6 Wedding Planner Intern Project Ideas
Are you a wedding planner that has an intern or are you considering bringing one on in the future? You may be racking your brain for ideas to keep them busy throughout their time working with you. Keep reading for six intern project ideas.
For the past decade, my right-hand woman, Gina, has trained, hired, and managed our internship program for A Southern Soiree. Sometimes interns join us for the course curriculum and sometimes it’s for the experience. They typically shadow events and sit in on meetings to really get the full picture of what wedding planning is. The goal for their summer internship is that they get a better sense of the wedding industry and understand if it’s right for them.
During their internship, it’s important to give your intern projects that allow them to take ownership. It’s always neat to see how they bring the initial ideas to life. These projects let you see if they show initiative, and they can open the door to you hiring them once they finish their degree.
Here are six ideas for your summer intern:
Gifting research - At A Southern Soiree, we love to send out client gifts and vendor gifts. Your intern can research gift ideas, sources of gifts, shipping methods, and gifting budgets. Whether you currently have a gifting strategy in place or not, this is an opportunity for growing gifting within your business.
Organization - As wedding professionals, we have a lot going on outside of the day-to-day client management. Here are some ideas for things your intern can organize:
Master vendor spreadsheet - Your intern can work to get updated package and pricing information for your preferred vendor lists.
Photo organization - Your intern can help organize photos from past events. They can include photographer and other vendor details with the images to make vendor credits on social media and your website easier in the future.
Google Drive or CRM organization - We all have those messy parts of our business, so now is the time to clean them up! If you’re a planner, consider creating folders for different types of decor for mood boards and other inspiration images.
Social proof - Your intern can consolidate raving emails, online reviews, etc. into a “brag file” to be used on your social media, brochures, websites, and more. Pro tip for social proof: be sure to pull the most impactful sentences rather than a giant block of text.
Event planning - If you are a wedding planner, chances are your intern actually wants to dip their toes into planning. Here are some ideas for events they can plan during their internship:
Anniversary party - If you know your business anniversary, have them plan a party to celebrate it. They can source the vendors, coordinate the timeline, and present their plan to you for final approval.
Vendor appreciation event - Have your intern plan an event to show appreciation for all of the vendors you work with the most.
Styled shoot - You can provide your intern with a high-level overview of your vision for a styled shoot, and they can put together mood boards. This is a great opportunity for them to use their creativity to propose ideas that are outside of the box.
If you are having your intern help plan any of these events, consider having a branded intern email for them to use when contacting vendors. Ensure you trust them and know they are professional before letting them communicate with vendors. You may want to consider providing a template email and ensure they keep you on copy for visibility.
Blog posts - If your intern assists with a real wedding, have them write about the wedding itself. If they haven’t helped with a real wedding yet, they can write blog posts on wedding day tips, vendor spotlights, and more. This would be especially great if your intern has an interest in writing and public relations.
Vendor relationships - Give your intern a list of twenty accounts on social media that are the top vendors you work with and that are aspirational vendors you’d like to work with one day. Every day or every other day, have your intern engage with those accounts through meaningful comments, reshares, and DMs. Another way to build vendor relationships is to write reviews for the vendors of a recent wedding. If your intern worked the wedding, this is a great opportunity for them to help out.
Pitching - Have your intern do the research for networking events or podcasts to pitch yourself. Their research can include the contact information and next steps for the pitch. If they have strong writing skills, you could have them begin the outreach phase as well.
Leave a comment below to let us know if you implement any of these projects this summer! And don’t forget to tune in to episode 178 of Weddings For Real to hear the full explanations for each of these six intern projects.
