I decided to go for a type of business that I believe is up and coming, and so not many people have yet thought to use as a business. My idea is to make a business based on planning weddings. I believe wedding planners are becoming exceedingly more popular in the modern day due to a number of reasons, the main ones being that working women are having less and less time to spend planning their wedding due to the increasing pull of equal rights for women in work and their work hours.

Working full time is leaving women (and men) with little time to plan their weddings compared to what they used to have when most women were housewives or only part – time workers. I also believe this business will be popular due to the continuous increase in disposable income. I have found 60 businesses on www. yell. com that claim to be wedding planning services, however 60 over such a large country is not many, therefore I decided to make my business a wedding planning service.

I also found that of the 60 wedding planning services, less than half of the businesses were based on just wedding planning, most also planned functions like birthday parties and other such gatherings. Therefore, my business is servicing a niche market as there are only 3 other similar businesses in Chorley and they do not specify in weddings, just general planning. I wanted my business to be seen as a classy, elegant and professional service, therefore this must be reflected in the name of the business. I thought of a few ideas and decided to ask people what they thought of them.

Wedding Planning is a new, up and coming market which plans and organises a wedding for a couple. This is done by the business sorting out where, when and how the wedding will take place. All details such as flowers, dresses, invitations, etc… will be sorted out by the company so that the couple do not have to worry about any part of the organisation, and can focus their attentions onto the big day itself without worrying that something will go wrong. These services will also be open to anyone who needs little help with weddings, e. g. just finding out where the best places are that make invitations, averaging costs, etc…

The wedding is completely of the choice of the customer, but any ideas I have will be given to the customer as a hope to improving their wedding so it is better for them. I hope to open some premises on the outskirts of the town centre of Chorley. I chose this area as I would not need a town centre situation as I hope that by advertising I will be able to attract my customers rather than having them walk past the premises and see what the business is.

That would be the kind of situation a clothes shop would need. However I have chosen a situation near to the town centre as then it should be easy to get to, as the area is quite well known, and the cost of premises near to the town centre will be less than similar premises in the town centre. The area I wish to run my business in is shown on a map of Chorley town centre and surrounding area on the next page. It is shown by a black circle. This area includes many shops and business including accountancy firms and clothes shops.

It includes the town centre and outskirts of the town centre. Shown below is a map marked with an “X” showing where “Garforth Consulting Ltd” is situated. The map shows us that this business is situated approximately 3-4 miles from the area in which I want to start my business. The second business similar to mine that is in the local area is “Cloud 9 Celebrations” and is shown on the map below by a purple circle. Neither of these businesses focus on just planning weddings, but as they are the only businesses that do this in the area, they are my primary competition.

I decided to work from offices rather than from home, as although premises will add to costs, I expect working from home would be more stressful, e. g. bringing work home, also I would need extra space for storage of files, and I would rather bring customers into an office environment, as it seems more professional than bringing them into my own home. Also, I do not wish to work from home if I hire staff, as I would rather keep my work and home life separate, so that my business stays as a business and professional.

I would be running this business myself, however I would need contacts for such things as dresses, flowers, etc… To do this I would gather a portfolio of local businesses and would ask each if I was to give their details to customers that I would get a fixed commission from each. Then I would make a final portfolio of those that agree which I will then use in my work. I plan to work with one or two employees. To find these partners I would advertise for them in specialist wedding magazines, or could even find the addresses of some planners with past experience.

I would then pay these employees to help me through the week and weekends to plan my weddings. I would be the person who the couples would meet with and discuss what they want from the wedding, then with my staff I would plan and research the wedding. On www. lancashireprofile. com I have found that Chorley has an above average percentage of residents age 25-44 than for all of the North West, which is good as this is the most common age bracket for couple getting married.

This information tells me that in the Chorley area, I can target a higher percentage of people than I would be able to in the whole of North West England. I expect I shall be targeting approximately 1/200 of the people in Chorley. The size of the population (taken again from www. lancashireprofile. com) is 100449 (this will have differed slightly in the past year), so my target market is approximately 502 people. I also estimate that there will be people from other areas who will want to use my service, so I believe this number will be slightly higher.