8 Reasons You’re Not Booking Clients For Your Wedding Business
I want to start off by saying, please take my blunt, honest, and cheeky writing style with a grain of salt. I don’t mean to hurt any feelings, or want to overwhelm anyone.
We’ve all got to start somewhere. My goal is to help wedding pros grow.
Whether its for my wedding planning clients, business coaching purposes, or general market research —AKA scrolling Instagram— I’m visiting the websites and social feeds for dozens of wedding pros on a daily basis.
Let me tell you, there are a ton of red flags popping up that have me shaking my head. These issues scream “newbie” or unprofessional, and they’re big barriers for booking more wedding clients.
I had started a list here, and then I thought I better ask some brides and wedding pros to chime in. So, I popped the post on the left up on my Instagram stories, and boy did the responses start rolling in!
Whether you’re just starting out, or you’ve been in business a while now, there are several reasons you might be scaring off potential wedding clients. These red flags are sending couples away from your website or Instagram feed, fast.
Or they’re causing them to rule you out during their inquiry process. Are you getting ghosted? Perhaps some of the points below are to blame.
If you’re not getting as many inquiries as you would like, or your closing rate is disappointingly low —or below industry average— then it’s time to listen up and take action.
Some of these are quick and easy fixes, while others might require a little more effort, or investment. But it’s all worth your time and attention if you want to book more of your Ideal Clients. Or maybe you’re anxious to make the leap to full time, or validate that next price increase.
Don’t forget, as a wedding pro, you have to impress your peers and colleagues as much as the potential clients inquiring for their wedding day. If you’re making any of the mistakes below, chances are you’re missing out on some important business-to-business referrals and networking opportunities.
Are you having trouble getting wedding pros to participate in your next style shoot? Maybe some of these issues are to blame.
From my perspective as a wedding planner, when I’m sourcing venues and vendors for my brides, I’m definitely not going to refer businesses with some of these red flags.
Here are 8 red flags that are sending couples and wedding pros away from your business:
UNBRANDED EMAILS & DOMAINS
This is one of the biggest signs to me, as well as those who responded to my question on Instagram, that a business is new, inexperienced, or unprofessional. In fact, it was the most popular response.
If your business email address is ____@gmail.com, or Hotmail, Outlook, etc., it’s time to upgrade right away. Likewise, if your website address includes the domain host in it. I’m looking at you Wix-ers.
Cold hard truth time:
Potential clients will not take you seriously without a custom email address.
It’s a dead giveaway that your business is new and a serious barrier to you increasing your prices as well. In particular, clients with mid-level and higher budgets, are going to see this as a huge red flag, and look elsewhere.
Move this to the top of your priority list as far as business expenses are concerned. For less than $8 a month, you can get a custom branded email address through Google Workspace. This service is sometimes available through your domain host as well, and sometimes one or more email addresses are included with your domain name package.
Totally worth the expense.
Don’t be embarrassed. Just fix it. Fast.
NO WEBSITE, OR FACEBOOK AS YOUR WEBSITE
If you don’t have a basic website up, a “coming soon” placeholder that’s been there for ages, or no website at all, this is another glaring warning sign to potential wedding clients and wedding pros that you’re new or inexperienced.
Likewise, if you’re directing people to Facebook as your website, you’re losing business. Plain and simple.
Actually, I’d bet a lot of your Ideal Clients don’t have a Facebook account, or they’re not spending much time there.
Don’t be intimidated.
You don’t need an expensive custom site from a web designer to land clients.
Start simple and small. My fave option for DIY websites is Squarespace, and I’ve used them for my own businesses for years now. You can even buy your domain name (AKA your .com) and email through them.
Templates are an easy and much less expensive option to create a gorgeous, simple website for your wedding business. Check out Station Seven, or GoLive for starters.
Showit is another option for beautiful custom sites, with templates available. At first glance, the platform seemed overwhelming to me. And that’s saying something, because I’ve been building my own sites and dabbled in simple HTML coding since I was a geek —I mean homebody— back in high school.
Like I said, keep it simple and clean, and you can improve bit by bit. Do what you can afford now, and start saving up to upgrade your template or invest in a web designer later on.
OUTDATED OR LOW QUALITY DOCUMENTS
I heard from one bride who said a venue sent a guide that was clearly from 2010! This isn’t shocking to me at all. Just last year, I received a document from a venue that was such poor quality, my jaw dropped. It looked as if it was a scanned colour printing from 2001. The quality was poor and the images were very outdated.
Don’t rely on old materials and an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude. Imagine all the business you could be booking, with better clients, if you improved your sales documents and pricing guides? Or even just remembered to change the file title each year.
To begin with, if you’re sending files that are editable Word docs, stop that right away and learn how to save as a PDF. It takes 2 seconds, I swear.
Second, please go read all about my not-so secret weapon for graphic design. Or my fave apps for proposals and contracts.
Creating beautiful, on brand graphics and PDFs is actually much easier than you think. Not to mention, it can be done quickly and inexpensively, with out the help of a graphic designer.
OBVIOUS SPELLING & GRAMMAR ERRORS
My husband always mentions when he receives résumés or cover letters with typos and errors. He hates putting those résumés to the bottom of the pile. Especially if their work history was checking all the right boxes. It’s the same for wedding pros and clients searching for vendors; if they can spot spelling errors or typos in your site, emails, or your social profile, they’re going to question your ability.
Think of it just like you’re applying for a job. You want to be putting your best foot forward. And errors scream that you’re lacking attention to detail and this could cause problems.
Take your time. Review your work and use spell check or Grammarly.
When in doubt, have a friend or family member you trust to catch mistakes review your work.
Yes, just like asking your mom to check your homework back in the day.
I know how hard we labour over our web copy, emails, or even trying to fit the perfect bio in to 150 characters on Instagram. You’ve obsessed over those words, and now your eyes are crossed. You can recite it in your sleep. Errors will stop standing out to you.
One other trick for proofreading is to read your work backwards.
INSPIRATION IMAGES
An issue that came up several times from other wedding pros was using images that are not your own. Whether it’s stock photography or reposting “inspiration” images frequently in your social feed or blog. I touched on this practice previously in my post on common Instagram mistakes.
Reposting beautiful images from other wedding pros might help you build a beautiful feed, or fill your site, but it’s one of the quickest ways that other wedding pros identify a new business, and loses you a referral. Pros will absolutely look for the sources and credits, and will see “regramming” as a red flag that your business has no portfolio to share.
No matter how transparent you’re trying to be, potential wedding clients might not recognize this practice right away. Truthfully, they’re looking at your images and paying a lot less attention to the captions.
You're doing yourself a disservice.
Your pretty Instagram feed might lead them to your site, but they’ll find there is no portfolio to match. Or, the small portfolio available doesn’t reflect what they saw on Instagram and they end up feeling misled and deceived, and they bounce.
STYLED & EDITORIAL IMAGES ONLY
Brides and wedding pros alike will notice if you have mostly styled shoot images to share and no real weddings. Playing devil’s advocate, even if you have an incredible eye for design, those beautiful editorial images might also be intimidating the clients that are ready to work with you and your new business right now.
So, share your real work as soon you can. You can always switch it out as your work gets better.
If you’re struggling to come up with new images that are your own to share, decrease the frequency that you post and provide helpful tips and content instead. This will show that you know what you’re talking about.
BIO PHOTOS
Along the lines of photos, I wanted to add that professional photos of yourself are important. Quite simply because people want to know who they’re buying from, and have a face of the business to trust.
A feed full of selfies will stand out immediately as unprofessional, unless it’s a part of a really well curated feed. But you’re not running an influencer campaign, are you?
Likewise, if you’ve picked a smartphone pic from when you were recently looking your best, or cropped out your boyfriend or best friend, you’re not fooling anyone.
The sooner you you can get a professional photo of yourself on your website and Instagram feed, the better.
If it’s not in your budget to plan a big branding shoot, then consider Mini Sessions. Or even figure out an opportunity to trade services with a photographer who is also up and coming. This is a network building opportunity as well, so worth the investment of your time or money.
BRANDING
I know that custom branding from a graphic designer isn’t in everyone’s reach at the beginning stages of your wedding business. I’ve been there too guys. It ispossible to build your wedding business with DIY branding, just make sure you’re doing the best you can with what you have. Canva is a great option if the DIY route is the best fit for your budget right now.
“Tacky” and “terrible branding” was a popular response from brides as far as why they ruled out certain wedding vendors.
Make sure that your logo files are high quality, and that your “look” connects with your Ideal Client. Branding is so much more than your favourite colours and a pretty font.
And like I said before, start saving now to invest for the next step. Whether it’s a premade logo from a designer who totally gets you and your Ideal Client and the wedding industry, or a completely custom branding suite from a graphic designer.
It’s likely that the evolution of your branding is going to be linked with your experience and each boost in your pricing.
Quite simply, you might not even be offering your packages in a way that makes the most sense for your potential clients. Wedding planners in particular will want to read this post about coordination and set up packages.