DWHSA Members Only |
DWHSA's DW Ceremony Planner Certification
We're very pleased to bring back DWHSA's "Certified Destination Wedding Ceremony Planner" program this year! Many members have expanded their businesses to help their DW couples plan and manage their actual on-site ceremonies - from selecting flowers and music and coordinating photo and video shoots to confirming reception menus and even providing "day of" support in person. And, they're collecting extra service/planning fees for doing so! Here's what this course includes:
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Our partner in this program is Cherie Ronning! Many of you know Cherie - she's spoken at our conferences and on webinars in the past. Cherie is a giant in the North American wedding professionals community. She's coordinated almost 1,000 weddings over the past 30 years from her base in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, and she's designed every type of wedding (from a three-day affair that cost almost a million dollars where the couple paid for all guestrooms to a bride who jumped from a plane at an air museum in Vancouver and arrived at the ceremony in her jumpsuit holding a balsa wood airplane instead of a bouquet). From kids knocking over the wedding cake to a bride who broke her leg in a Jewish wedding when her uncles dropped her chair during the horah dance, she's dealt with everything that can go right or wrong in weddings! She's served as the owner of the Portland Wedding Lounge in Oregon and president of Wedding Network USA. Cherie coordinated the Oregon chapter of the Association of Bridal Consultants, and she won ABC's Dorothy Heart Award in 2008 for her contributions to wedding planning (one of only 20 recipients since 1997). She'll lead the sessions on wedding planning principles for travel advisors. Meanwhile, Lisa Sheldon (DWHSA's president and co-founder) will lead the class on ceremony aspects that are specific to DWs! Along with planning DWs with clients for her agency in southern Wisconsin, she's worked as a wedding officiant and organized wedding shows in her region. She's spoken about romance travel at events for the New York Times, the American Society of Travel Advisors, Travel Leaders, the Travel MarketPlace, Ensemble Travel Group, Love Mexico, Mexico Romantico, and other groups. Lisa serves on the Academic Council of the Travel Institute and participates in its Professional Educators Program. |
Please note that this program is NOT open to non-members - and, it's only offered once a year (every fall). You may sign up to participate this year, or you may consider registering instead when the certification reopens in the fall of 2025.
Now, the best part? The price! We offer this certification as a benefit to support members who wish to charge service/planning fees to act as their couples' DW ceremony planners. Because we launched it in 2022, we've already covered the start-up costs. Each year, we must cover the training fees to have Cherie help us - but that's it. So, we're pleased to offer this certification at the very affordable rate of USD$75! That covers everything - the live classes (and the videos afterward), the detailed handouts, the outside testing service fee for the exam, and your "Certified Destination Wedding Ceremony Planner" logo.
We've opened registration now through Sunday, Aug. 31. At that time, registration will close, and the live webinars will take place in September and October. We're finalizing class dates right now - but remember that you can always catch the sessions via video later if you miss anything.
Click the link below to register by Aug. 31 - and please reach out at support@dwhsa.com if you have questions!