Betti Knott, Wedding Coordination graduate and wedding coordinator for the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in downtown Atlanta.

Why did you enroll in the program?
I enrolled because I didn't know anything about weddings, which is why the course was so important. I had a great time. The program was wonderful.

One of the biggest things that I've come to realize is that weddings have a tendency to have a life of their own and it's very, very difficult for the family members or the bride's mom to coordinate a wedding and enjoy the wedding at the same time. It [having a wedding coordinator] makes all the difference in the world in terms of making sure things run smoothly and in allowing people the luxury of having a good time on a very important and special day. If there was a lesson I learned, that's it.

What did you like most about being in the class?
Listening to people involved in the wedding industry. We had fantastic lectures and wonderfully experienced people who shared with us whatever facet of the weddings they were involved in.

For example, we had an excellent florist to come in to tell us about the whole floral side of weddings. We also had people from venues who did destination weddings. We had people who just have remarkable practical experience that they were able to pass on to us. It was a fantastic basic instruction on the whole wedding industry. Through the course we learned about wedding shows. We have booths at most of our wedding shows.

How did you get involved with weddings?
I am on the finance council at my church and our church is always trying to work out ways to raise more money. I thought, “we should promote our church for weddings!” It [the church] is very beautiful. I had received a flier from GPC and I saw an introductory course to wedding planning. I thought maybe we should try this. Pat [another wedding program graduate] and I took a proposal to our pastor and he thought it was a great idea. We use to have about 10 weddings a year and now we have 50. It's a really old church and it's a historic building and has a lot of character to it. It's just the right size for weddings. It’s not too big or small and it's convenient to a lot of reception venues.

A lot of people haven't heard about our church and some people think, “Oh it's a Catholic church, I can't get married there.” But they can.

What advice would you give to someone interested in enrolling in the program?
Attend every class first of all, because if you miss a class you might be missing something really important. It's important that you go on all of the field trips too. They are really helpful and you can get some great ideas going to visit some of the venues. Also, if you are going to do it as a business, have a business plan.

Now having worked with people who think they are wedding coordinators [laughter], if they have the opportunity to shadow a wedding coordinator, it's a great learning experience..

Pat and I have had the opportunity to work with Sue Winner [GPC’s wedding program advisor] on a couple of weddings. Anyone who wants to be a wedding coordinator should definitely shadow someone. Weddings are complex.

It's a wonderful program and I certainly enjoyed every minute of it. It was worth it, definitely worth it. I don't think that I would have gotten the kinds of information that I got anywhere else.