Should your wedding venue be submitting to wedding blogs? Why and how to get your real weddings and shoots featured.

Getting your wedding venue featured on major wedding blogs is a subject I’m passionate about and am constantly encouraging and supporting my private clients to make the most of. 

Today I’m handing over the reins on this topic to long-term industry colleague, Louise Beukes.

Louise lives and breathes blog submissions and knows exactly how to help you get your wedding venue featured on major wedding blogs.

Louise has also supported my training programmes for many years. Providing the “inside view” on relationships with bloggers and how venues can make the best of this opportunity to increase exposure with their ideal wedding clients. 

Over to you Louise: 

Getting found online by potential clients is something we all want more of. 

Wedding blogs reach thousands of engaged couples every month and offer the perfect opportunity to increase your online presence and reach thousands of brides & grooms who are sitting at home looking for their perfect wedding venue. 

As the founder of leading UK wedding blog B.LOVED, I have seen thousands of submissions from wedding supplier teams over the past decade.

But, what you might not know is that I have also built my own brand. I’ve supported other wedding business owners by creating content, submitting shoots and securing features in leading bridal publications in the UK and around the world.

Publications including Style Me Pretty, Brides, Rock My Wedding and Love My Dress to name a few.

WHY SUBMIT TO WEDDING BLOGS?

Wedding blogs provide constant content, advice, inspiration and ideas to thousands of couples through their multiple online platforms. These include social media, Pinterest and mailing lists.

When you get featured on a wedding blog you don’t just get exposure, you also benefit from:

• Backlinks that help towards your SEO
• Searchable content as your feature will remain live online forever
• Tags & mentions to social media audiences in the 10’s and even 100’s of thousands
• Searchable content on Pinterest, where up to 90% of couples begin their wedding planning journey and bloggers regularly reach over 1 million views per month
• The opportunity to share posts featuring your venue directly to the inboxes of thousands of readers

6 STEPS TO SUBMISSIONS SUCCESS

Go through your archives

If you already have an archive of past weddings & events, great! If not, now is the time to start reaching out to the photographers, planners and couples who you have worked with in the past to request images of their day.

When selecting content, choose events that show off your venue in the best possible light, and in the way that you want to be seen.

If you want to host more extravagant luxury weddings choose those to submit. However, if you’re keen to book more intimate, laid-back celebrations, select the ones that most closely match that style.

Research publications

Choosing which blogs to get featured on can be a little overwhelming.

I have 3 simple tips to help you chose the publications that would work best for you:

• Which blogs do you connect with on a personal level? Do you share the same values and sense of style? 
• Which blogs feature content most similar to the weddings & events you host?
• Which blogs have a similar audience profile to your own?

You can research all of this simply by following the blog and their social media, or for more in depth profiles on their readers request a media kit.

I recommend having a list of at least 3 preferred publications you would like to submit to.

Ask permission

Always seek permission from the couple and photographer. It may be the couples wedding, but the photographer holds the rights to the images so you will need permission before submitting to avoid an embarrassing, and potentially costly, situation later down the line.

At the same time, ask if they have already submitted the event as most blogs will only accept exclusive content that has not already been featured online.

Find the submissions guidelines

All blogs will have some kind of submission guidelines readily available on their website to help you with your submission.

Within their guidelines, they will tell you what information they require about the event and suppliers. This may include any couples questionnaires that need to be completed. The number of images, the sizes of the images and, most importantly, how they prefer to receive your submission.

(Adhering to submission guidelines will help get your wedding venue featured on wedding blogs).

Sending your submission

Once you have prepared your submission in line with the guidelines – you are ready to submit.

Most blogs have a strict exclusivity policy, so please, ONLY SUBMIT TO ONE BLOG AT A TIME!

It usually takes a week or two to find out if your submission has been accepted. So you’ll need to be a little bit patient.

If your submission is declined, you can then resubmit elsewhere.

But, if your submission is accepted… congratulations! Your feature will usually take between 2-6 weeks to go live.

After publication

Unfortunately, getting your venue featured on wedding blogs isn’t always a guaranteed way of securing more bookings. However, there are a few things you can do to ensure you get the best possible ROI from your submission.

A recent experiment we did on B.LOVED showed that social media and Pinterest shares from just 50% of the suppliers involved in a real wedding or styled shoot feature could increase traffic to the blog post by at least 30%.

That’s a whole load more couples looking at your venue as a potential location for their wedding. And couldn’t we all do with a little more of that?

Thanks Louise! 

Louise is a guest contributor to my private monthly membership programme for wedding venues where you’ll find more in-depth trainings on this topic and many many more. 

If you’d like to join an intimate group of dedicated wedding venues in my inner circle, all committed to growth and success, you can find details of Wedding Venues Rebuilding HERE: 

Louise Beukes is the founder of award-winning UK wedding blog B.LOVED and visual branding expert for businesses related to the wedding industry.

With a background in interior design and a decade of experience running multiple successful businesses in the wedding space.

Louise brings industry expertise and an eye for design to her creative consultancy clients at Louise Beukes Creative and beautifully curated brand visuals at The Brand Studio.

Image credits: The Brand Studio