Professionals within the event industry have an understanding that different occasions carry their own respective goals that they’d like to accomplish. These goals vary from an event’s purpose to celebrate and extend to those who intend to initiate networking between attendees. Ultimately, event professionals aim to make their clients’ vision for their event come to life. This blog post aims to delve into two specific event types and their respective planning processes. Namely, wedding planning and corporate event planning. Follow along as we attempt to define these two event types, and their planning and explore what exactly differentiates the one from the other.
Wedding Planning
Weddings! Are a beautiful celebration of love and unity shared between two people. As a guest, one is often mesmerised by the life of a couple captured in the small details of their wedding ceremony. As the planner, however, executing those very details, big or small, requires lots of thought accompanied by a skilful means of execution.
Wedding planning can be defined as an intricate and specialized branch of event planning. These special occasions aim to see to the organisation and execution of a wedding ceremony along with its reception. It is the responsibility of the wedding planner to ensure that the couple’s vision for their wedding is made a reality.
Corporate Event Planning
Corporate events often lead to images of suits and informative speeches concerning a particular industry. These events gather professionals of a particular career field and aim to either inform, train, acknowledge and/or sell. Corporate events do not carry as much sentimental value as weddings but rather find value in professionalism and formalities.
While wedding planning caters to a specific niche and requires specialised skills, corporate event planning covers a wide range of gatherings. These gatherings could include, conferences, seminars, round table meetings, etc. These events are not as personalised as say a wedding as they are more business-centred. It is therefore important for the event planner to be able to adapt to the many different goals of the corporate event in question.
Key Differences
We’ve tried curating five key differences between wedding planning and corporate event planning.
-
The focus and nature of the event.
Wedding Planning:
Every factor that makes up the planning process of a wedding focuses on ensuring that the ceremony and reception is a visual representation of the love shared between the couple being celebrated. The nature of said planning process can then be defined as intentional as all decisions made concerning the look, feel and execution of a wedding is emotionally motivated.
Corporate Event Planning:
This differs from the focus and nature of a corporate event’s planning process. While the planning stage of a wedding is more sentimentally inclined, the planning of a corporate event has more of a formal focus. The nature of this planning process can then be defined as professional.
-
The tailoring of the respective planning processes.
Wedding Planning:
The planning process of a wedding is tailored to ensure that the married couple is celebrated.
Corporate Event Planning:
The planning process of a corporate event, on the other hand, is tailored to the specific goal set out for the event to achieve. That would then implicate that all decisions made during this planning stage aim to execute the event goal to either, inform, train, acknowledge and/or sell.
-
The purpose of the respective events.
Wedding Planning:
The planning process of a wedding is strongly influenced by the purpose of the said wedding. This purpose can be defined by the goal to celebrate a couple’s marriage as well as the purpose for the wedding’s look and feel to portray romance.
Corporate Event Planning:
This differs from the purpose of the planning process of a corporate event. The purpose of said event is mainly to initiate networking between attendees as well as create opportunities for professional mingling.
-
The Décor.
Wedding Planning:
The planning of wedding décor aims to be as personal to the couple as possible. The décor should be intentional in that it should capture the love shared by the two individuals getting married. It is then understood that the decisions made concerning a wedding décor are emotionally influenced by intentionality and personalisation.
Corporate Event Planning:
Corporate event planning is stripped of this emotive influence. This would then show in its décor. While the décor of a wedding is personalised, decisions made concerning the planning of décor for a corporate event is often intended to be business-centred and formal.
-
The budget.
Wedding Planning:
Due to the elaborate and possibly luxurious nature of a wedding, the budget set during the planning process of a wedding is most likely going to be pricey but oh so worth every cent!
Corporate Event Planning:
A corporate event, on the other hand, has more of a strict budget set by the company planning to host said event.
Conclusion
The main difference between planning a wedding and planning a corporate event is found in the goal that they respectively carry. A wedding aims to celebrate the love and marital union of a couple, while a corporate event aims to formally gather professionals so that they may network. These goals affect the decisions made during the planning process of the different events and impact the co-ordination of the respective events. The decisions affected could be the decided décor, budget, food, etc.