Complaint Review: Wedding Careers Institute Inc. Or WCII Or Wedding Careers Worldwide Association LLC. - Houston Texas

We are a small wedding training program that operated in the Houston area, offering individualized training for wedding consultants. We are not a large school, and do not represent ourselves as such. We have offered one of the most respected programs in the industry. Since this is a vocational (not for credit) course, there was initially some discrepancy with the state as to which program license we should even apply for, or if we would be exempt. We later received clarification, and submitted our application for licensing. Ms. Wendy Stuart, along with Ms. Thayer, and several other ladies who took the training program this year raved over the quality of the program at the completion of the seminar. After each training program, the students send us emails, cards and letters praising the quality of the program, the knowledge and expertise with which I taught the program, and the quality of the training materials. It has been extremely well received nationwide. At the end of Wendy's class, this entire group of students collectively signed a thank-you card and presented a huge bouquet of flowers to me. This is extremely common behavior after each of our programs, and has been the response until now, when this group recently announced that our license had not been approved yet. So what was the problem? In 1998, We were the ONLY program that contacted the state of TX regarding licensing. ALL of the other training programs have operated in TX or taught in TX (from out of state)without any licensing whatsoever, and they continue to do business despite this requirement. That fact has been brought to other training programs and associations' attention, but they ignored it, and they continue to teach. We, unfortunately, thought that we could too, under those same circumstances. We WANT to be licensed. We have diligently tried to comply with the licensure requirements, and have submitted applictions 3 different times, in the hopes that each time it would be accepted without the need for waivers. Because this program is not the 'standard training' they're accustomed to, it was a learning process for everyone, including those approving our license. We taught a virtual classroom online, had distance learning, and 3-day seminars. The state has reviewed it, sent us their feedback and reports, and we once again were working on the addendums or corrections to their licensing. Because we offered 3 different programs, we had to modify each application to the criteria after each review. Some of the state's requirements were written in the early '70's, and made it very difficult to adapt to 2004 advances in technology, which were a part of our program. While it is required to have a license to 'teach' any program to the public, there are NO requirements to becoming a wedding consultant. There is no licensing, no national standards, and no certifying board for the wedding industry. The fact that we're not licensed will not impact any of our students from operating a highly successful consulting firm anywhere in the country. Any agency or association may certify their members, and they do, every day. The only violation is that they cannot legally offer training to the 'public' without a license to operate a school. We are not operating the training program now, but are continuing to find a way to comply with the requirements of the state. Until we meet those requirements, we will not solicit the training to anyone. My question to you is this... If you take a non-credit course, state that the program content was exceptional, believe the instructor was exceptional, say that the training materials were exceptional, AND confirm that you will benefit greatly in your new wedding consulting business, HOW can it be that anyone was ripped off? The value of the WCII program is solid, license or not. Hundreds of people worldwide have benefitted from this program, and many of them operate highly successful, highly publicized consulting firms because of this training. Since this problem became public, I have received numerous emails and phone calls of support from students stating that-- regardless of the licensing situation, they got more than their money's worth from the training. We have offered to meet in person with this group, and they have declined. I have spoken with Ms. Thayer (from that class) as recently as May 26th. It appears they do not want to seek any remedy other than to maliciously destroy our company by demanding refunds in full. Our offer to meet with them is still open. Our goal is to find a way to meet all of the state's requirements, provide them with the missing items, and contact each student to notify them once we're approved. Wendy's 'name calling' in her letter should give you all an indication of how difficult it will be to make remediation with her, but we will make every effort to do so if she wants to meet one-on-one to seek a mutual solution. Sincerely, Wedding Careers Institute