I would like to start my Wedding Coordinating and Catering Company?

Forget the sweet potato pies. Get going on the Wedding Coordinating business. Be a Wedding Planner for a friend and detail everything you do and how much time and effort it takes. That way you will know how much to charge when you get hired. Look on the internet and find out about theme weddings. Find out exactly what a Wedding Planner is supposed to do and what you can expect to be paid per hour. Then when you have one happy bride, get wedding pictures of the couple, their comments and ask her if she has any friends that need a wedding planner. This time you would be paid. Start small so you can learn as you go. If you screw something up, you will have no business and you will have ruined the special day for a bridal couple. Remember that. As far as catering, I would forget that unless you want to do cakes and cookies for Bridal Showers. You will be working with hotels and wedding halls and they DO NOT allow outside catering to be brought in. Be professional and get to work on this. You can make a living doing what you love.

Quick tip: If you have no employees, and structure your business and name correctly, you are already in business!! If you have employees, and anything other than sole-proprietor, no you do not even need a tax ID (like an SSN for a business). If you choose to NOT be sole-proprietor (LLP, LLC, corp,...), that business needs an identity (tax ID). If you name your business something other than your name and line of business, you need a DBA (doing-business-as) to connect you to the business. Example: "Joan Smith Baked Goods" or similar needs no DBA registration. Tax ID's are assigned by your state's Dept of Revenue. DBA's are registered at your state's Dept of State I hope this is a help for you! BTW- Your days of 1040EZ's are over, so keep accurate financial records. Think about a bookkeeper to set you up correctly. For marketing/promotion, think about the site I've created. It gives you an easy URL and the ability to quickly, and easily create a FREE web site! -Matt

If you've never been in business before, I would strongly recommend that you talk to a business counselor before you do anything especially spend money. I'd call the local office of SCORE (go to http://www.score.org and input your zip code to find the chapter nearest you), the advice is FREE. The counselor at SCORE will most likely advise you to write a business plan which is very good advice because it will force you to dig out all of the start up details and the costs of starting a wedding coordinating and catering company and force you to also understand all of the aspects of this business including the customers you'll concentrate on (your market ) and how you'll go after them. Try this link : http://www.ychange.com/small-business-consulting-articles.html and read some of the articles especially the ones about a business plan and starting a business.

Wow, that's great Rori!!!!!!