Authored by Rodney Southern in Wedding 
Published on 01-25-2009

Wedding jobs can be a good way to make money on the side. Wedding planners, whether outside professionals or people who manage wedding reception sites, have a variety of needs for temporary help and so do other wedding vendors like photographers, florists, and musicians. Following is an overview of some common wedding jobs.

Wedding jobs where you work for the reception site or wedding planner largely center around food and decorating. The wedding planner may need wait staff, bus people, ushers– this is different from ushers that are part of the wedding party and is mostly utilized on sites whose only function is being a wedding reception location and where they have several different parties going on at once. In addition, they may hire people as valet parking attendants, restroom attendants, coat room attendants, or as janitorial staff to clean up after the big party.

Wedding jobs where you work for outside contractors are equally numerous. Musicians and singers can get gigs with bands, or if deejays are more your style you may be able to find a wedding job helping them cart their stuff around. Every photographer needs at least one assistant to help pose people, hold extra cameras and lenses, and sometimes take some of the pictures. Similarly, florists need assistance in setting up. In fact, in places like New York City where it’s the custom to have elaborate cakes made off site and transported to the wedding reception, there are even people whose only function is to get the cake to the wedding and assembled unscathed. Finally, hair and makeup people who are used to working in salons and department stores but will go to a wedding to style the bride and wedding party often need assistants as well.

Of course, if you’re more ambitious then wedding jobs that are more career oriented, like wedding planner, bandleader, photographer, caterer, florist, or limousine driver are worth investigating. Some of these wedding jobs require training while others can be performed by anyone with some intelligence and drive. Wedding jobs that are peripherally related to the event itself include invitations, wedding favors, tuxedo rentals and wedding gown salons.

One of the main reasons wedding jobs are a great choice for both careers and as part time or temporary gigs is that the wedding industry is a perennial moneymaker, even when the economy is bad. People always get married, sometimes more than once per individual, and even when times are tight most people spend more on this one day’s event than they’ll spend on entertainment in an entire year. Especially if you’re looking to start a new business, wedding jobs are an excellent industry to become involved with if you are very organized, creative and enterprising.