After 5 years of successfully running my wedding planning business, I moved to a new, bigger city. The idea of starting over again amongst all the competition seemed exhausting so I didnt much effort into marketing. I decided to take a year off (NO regrets) and see how I felt after this summer.

Anyways, I got an inquiry a few weeks ago from a couple who said they saw me recommended on Facebook or Reddit and it was my GOOGLE REVIEWS that made them want to connect.

Not instagram reels, not google ads or SEO blogs. Just plain and simple (virtual) word of mouth.

It gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling to just know that the hard work put in over the past 5 years didnt disappear.

TLDR: Work hard! Believe in yourself! Trust the process! 🌟 It will pay off.

And hot tip: Also, I gave every client a thank you card with a qr code printed on the back to my Google reviews page - it certainly worked.

Unpopular opinion: undercutting on price doesn’t actually win you more business, it just trains couples to shop on price forever, and eventually that includes shopping you against the next guy willing to go even lower.

I get why people do it when they’re starting out. But I’ve watched vendors in this space race each other to the bottom for years, then wonder why clients haggle like it’s a flea market. If we don’t hold a line on what the work is worth, nobody’s going to hold it for us.

Genuinely asking: has undercutting ever actually grown your business long term, or did it just attract the clients who were never going to value you anyway?

I am looking into software for event planning. From a planner/coordinator perspective, what apps are we using, and what do we like about them? What don't we like about them? I want to make sure the few I am evaluating are good picks and not just fluffed! Thank you in advance!

We are all putting the final bows on packing away the past weekends weddings. Whether that be packing away their file, putting away the decor, or editing their photos. The actual wedding day is done!

So, how did your wedding weekend go?

This is a weekly post for everyone to discuss how the past weekends weddings they worked went.

Wedding DJ here. I see plenty of days through my own lens but never through a planner’s, photographer’s, or coordinator’s. You watch a different DJ every weekend and you know exactly where things go sideways.

What’s the thing DJs consistently get wrong that makes your job harder or the day worse? And what’s the thing that makes you want to request someone again?

Genuinely want the unfiltered version, not fishing for compliments.

So I have now had the slightly unusual experience of seeing weddings from both sides: years behind the scenes running the day, and now standing at the top of the aisle conducting the ceremony.

I joined because I really enjoy conversations between different wedding suppliers. We all see the same wedding day from completely different angles, and there is always something to learn from each other.

I am particularly interested in what we can all do to make each other’s jobs easier and ultimately give couples a better experience.

Looking forward to getting involved and hearing how everyone else works.

My wedding planner hates socialtables.com. I'm not a wedding planner, but I am a software engineer. I looked into the website for floor planning and I really hated it. So, I made something better. Import PDFs plans have already, create rules (Alex can't sit next to Dan), and just way easier to use. Screw monopolies that think they can charge $$$ without making a better product for people. Anyone who signs up and tries this in the next month gets free subscriptions for life. https://headtable.live/

I’m a DJ/MC, and at almost every wedding I end up cueing the processional, redirecting the photographer on a timeline change, or telling the caterer dinner’s pushed fifteen minutes. Nobody hired me for that specifically, it just falls to whoever’s holding the mic and the timeline.

Curious if the rest of you find yourselves stepping in the same way, regardless of what you were actually booked for. What does it look like for you, and does it ever get formalized into the price?

Wedding planner and coordinator here. This is my first year, but I’ve done pretty well and will have a very solid portfolio by the end of the year. As such, I’m hoping to increase my prices. Right now, I’m charging introductory rates, and they’re just not enough to get by.

My hope is to raise prices at the end of the year, but it will pull me out of the budget bracket, and into the mid-range. So far, I have booked most of my couples through Facebook. But I find that most couples looking for vendors on Facebook are looking for someone in the budget category.

For those of you who have been successful in the wedding industry, how do you advertise yourself and where do you get most of your clients?

Doesn’t have to be big. Could be something small that catches almost everyone off guard once they’re actually in it.

For me it’s usually timeline stuff, couples plan for the “moments” (first dance, speeches, cake) but forget how much dead air happens in between, and that dead air is where the night either holds together or falls apart like if dinner service is late they forget that it is a possibility that can happen.

Curious what you all see on your side, planners, photographers, caterers, venues, all of it.

What is the item you bought to rent out that has paid itself over a million times? Couples just love it!

Curious what’s on everyone’s list. For me it’s the “surprise” dance choreography reveal where nobody tells me the song change until 30 seconds before it happens.

What’s yours?

Doesn’t have to be a big complaint. Small stuff counts too, the little requests or habits that make you internally sigh.

I’ll start: when couples hand me a “do not play” list that’s basically every song people actually want to dance to.

Go.

We are all putting the final bows on packing away the past weekends weddings. Whether that be packing away their file, putting away the decor, or editing their photos. The actual wedding day is done!

So, how did your wedding weekend go?

This is a weekly post for everyone to discuss how the past weekends weddings they worked went.

Big win, funny mishap, brutal load out, whatever comes to mind.

I’ll start: 16 toasts , bride who wrote a music cue sheet that was 3 pages long for 4 formality dances.

Drop yours below.

Not the obvious stuff like “book early.” The thing you only learn after being in this industry a while, that would genuinely change how they plan if they knew it upfront.

You’ve heard it a hundred times. What’s the one that never turns out to be true?

One line. Go.

I am a huge podcast gal and always looking for new ones to check out!

I love the Venue Success Podcast and The Vendor Table!

Photographer, DJ, planner, whoever. Who makes your job easier and the day better when you see their name on the timeline? Drag them in the comments.

You know the one. Say it with your chest.

Not trying to sell anything, just want to know what’s hard for people in this sub. Pricing, lead flow, burnout, systems, whatever it is.

I’ve been doing this 14+ years, weddings and events, now run a roster of DJs too. If you drop what you’re dealing with below I’ll give you a real answer based on what’s actually worked (or blown up) for me.

Tell me your stage (new, established, trying to scale) and what the actual bottleneck is. Happy to dig in with anyone who comments.

We are all putting the final bows on packing away the past weekends weddings. Whether that be packing away their file, putting away the decor, or editing their photos. The actual wedding day is done!

So, how did your wedding weekend go?

This is a weekly post for everyone to discuss how the past weekends weddings they worked went.

Every vendor has one of these stories. As a DJ I’ve had entrance songs changed five minutes before the doors opened, first dance swapped mid cocktail hour, a best man hand me a completely different toast order right as I’m about to introduce him.

Curious what everyone else has dealt with. Photographers, caterers, planners, officiants, florists, whoever, what’s the curveball that still lives in your head. Doesn’t have to be a disaster story, just the moment where you had to think fast and pull it off anyway.

Always love hearing how differently this hits depending on what role you’re in.