I charge $2,000 per wedding as a hired bridesmaid. It doesn't require much experience — just these 5 skills.

• I've been to more than 100 weddings during my career as a professional bridesmaid.
• Weddings can include a lot of stress, drama, and conflicting personalities.

When I started the company Bridesmaid for Hire more than seven years ago, I didn't really know what I was doing. I knew that I'd been a bridesmaid for my own friends almost a dozen times, and I felt that made me qualified to do it for strangers.

I quickly learned I was wrong.

People hire bridesmaids for all sorts of reasons, and these days, I charge at least $2,000 per wedding. Some brides don't have close friends, and others have friends but need a little extra help with the organizational side of the wedding. Sometimes the brides keep it a secret that I'm hired, and other times they don't.

After working a handful of weddings as a bridesmaid for paid clients, I started to see that just being "always the bridesmaid" for my friends didn't set me up for success in this role.

Instead, I needed to tap into other skills and personality traits I'd picked up over the years from past jobs — working at a tech startup, in public relations, and as a sorority consultant — and from my personal life to be able to handle the drama, stress, and hecticness of being a professional bridesmaid.

If you ever wondered whether you could be a bridesmaid for hire, it turns out you don't need a ton of bridesmaid experience. But you do need these five qualities to do the job well.

1. You can handle all different kinds of personalities

When you're working as a hired bridesmaid, you're not just working for the bride. You're there to help everybody else at the wedding too.

I interact closely with the other members of the bridal party, the person the bride is marrying, and all of the family members too. This means I'm exposed to many different personalities — from people who are aggressive to people who are passive aggressive, and everything in between.

One of the top qualities of a professional bridesmaid is not only the ability to get along with all different kinds of people but to understand their personalities, relate to them, and find out how to motivate them to do what you need them to do (like quit taking shots at the open bar or stop complaining to the bride).

Sometimes these are requests the bride asked you to keep an eye out for, and sometimes you know if you don't stop a person from doing this, the whole celebration will be ruined.

2. You're a problem solver

Weddings often look perfect and magical, but behind the scenes, mini disasters are taking place. Most of those problems fall in the hands of the hired bridesmaid.

If the bride is having a panic attack, the groom is missing, the mother of the bride lost her dress, or a wedding crasher appears during the reception, it's up to me to have quick and creative solutions to fix whatever is going wrong.

Not only do you need to have the ability to think on your toes, but it helps to be a person who thrives in chaos and who isn't surprised by anything.

3. You're able to run around in heels

One of the best investments I've made over the years are heels that are comfortable to run around in. While the job might seem glamorous, it doesn't just involve a lot of mingling and dancing. It involves being on-call and ready for anything.

I've had to run a mile in heels to pick up rings that were left behind at the hotel, and I've had to run circles around a golf course trying to find missing groomsmen who snuck away to get drunk.

At the average wedding, I walk about 5 miles in heels. Being able to do that and stay blister free is the ultimate skill.

4. You can be the life of the party

One big rule I have in place for myself and any hired bridesmaids who work for me is that they must stay sober during the celebration. But even though they can't party with the other bridesmaids, they have to still be the life of the party when needed.

Sometimes clients will hire us because they think their friends can be a bit boring and they want to make sure their bachelorette party and reception are fun. I've been hired to help get people to the dance floor during the wedding, as well as to take clients out for a night on the town and make sure they have fun on their "one last fling before the ring."

While many people can have a good time after a few shots, being able to light up a room with energy sober is a quality that shines in this job.

5. You understand how weddings work

I've hired people over the years who haven't been bridesmaids before. But one qualification that does matter is that you've been to a wedding in the last three years.

That's because having a general knowledge of how weddings work, the intricacies involved, and even the general structure of the day will make you more of an expert in this job.

I've been to more than 125 weddings in my career, and while they're always a little different, knowing what to expect has helped me become a better problem solver over the years.

To be a professional bridesmaid, you don't have to love weddings. But to do this job well, you do have to love people. That's what matters the most.

Do you have a unique job to discuss? Email Alanis King at aking@insider.com.