A $70K Marriage Proposal

marriage proposal planning teacher

As a Proposal Planning coach, I want to both educate and inspire you. I hope this blog does both. Some people don’t realize just how much money there is in Proposal Planning.  Sure, there are simple proposals out there which will require you to set up rose petals and candles.  And for those, the profit margin isn’t super high. There are also lovely custom proposals that you plan where your profit margin can be one to two thousand dollars.  But if you plan a luxury proposal, your profit margin can be extremely high.

Take Christian for example. He hired my company, The Heart Bandits, to plan his epic marriage proposal.  He is involved with the Pittsburgh Steelers and he had an unlimited budget. He really wanted his girlfriend to get taken on a journey for her proposal.  He didn’t just want her to walk out into a room and see a nice proposal set up.  He wanted it to be a multi-level experience that was different from anything he had seen.  

He also had one special request.  He wanted a rare Christian Louboutin bag presented to her before he proposed.  I must have called every Christian Louboutin store in America for that bag….but I got it!

proposal planner education

Now, on to the Proposal Planning.  Christian and his partner are used to traveling the world.  In fact, travel is a huge part of their story.  So we presented him the concept of a “Jet Setter” theme and he loved. it.  First, we rented out one of the most incredible rooftop gardens in Manhattan.  We stationed a butler right near the elevator to greet the couple with Champagne.  When they arrived on the rooftop, we had an orchestra playing under an Eiffel Tower replica built of moss and lights.  When the couple walked out of the elevator, she was completely floored as the orchestra played “All Of Me,” by John Legend.

be a proposal planner

After the orchestra serenaded the couple, Christian lead her through hundreds of stunning red and pink florals and to a faux grass wall fashioned after a Parisian cafe.  Displayed on the wall were large canvases of the couple on some of their travels together.  After spending some time there, they walked out onto the garden and a string quartet began playing. It’s then, the couple passed a replica of a Venetian gondola with roses spilling out of it.  This was to represent their travels to Italy.

wedding proposal planning

Christian escorted her over to some beautifully displayed Louis Vuitton luggage where she found a surprise gift.  The gift contained the rare handbag I was able to find which was Mexican themed and represented their travels to Mexico.  Finally, he walked her over to the pool where we had a custom monogrammed proposal message at the bottom of the pool that said, “Will You Travel The World With Me Forever?”  The pool was lined with gorgeous candles and rose petals. Christian proposed and she of course said, “YES!”

teach me to be a proposal planner

After the proposal, we transformed the garden for an intimate dinner for the couple to share.  The dinner was catered and came with a waiter to make sure they had a one-of-a-kind experience. The string quartet continued to play as the couple enjoyed their celebratory dinner.

proposal planning education
proposal planning school

Now, I know what you are thinking.  You’re thinking “Whoa, if he spent that much on a proposal, what would he spend on the wedding?”  And that is exactly what I am here to point out to you, and exactly what I want you to think about.  Really let that sink in.  If he spent $70K on a proposal, what would he spend on a wedding? And what if YOU were both the Proposal Planner AND the Wedding Planner for him?

If you have the opportunity to not only earn a significant amount of revenue for planning a luxury proposal, AND you get to earn the trust of a couple before they get engaged, why wouldn’t you? If you could have a built in lead in to be their wedding planner, why would you not take it?

And that is exactly what Proposal Planning can offer you.  It can not only increase your revenue and diversify your income.  It can provide you more leads for your wedding planning business. To find out more information on why I think you need to get started Proposal Planning right away, download our freebie below.

Download the FREE Top 3 Reasons You MUST Add Proposal Planning Now here.

We have another great FREE resource for you too that will come in handy when you are ready to get started Proposal Planning.  It’s called the 4 Branded Resources You Must Create To Start Offering Proposal Planning.

If you are ready to learn how to be a Proposal Planner, sign up for our email list below so we can send you more curated content and tips.  

After planning proposals for over 10 years, my company runs itself so I have decided to teach others how to become a Proposal Planner. And I am truly passionate about helping entrepreneurs and Wedding Planners LEVEL UP and start offering Marriage Proposal Planning services using profitable action steps and my proven SEO & Marketing strategies. I will be launching a FREE webinar soon as well as a course. But for now, I hope this blog inspires you.

proposal planning coach

Proposal Planning: The Heart Bandits

Florals & Rentals: Martin Jobes Design

Photography: Michael Justin Studios

Why Proposal Planning Isn’t Working For You

marriage proposal in park
marriage proposal in park

One of the reasons I started the Proposal Planning Academy, is because a lot of Event Planners that started offering Proposal Planning on their website were contacting me asking if I could help them figure out what they were doing wrong! They started “offering” Proposal Planning, but they weren’t getting many or any clients. And since my company, The Heart Bandits, has been planning proposals for over 10 years and has helped pioneer this industry, they turned to me for advice on how they could start successfully attracting more clients.

At The Heart Bandits, we plan about 70 proposals a month. That’s a lot of clients, and we are just one company. That goes to show you that there are a LOT of people out there looking to hire a Proposal Planner. So if you are only getting a few a year, you are leaving a lot of money on the table for someone else to get. Proposal Planning can easily bring you in 5 or 6 figures a year. Why not cash in on that? In a few weeks, I will be doing a FREE Facebook live addressing the mistakes Wedding Planners make when targeting the Proposal Planning client. But for now, I wanted to point out some of the reasons your Proposal Planning offering is not working for you.

1) You are not advertising properly

When I say advertising, I am not talking about adwords. I am talking about the way that you are telling the world that you are a Proposal Planner. If you are not getting the leads you want, one of the issues could be the way that you are advertising that you are a Proposal Planner. Are you listing it on your website and if so where? Do you mention it across your other assets? As a Proposal Planning Coach, I teach very specific and intentional strategies you must follow when talking about your Proposal Planning offering if you do want to maximize exposure and start attracting leads now.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. You might be thinking that you don’t want to focus too much of your messaging on Proposal Planning because you want your core business to be about your weddings. And I get that. But there are very easy ways to make sure that you are still letting the Proposer know that you indeed plan proposals and it is part of your expertise, without turning off or confusing your brides.

2) You do not understand your target market

If you haven’t been researching and studying the Proposer client for 10 years like I have, you likely do not intimately know this target market in the way that you need to in order to effectively market to them. If you do not truly understand the demographics and psychographics of someone looking to propose, how can you truly speak to them in a way that makes them want to buy from you? You can’t.

The good news is that you can learn, just like you probably did when you first started planning weddings. If you end up taking my course, you will be spoon-fed all of the details you need to create an effective marketing strategy for someone looking to propose. But for now, what you can do is really spend some time trying to figure out what this client’s pain points are. If you can figure out what their pain points are AND tell them how you can solve all of them, then you can successfully market to them.

3) You haven’t done a launch

One of the things I tell all of my students is that when you first start offering Proposal Planning services, you need to do a launch. A launch is a way to let everyone know that you are offering Proposal Planning services now. In my course, I show a step-by-step process of this but essentially, you need to announce this across all your assets. Use the momentum of your launch to start building trust with your target market.

If you want to start attracting a lot more Proposal clients, you may need to really look at these 3 things and create a strategy to really solve each issue. In the coming weeks, I will be doing a FREE Masterclass on Proposal Marketing. But for now, I want you to really understand the reasons why adding Proposal Planning services is so important. If you truly understand the potential this service has, I think you will be even more committed and re-energized to dive in and do what needs to be done to make it explode for you. Download our Top 3 Reasons You Should Start Offering Proposal Planning NOW and 5 Reasons That Proposal Planning and Wedding Planning Is The “Perfect Marriage.” 

I just know that with the right guidance, you can really make Proposal Planning produce steady and reliable income for you. When you really get focused and start effectively marketing your Proposal Planning services, you will realize just how easy it is to become a Proposal Planner. I can’t wait to see how you make this information work for you.

5 Thoughts That Are Holding You Back

how to be a proposal planner
how to be a proposal planner

Have you ever wanted something really bad but you’ve talked yourself out of it with self-sabotaging thoughts? Well if you are human, my guess is that your answer is yes. We all do this, but the trick to fighting back the self-doubting thoughts, is to understand that it is just noise. The thoughts aren’t real, they are just worries manifested into negative thoughts in your mind.

If you have thought about offering Proposal Planning services to your existing Wedding Planning business, but still not taken action, I have an idea of what you might be thinking. As a Proposal Planning Coach, I encounter students with similar thoughts over and over. Do these thoughts sound familiar?

1. I Don’t Have Time

This is one of the most common reasons that I hear Wedding Planners say that they have not yet started offering Proposal Planning services. And I get it, believe me I do. I am a mother of a 5 year old daughter (currently screaming right now and trying her best to distract me) and a 22 month old son, a wife, and the owner of 4 companies. So I know a thing or two about being busy. But it isn’t time that I don’t have, it’s time to WASTE that I don’t have. And if you really think about it, isn’t that the truth for you too? If you knew you could offer Proposal Planning easily and start making money right away, would you find the time to start the process? I am betting that you would. But understandably, if you don’t know where to start and you don’t understand the benefits of offering it, the venture could certainly fall under the “I don’t have time” category.

2. People Will Think I Am A Jack Of All Trades

As a Wedding Planner, you have worked your butt off to establish yourself. You likely have your wedding business up and running and producing a steady clientele. The last thing you want to do is muck up your website and start offering a new service which distracts your brides from your brand. After all, what you are doing in your wedding business IS working. So if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, right? But I am here to tell you, it does not have to be that way. If you just throw up “proposal” words and proposal pictures on your website without a strategy and a very solid plan, I could see that this could be an actual fear. However, if you have a plan to add Proposal Planning in a thoughtful and intentional way, you can successfully speak to both the bride AND the proposer without confusing either of them.

3. I Won’t Get Clients

The fear of failure is in us all. But as an entrepreneur, we are hardwired to take risks. And the motto of any successful entrepreneur should be that, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” – Robert F. Kennedy. So yes, I get it. You are scared that you will start offering Proposal Planning services and that no one will inquire. But if you never start trying, you will DEFINITELY not get any Proposal Planning clients. And besides, you are only fearing this possibility because you don’t know yet how to go about things. But if you knew the strategies to implement, or you had a solid game plan in how to get Proposal Planning clients, it wouldn’t seem so scary.

4. I Don’t Know How To Market To These Clients

This is a legitimate concern. But you wouldn’t have chosen to NOT start your wedding planning business simply because you didn’t know how to start a wedding planning business right? You only don’t know how to market to a Proposer, because you haven’t learned how yet. If you truly want to start offering Proposal Planning services, you can easily learn how to be a proposal planner by learning how to market to this client.

5. It Will Be A Waste Of Time

This is what I feel the number one fear of any entrepreneur, or maybe even any person is. Time is our most limited commodity. And we will give it to what we love and feel passionate about. But wasting time feels like a kick to the gut, so every decision we make in regards to where to invest our time, has to feel like it won’t be a WASTE of our time. But there is an easy solution to combat this negative thought – simply make sure you have a road map! When you start offering Proposal Planning, you aren’t just going to go into it blindly. You are going to have a plan and a roadmap that will make sure that you can do things easily and efficiently as possible.

Now that I have helped you combat your self-doubting thoughts about starting offering Proposal Planning services, here is what I want you to do! Download our Top 3 Reasons You Should Start Offering Proposal Planning NOW and 5 Reasons That Proposal Planning and Wedding Planning Is The “Perfect Marriage.”  This will help you understand exactly why you need to start offering Proposal Planning services to your wedding planning business. We will soon launch a webinar to help you learn how, so stay tuned for that as well. I can’t wait to see what you do with this information!!

5 Reasons To Take Advantage Of The Quarantine & Level Up Your Wedding Business

I hear it all the time, “I want to start offering Proposal Planning services, but I just don’t have the time.” And believe me, I get it. I too am a very busy entrepreneur and under normal circumstances, would have had a hard time even finding time to post on Instagram, let alone launching a new service. But you and I have been given a gift during this quarantine, the gift of time. And what better way to use this time than to level up our business and do something that could earn an additional stream of revenue that can last for the life of your business. Here are 4 reasons that you need to take advantage of this downtime and expand on your wedding services:

1. Now Is The Perfect Time To Get Focused

Before you start offering a new service, you really need to get focused and figure out the best approach to adding the service to your wedding business. If you were right in the middle of wedding season, when would you have time to do this? Chances are, you wouldn’t. It would get put on your endless “to-do list” that gets longer every day, and may never ever take off. Use this time to get laser focused on adding Proposal Planning services to your existing brand because you will never get this moment back and never have this type of an opportunity again.

2. Opportunity To Take A Course

When your business is in full swing, do you really have time to take courses to expand on your knowledge and grow your business? I know I never do. So now that you have more free time, you can enroll in courses which will help you add a new service to your wedding business. Whether you sign up for Proposal Planning training or just a course on how to grow your Instagram account, the investment you make into your business right now will pay off in the long run.

3. You Have More Time To Launch

Launching any new service can take some time. You have to come up with a strategy, add the new service to your website, update all of your social media and more. If you were trying to do this during Wedding Season, it would take a LOT longer than it would take if you were to get started now. Even though you still have work to do and you still have marketing to manage for your Wedding business, you do have more time than you would normally have. So use this time to move closer to your goals. If you are craving growth and you want to diversify your income, it is the perfect time to add another service to your Wedding Planning. And I believe that perfect service is Proposal Planning.

4. You Have Time To Create Content

Another potentially time consuming aspect of launching a new service is creating the content to promote it. But during this situation, don’t you find that you have a little more time than you typically do? If so, it is the perfect time to start creating content for the new service that you are launching. Take this time to create content in advance and get it all scheduled. That way, when the quarantine lifts and you get back to your normal busy self, the content will already be in place and can start working for you!

5. More People Are Online

The top reason that you should launch a new service during the quarantine is because right now, more people are online than they ever will be again. Millions of people are quarantined and spending way more time online as a result. Which makes this a very unique opportunity to promote your new service to your target audience. All eyes will be on you as you announce your new service and start to target your new audience. If you target some really great keywords and hashtags, your visibility could go through the roof due to how many people are online these days.

This also gives you an opportunity to network with other professionals that can help you grow your new service. For example, if you are going to launch Proposal Planning services, you can use this time to reach out to other companies that you want to build relationships with. Chances are, business is slow for them right now too and they will welcome the opportunity to network with a new vendor.

If adding Proposal Planning to your Wedding Planning business intrigues you, then I encourage you to head over to  www.theheartbanditsacademy.com and grab one of our FREE DOWNLOADS.  In them, we discusses the Top 3 Reasons You Should Start Offering Proposal Planning NOW and 5 Reasons That Proposal Planning and Wedding Planning Is The “Perfect Marriage.”  This will help you find out if adding Proposal Planning to your Wedding Planning business could be right for you.  I hope to see you there!

Why Proposal Planning Is On The Rise

how to be a proposal planner
how to be a proposal planner

I remember starting The Heart Bandits, my marriage proposal planning company.  I started it back in 2010 and every time I would tell someone that I was a Proposal Planner, they would laugh or roll their eyes.  “A PROPOSAL Planner?” they would ask in a mocking tone, “People actually PAY you for that?”.  My husband and I would be interviewed by media and people would leave mean comments about how Proposal Planning was a joke and that no one in their right mind would pay for such a service.

Fast forward 10 years later and hiring a Proposal Planner is now a social norm and the industry is growing faster than I can believe.  Daily, I receive emails from lovers of love asking me how to become a Proposal Planner.  They contact me from around the world telling me that they want to start a Proposal Planning company in Colombia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. and they want me to teach them how to do it.


But WHY is the industry growing so fast and why should you claim your stake in it now? Here are the 3 reasons the industry is blowing up!

1) Social Media Influence 

Before social media, if someone proposed to their partner, only their closest friends would know how that person proposed.  Let me tell you, things have absolutely changed!  Now, when you propose, getting a photo of the moment is expected.  Having a videographer shoot it is even better.  And that photo or video will make its way to Instagram, Youtube, or Facebook, where it can be viewed by thousands or even millions of people.  How has this contributed to the rise of Proposal Planners?  Well, now there are thousands of examples on social media showing how people have proposed.  The would be “proposer” sees how his peers are proposing and it puts pressure on him to make sure his proposal is equally as good or better.  The would be “proposee” is also on social media and she is seeing how her peers are getting engaged.  Her expectations of her own proposal increase and again, more pressure is put on the proposer.  He wonders, “How will I come up with a better idea?”  “Do I have the resources to pull off something that epic?”  He starts researching how to pull this all off and that leads him to….you guessed it….a Proposal Planner!

2) Acceptance of Proposal Planning

Another hurdle I had to face when I first started my company was that men were worried how their partner would feel if they hired a Proposal Planner.  They were worried that they would be perceived as “not creative enough” or “not romantic” when that couldn’t be the furthest thing from the truth.  In fact, they were creative and romantic enough to try to find a resource to make sure their proposal was impactful and memorable.  With the rise of social media and grand marriage proposals becoming commonplace, it has now become accepted that for someone to pull off an epic proposal, they are going to need some assistance. And truthfully, many of my clients hear about me FROM their partners.  Because hiring a Proposal Planner is an accepted norm, the demand for Proposal Planners is rising and the industry is on fire!

3) Media Attention of Proposal Planners

Several times a year I am contacted by major media outlets to collaborate with them about Proposal Planning articles and stories.  And every single time a Proposal Planning article is featured in the media, I notice 2 things.  One, I get a TON of new inquiries from potential clients that saw my article in the media and want to find out how I can help them propose.  Two, I get several inquiries from people that want to find out how they can become a marriage proposal planner and if I can assist them.  This is yet another contributing factor to the growth of the industry.

Now that you know the reasons the industry is growing so quickly, why should you start offering Proposal Planning services right away?  I think the question is, why would you NOT?  The industry is new enough that you could get started now and become a MAJOR player, but it is also seasoned enough that you don’t have to climb the uphill battle that I did to get noticed.  

If starting a career in Proposal Planning intrigues you, then I encourage you to head over to  www.theheartbanditsacademy.com and grab one of our FREE DOWNLOADS.  In them, we discusses the Top 3 Reasons You Should Start Offering Proposal Planning NOW and 5 Reasons That Proposal Planning and Wedding Planning is the perfect marriage.  This will help you find out if adding Proposal Planning to your Wedding Planning business could be right for you.  I hope to see you there!