in place that is already set that is legal that just in case something happens, you know, you have a plan for that. And make sure the financial side is separate from the two partners, that one person is not in charge of the whole thing, that you have access and you're both constantly checking on this part because giving all of the financial responsibility to one partner really does make things unsafe so be aware of that. I would take caution with putting all of the financial responsibility on one of the partners even if one of the partners is you know an accountant, tax person, someone that is good with money.
Nicole:Don't give all of that power away even if you're the creative one because you want that it's it's something that you both should have equal play in because it's your money and you need to be fully aware of what's going on in your business financially at all times even if you are not a financial type person. This is something you're going to need to learn how to do regardless if you're going to have your own business and be an entrepreneur. Alright guys that is all I have for you today. Next week we'll be talking about motherhood and entrepreneurship, how to build a business while you are raising kids. What are some tips and techniques that I have used to build multiple businesses while having three little babies at home.
Nicole:And I'm telling you, there are tricks to this. It is not easy, but it can be done. Also, we'll talk about how to pivot when crisis comes up like COVID or, like, what's going on in the economy right now. Like, how do you shift your business so you can still make money? Then I have a couple of bonus questions that you've asked that I think you'll find super helpful.
Nicole:So keep listening. I'll have more for you next week. And if you'd love to learn more about how to build a wedding business, how to make money in the wedding industry, You're just getting started. You want a road map with clear directions as to how to really make the most of your time and get paid quickly so that your your business actually takes off and isn't just a side hobby business, check out weddingproacademy.com. I'll be opening up the next cohort of students soon and it's so incredible.
Nicole:It's such a great course. So get on the list at weddingproacademy.com. Okay. I will see you guys later. Happy Friday.