What makes the most money in the wedding industry?

Venues and catering take the largest share of a couple's budget, but share of budget is not the same as margin. The most profitable wedding businesses are usually the ones that price on outcome rather than hours, hold a strong referral position with two or three venues, and say no to enquiries that were never going to book. Margin comes from what you decline as much as from what you charge.

How do you get more wedding bookings?

Qualify earlier so your best hours go to couples who can actually book, ask every recent client which venue or vendor referred them and invest in that relationship, and build an owned audience such as an email list so a single algorithm change cannot take your inbound to zero. Most wedding businesses do not have an enquiry problem. They have a conversion and attribution problem.

How do you get started in the wedding industry?

Pick one category and one market, work under someone established before you take your own clients, and price from the beginning as though you intend to still be trading in five years. The businesses that fail are rarely the least talented. They are the ones that under-price early, take every enquiry, and never learn where their bookings actually come from.

Wedded Pro is a $300 annual subscription for wedding and event businesses: business education, real industry insight, practical growth tools, online events and a library of ebooks, guides and white papers. It is built for planners, photographers and videographers, stylists, florists and décor teams, catering, entertainment and beauty, and for tourism boards, hotels and destination partners. It is not a CRM or booking software.

Which three numbers should a wedding business track?

Average booking value this year against last, enquiry-to-booking rate as a percentage of enquiries that become paid work, and lead time, meaning how far in advance couples are booking your category in your market. These change by category and by country, so a photographer in Sydney and a florist in Dubai should not plan against each other's numbers.