Wedding pros need to be prepared for the wedding boom of 2022. Couples canceled or postponed weddings in droves during 2020, but now they are almost back up to pre-pandemic numbers. As a result, industry experts are anticipating 2022 will see the biggest wedding boom since 1984, and as wedding pros, you want to prepare for how you’ll navigate the wedding boom of 2022.
THE WEDDING BOOM OF 2022
The industry research firm Wedding Report projects 1.9 million weddings that will take place this year and estimate a record-setting 2.5 million weddings in 2022. According to a report by Fast Company, that far surpasses anything in recent history. (For context, there haven’t been this many weddings since 1984.)
For anyone keeping totals, that means —
- 1.9 million weddings in 2021
- 2.5 million weddings in 2022
- 2.2 million estimated weddings in 2023
The Good News For Wedding Vendors
Let’s acknowledge the reality of the situation first. While weddings have been up this year, many of those are rescheduled and not new income opportunities. That means wedding vendors are often recouping, not necessarily growing even though the numbers are larger than before.
The good news is that spontaneous proposals are up 41% as of December 2020, according to The Knot, which means people are ready to get married. Additionally, they are also ready to spend more money than before. Not by a lot, but it’s enough to be encouraged by.
On average, wedding budgets are up $3,000 to $22K, and the average should increase to $25K in the next two years.
HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE WEDDING BOOM
What does this wedding boom mean for wedding vendors?
In short, it means that there are a lot of opportunities, but it will be more important than ever to get organized and know what your goals are. With that in mind, let’s dive into the ways wedding vendors/pros can prepare for the wedding boom.
Let’s dive into the ways you can prepare for success ahead of time!
1. Review all your processes and procedures.
It’s more important than ever to get your administrative and creative processes organized. Of course, this will look different for each vendor, but the goal is to review every process and procedure, from how you attract clients to contracts or agreements that get signed and even how you coordinate with other vendors.
Start by reviewing these three areas —
- Administrative Processes (Onboarding, contracts, communication, accounting, follow-up, etc.)
- Creative Processes (From gathering inspiration, filing away ideas, doing the actual creative work.)
- Promotional Proceses (Marketing, social media, sales, etc.)
Find out what is working, what is producing results, and what areas are not producing. Are there any policies that need to be updated or changed living in a post-COVID wedding planning world? This will likely be around and potentially causing some new habits and trends to be born. Make sure that your contracts, website, and general practices are up-to-date.
Understanding the time and value of each major task allows you to have some context for the next time you get multiple people wanting to book simultaneously. Then, instead of overbooking or underbooking, you’ll be well aware of what tasks you can handle. (This won’t go to plan at first, but it will be so much better and will get more efficient each time. Trust us; it’s worth doing now.)
As any coach or general will tell you, people rise to the level of their preparation — not expectation.
2. Determine if anything can be offloaded, reduced, or removed altogether.
Once you’ve reviewed all your processes, determine what can be given to someone else, whether a team member or outsourced to a freelancer or contract worker.
With small businesses, it may not seem like it’s possible to get anything offloaded at the moment with the cost, etc., but it’s still good to do right now, so you will be prepared for when the time is right. This means you will know exactly what the next step is even in the thick of the wedding boom.
Even if you can’t pay someone to help at the moment, you can make like much easier with free to inexpensive options like getting a free proofreader with a Grammarly plug-in or similar.
3. Automate anything that can be automated.
Automation isn’t difficult to do, and it doesn’t have to be impersonal. On the contrary, automating processes allows you to touch base with potential customers immediately, making a genuine connection and a potential sale without closing the deal in person.
Great tasks to automate —
- Welcome Emails (Have questions? Brandlink Media can help you automate emails and get sales.)
- Inquiry Emails (Letting people know you’ll be getting back to them while giving them somewhere to go right then.)
- Sales Emails
- Facebook Responses (Here is a great tutorial.)
Those are just some basic sales automation, but there are also tasks taking up precious time — and they could be automated too!
- Computer backups or software updates.
- Canned responses in gmail (Here’s a helpful tutorial on that.)
- Social media posting. (There are too many cost-effective ways to schedule these to be doing them mannually even if you’re a one-person show. Try looking at services like Later.)
One last automation recommendation is to invest in CRM (or Customer Relationship Management) software. There are solutions for every budget, and they can help eliminate wasted time on tasks that can be done easily with some easy-tech. (If you aren’t sure about CRM software or need an update, the team at Brandlink Media can help make recommendations based on your needs and budget. Click here to request a free consultation.)
4. Look for new income opportunities — and keep looking.
Once you’ve reviewed, offloaded, and automated everything, it’s important to keep your eyes open for new income opportunities. Yes, there have been many changes in the wedding industry since the spring of 2020, but the wedding boom we’re headed into is going to be rife with opportunities to capitalize on.
A change in the culture and traditional way of doing things is a great time to solve new problems and get rid of services that aren’t producing for you. It’s a time to look at everything with fresh eyes. Don’t worry about forcing things or trying to reinvent the wheel, just be ready and keep an open mind.
It may be as simple as noting a common problem your clients have and creating a service that is a natural outflow of what you do now, but maybe don’t charge for it yet.
The wedding industry is in for a big boom, and that means wedding pros could be in for a great boom in business too! So prepare for the wedding boom with help from these four tips, and you’ll reduce your stress all while increasing your opportunity for growth when it arrives!
Speaking of getting prepared for changes, did you hear about Instagram’s new announcement? Be sure to check out our news on What Instagram’s Announcement Means for Wedding Vendors.
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Written by Corrie McGee
