How planning your wedding could help your career

As you enter another budget line on your wedding Excel spreadsheet and pop open another tab in your web browser to update your Pinterest with another bit of inspiration, have you ever stopped for a second and thought — whoa, this is hard work. And then realized, “…I should be getting paid to do this work!”

Now, I don’t necessarily mean you should become a wedding planner, although some of us offbeat types DO find ourselves working in the wedding industry. (I NEVER EVER thought I’d write a book about weddings, and then end up working in the wedding media biz. How the hell did that happen!?)

So while “I planned my wedding, now I’ll plan yours!” does happen, what I’m talking about here is the ways that planning a wedding help you develop skills that can be applied to non-wedding jobs. You’re building skills that could help you move up a career ladder in whatever industry you work in … or WISH you worked in.

Here’s a quick list of employable skills you might be developing while you work on your wedding:

• Project management: guiding the development and milestones of a project with a very hard deadline at the end
• Interpersonal communication: telling your family “I love you, now fuck off” without hurting feeling
• Bookkeeping: tracking your expenses to insure you stay within your budget
• Writing skills: crafting the perfect language for your wedding website, invitations, and programs
• Hands-on manufacturing: assembling those DIY centerpieces, bouquets, etc.
• People management: getting the best results from everyone who’s helping you (wedding party, vendors, etc) and doing so in a way that makes everyone feel good

I’m sure y’all can think of a million other examples — what skills are YOU developing as you plan your wedding? And how are you going to apply them?