Hosting extra events to boost your wedding revenue

Luxury weddings, often with a very international client base, have long been thinking of wedding weekends. But it’s becoming much more of a trend for mainstream weddings to extend beyond the day itself, particularly as more and more guests are travelling greater distances to be at wedding celebrations. Also because younger couples are tending to favour spending more time with their nearest and dearest in less formal settings over the quick ‘wow’.

So what does this mean for you as a venue in terms of business opportunity?

There’s a plethora of pre and post wedding day activities that couples either want to see or need to be inspired by and I see very few venues proactivity making the most in their marketing activity and offerings of such events.

So what sort of events should you be looking at:

• Ladies “day before wedding” pamper party
• Men’s pre wedding day sporting activities – golf, clay pigeon, archery

• Rehearsal dinner – this doesn’t usually include a ceremony rehearsal but an informal dinner with anything from 10-50 guests for a typical wedding. It’s usually much more simple than the main event but often includes a sit down meal and wine to welcome everyone to the main day.

• Post wedding brunch – often almost as big in guest size as the wedding itself. The next day brunch (and we generally mean brunch and not breakfast) is usually really popular with a lot of guests as it’s a perfect chance to catch up over stories of the night before, see the couple in a much more relaxed setting and enjoy a very tasty hangover cure of a good English brunch. The popularity of brunch has really taken off in restaurants and cafes, particularly in our cities, so it’s natural that it’s more expected at our weddings.

Where can you promote these events?

Make a “thing” of them in your wedding materials from the outset – tell people on your website when you tell the story of a wedding at your venue, that you can host rehearsal dinners and post wedding brunches if they’re wanting to make a weekend of it.  Feature it on your social media.

Have your wedding team ask your couples much more than what the couple will be doing between 3pm and midnight. Ask more delving questions as to how the whole event knits together. Whilst your focus as a venue may be on the higher spending wedding day itself, a couple will need to find a location that ticks all their boxes and your showing interest in helping them put the whole thing together, will go a long way and in many cases reap further revenue opportunities for you being able to help with pre and post events. Whilst you may think clients will ask if they need things, remember, you’re dealing with an inexperienced audience who don’t necessarily think like that and don’t know what you can and can’t do – so you need to spell it out.  The modern wedding couple do so much research before they even get in touch with you. You need to show them much sooner in the process all the things you can offer – on your social media and on your website to engage them and interest them early on. That yummy image of the eggs benedict might just swing it for you!

Do you feel a little lacking in knowledge of modern wedding trends?

My evening BITE SIZED WORKSHOP that takes place on 20TH SEPTEMBER covering key wedding trends relevant to wedding venues, could be just the thing to boost your knowledge and give you ideas you can immediately implement to improve your wedding market relevance. The full information on location and how to book is here.

Image Credits: Colin Cowie Weddings // The Knot // Lion in the Sun // Style Me Pretty // Inspired By This // She Said Yes // Brides / Bright Bird Photography // Green Wedding Shoes // Design Love Fest // The Pretty Blog // Rock My Wedding // You & Your Wedding // Golf Magic