Becoming a Wedding Designer
The idea of becoming a wedding designer came to me after a first experience in the world of event decor.
I took my first steps in this field by creating, with a friend, a furniture and decor rental company. Yet the services we offered felt unfinished to me. I needed to go further. I did not want to simply deliver decor and collect it once the event was over. I wanted to imagine, create and carry out complete decor projects. As if writing a story, I wanted to be there from beginning to end, not just for a lost chapter in the middle.
I did not know where to start, so I began researching the training programs available in this field. That is when I discovered the profession of wedding designer. It immediately felt obvious, and I decided to train with IWI in order to gain new knowledge, become more professional, offer new services to my future clients and fully thrive in this new adventure.
A path with many facets: between creativity and empathy
As a young girl, passionate, creative and deeply romantic, I originally wanted to become a wedding photographer. So I studied applied arts in order to pursue that project. But the arrival of new technologies and all the digital tools the profession implied quickly made me change my mind.
I then put quite a bit of distance between myself and those parts of my personality and took a complete turn. I moved into healthcare, more specifically nursing, a profession I practiced with passion, rigor and professionalism. Yet after eight years, I was already beginning to see the end of my career as a caregiver without really knowing what else I could do with my life.
Then one of my friends, who was preparing her wedding, suggested that we launch a decor rental agency together. The concept was simple: we would source pieces, transform or restore them, and then offer them for rent. My love of old objects and my passion for decoration did not leave me hesitating for long. The adventure began at full speed, and La Bohème Décoration was born.
After a few months of running the business alongside our respective jobs, I decided to leave my position as a nurse and devote myself fully, on my own, to the success of this beautiful project.
But as I said earlier, I had the feeling that the work I was doing remained incomplete by offering only rental and delivery services. So I decided to train with IWI, and a few months later La Bohème Décoration officially became the first wedding design agency in the Ain region.
The difficulties I encountered
When launching the business
My situation is a little unusual because my company had already been created, so I did not face all the most common difficulties that often come with this type of situation. I had the desire to make it evolve, financial support that allowed me to devote myself fully to it, and the support of those around me. In short, I had, in my opinion, the basics needed to launch this new project in the best conditions.
In the end, the biggest difficulty was answering one simple question: am I capable of this? The idea of training with IWI temporarily silenced my doubts and allowed me to take the leap.
Day to day, now
Even though I felt very few difficulties before getting started, they did not take long to appear in everyday life. There were many obstacles, some small and some significant: the recurring question of legitimacy, organizing work as a self-employed entrepreneur, knowing how to disconnect and keep time for yourself, client communication in the first exchanges, defining and redefining your rates, creating suitable and high-quality communication, and more. In short, an uncountable number of things quickly appeared to me as difficulties.
But as I said before, I believe that you simply have to give yourself time. The answers to all those questions, the solutions to all those difficulties, will come little by little through meetings, projects and contracts. You just have to begin, take inspiration from people who have been there before you, never hesitate to ask your peers for advice or help, and always keep your IWI training materials within reach. My binder is never far away, and even if it does not always contain the answer, it remains a precious source of help, especially for all the theoretical aspects.
La Bohème Décoration, Wedding Designer in Ain
La Bohème Décoration is a wedding design company based near Bourg-en-Bresse in Ain. It also provides services in part of the neighboring departments, especially Rhône and Saône-et-Loire.
La Bohème Décoration is also, and still, a furniture and decor rental company. I chose to continue offering this service because it allows another approach to decoration and can therefore adapt to different budgets. It also allows future clients who want to create their own decor to find the little treasures they need while at the same time avoiding overconsumption, which is not a minor point.
When it comes to wedding design itself, there are no ready-made packages. La Bohème Décoration creates bespoke concepts and can therefore adapt to all the wishes of future brides and grooms. I place particular importance on the relationship with my clients because, for me, it is essential above all to take the time to get to know and understand them so that I can offer them a project that matches them in every respect and respects their values, beliefs and convictions, making the project a visual wonder in their image.
The first months of activity
While my first season is coming to an end, my first year as a wedding designer is not quite over yet because I have only been offering these services for seven months as I write this. Still, I wanted to share a first impression.
Since La Bohème Décoration originally started as a furniture and decor rental company, most client requests were naturally focused on that service. Because wedding design is still not widely known among future brides and grooms, it was difficult to introduce and offer that service, since clients wanted rental only. So with every new inquiry I explained that I was now offering my skills as a wedding designer for complete decor concepts... and in the end it started to pay off. I already have three full wedding decor design projects underway for next season.
My biggest difficulty was facing what I thought was my perfectionism. Whatever the task, everything took me forever because I absolutely wanted everything to be perfect, and of course, as someone who is never fully satisfied, nothing ever seemed good enough in my eyes. I spent several days on a single quote, endless hours thinking about packages and prices, and weeks trying to build a new social media feed. The result was always the same: I was never satisfied, I would postpone it, and I would prioritize quote requests instead. A mistake.
Now I realize that my perfectionism was only an excuse. I think I was simply afraid of starting each task for the first time, as though I were jumping into the void without a safety net.
After these seven months, I understood that everything is learned over time and that experience is the best lesson for helping us progress and evolve. So today I do it. It does not matter if it is not perfect the first time, nothing is fixed and everything can be adjusted.
Training with IWI
The wedding designer program offered by IWI is relatively comprehensive. From theoretical knowledge of wedding design to the essential information needed to create and manage a business, it has been a real guide for me. It also provides a great number of tools that make running a business easier afterwards, and I use them almost every day.
Thanks to this program, I feel more legitimate with my clients and other vendors in the wedding industry, and I also take a much more professional approach with them.
For the rest, that will come with time and experience.