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Wedding Venue Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Wedding Venue Business Plan

You’ve come to the right place to create your wedding venue business plan.

We have helped over 10,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans and many have used them to start or grow their wedding venues.

Below is a template to help you create each section of your Wedding Venue business plan.

Executive Summary

Business overview.

LV Wedding Hall is a startup wedding venue located in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company is founded by Brittany Anderson, an event planner with over 15 years of experience planning and hosting special events, parties, and wedding receptions. Brittany has a bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management from the University of Nevada and has been recognized by various organizations for her top notch event management expertise. Now that Brittany has established herself as a leader in the event planning industry, she is ready to open her own wedding venue.  Brittany plans on recruiting a team of highly qualified professionals to help manage the day to day complexities of running a wedding hall including marketing, budgeting, event planning, and scheduling. 

LV Wedding Hall will be an all-inclusive wedding and special event venue, handling everything from the food and decorations to the entertainment and logistics. LV Wedding Hall will make any wedding or special event even more special by removing the headaches involved in planning and working with each client on every detail big and small to ensure their special day is perfect. LV Wedding Hall will be the ultimate choice in Las Vegas for wedding receptions for the company’s focus on extraordinary service and attention to detail.  

Product Offering

The following are the services that LV Wedding Hall will provide:

  • Wedding and event planning
  • Design consultation and coordination
  • Catering services 
  • Booking of live entertainment
  • Photography and videography services
  • Rentals (decor, linens, sound system, etc.)
  • Event hosting and cleanup services

Customer Focus

LV Wedding Hall will target local Las Vegas residents and tourists who are looking for a hassle-free, all-inclusive wedding hall for their wedding reception or other special events such as birthday parties, anniversary parties, and corporate events. No event is too large or too small for LV Wedding Hall. 

Management Team

LV Wedding Hall will be owned and operated by Brittany Anderson, an event planner with over 15 years of experience in planning and hosting special events such as parties, ceremonies, and wedding receptions. Brittany has a bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management from the University of Nevada and has been recognized by various organizations for her top notch event management expertise. Brittany is confident that her skills in communication, event management, and problem solving will help her successfully propel her new business forward to achieve a healthy profit. Brittany has recruited fellow University of Nevada graduate, Stephanie Smith to be the venue manager and run the day-to-day operations of the hall. 

Stephanie Smith has a bachelor’s degree in business and is an experienced venue coordinator.  Brittany relies strongly on Stephanie’s organizational skills and ability to supervise a large staff, coordinating people and logistics in a fast-paced environment. Stephanie has worked in the wedding venue industry for so long, she understands all aspects required in running a successful wedding hall. 

Success Factors

LV Wedding Hall will be able to achieve success by offering the following competitive advantages:

  • A friendly and knowledgeable staff available every step of the way to ensure all details big and small are handled with care. 
  • Comprehensive, all-inclusive services encompassing every aspect of the event from the food to the entertainment and more, making it easy for clients to have the entire event coordinated through just one company rather than having to go through several vendors. 
  • LV Wedding Hall offers the best pricing in town. With multiple packages and a la carte services to choose from, their pricing structure is the most cost effective compared to the competition.

Financial Highlights

LV Wedding Hall is seeking $500,000 in debt financing to launch its wedding venue business. The funding will be dedicated towards securing and renovating the hall and purchasing equipment. Funding will also be dedicated towards three months of overhead costs to include payroll of the staff, rent, and marketing costs for the print ads and initial online marketing campaign. The breakout of the funding is below:

  • Wedding hall build-out: $100,000
  • Equipment, supplies, and materials:  $50,000
  • Three months of overhead expenses (payroll, rent, utilities):  $200,000
  • Marketing costs: $30,000
  • Working capital:  $20,000

The following graph below outlines the pro forma financial projections for LV Wedding Hall.

wedding business plan

Company Overview

Who is lv wedding hall .

LV Wedding Hall is a new wedding and special event venue located in Las Vegas, Nevada. The company is founded by Brittany Anderson, an experienced event planner with expertise in planning and hosting special events, parties, and wedding receptions. 

LV Wedding Hall will be an all-inclusive wedding and special event venue, handling everything from the food and decorations to the entertainment and logistics. LV Wedding Hall will make any wedding or special event even more special by removing the headaches involved in planning and working with each client on every detail big and small to ensure their special day is perfect. LV Wedding Hall will be the ultimate choice in Las Vegas for wedding receptions for the company’s focus on extraordinary service and attention to detail. 

LV Wedding Hall History

LV Wedding Hall is owned and operated by Brittany Anderson, an event planner with over 15 years of experience planning and hosting special events, parties, and wedding receptions. Brittany has a bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management from the University of Nevada and has been recognized by various organizations for her top notch event management expertise.

Since incorporation, LV Wedding Hall has achieved the following milestones:

  • Registered LV Wedding Hall, LLC to transact business in the state of Nevada.
  • Has a contract in place for a two-year lease on a 5,000 square foot facility.
  • Reached out to numerous contacts to include vendors and suppliers to advise them on their upcoming wedding venue in order to start getting contracts. 
  • Began recruiting a staff of event coordinators, hosts, and kitchen staff to work at LV Wedding Hall.

LV Wedding Hall Services

The following will be the services LV Wedding Hall will provide:

Industry Analysis

The wedding industry in the United States is an estimated $57B. There are approximately 330,000 wedding service providers in the United States, with over 900,000 employees. Worldwide, the wedding planning industry is booming and is expected to grow by 6% over the next six years. 

Industry trends include an increase in small customized receptions, outdoor ceremonies, and destination weddings. The industry is heavily saturated, especially in Las Vegas. For this reason, it’s important for industry operators to differentiate themselves from the competition by providing unique service offerings, locations, or better pricing. Additionally, industry operators that provide flexible and customized services have a competitive advantage over those who do not.  

Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market.

LV Wedding Hall will target local Las Vegas residents and tourists who are looking for a hassle-free, all-inclusive wedding hall for their wedding reception or other special events such as birthdays, anniversary parties, and corporate events. No event is too large or too small for LV Wedding Hall. 

The precise demographics for Las Vegas, Nevada are:

Customer Segmentation

LV Wedding Hall will primarily target the following customer profiles:

  • Local couples looking to get married in town
  • Tourists looking to get married in town
  • People looking for a unique place for their special event such as a birthday party, anniversary party, or corporate event

Competitive Analysis

Direct and indirect competitors.

LV Wedding Hall will face competition from other companies with similar business profiles. A description of each competitor company is below.

Unique Weddings, LLC

Unique Weddings, LLC is a wedding reception hall located in Las Vegas. Unique Weddings provides wedding planning services, catering, and hosting services. Unique Weddings is able to provide a wide variety of services for their clients. Their list of services includes planning, decor and event consultation, catering, party rentals, and event hosting. 

Unique Weddings, LLC’s promise is to deliver a one of a kind reception hall for its clients so their special event is a memorable experience for all guests. Unique Weddings, LLC’s team of experienced wedding planning professionals assures all receptions run smoothly, freeing the clients to enjoy their special day. 

Desert Weddings, Inc. 

Desert Weddings, Inc. is a Las Vegas, Nevada-based wedding venue that provides outstanding wedding reception services for couples looking for a desert wedding. Desert Weddings, Inc. takes the hassel out of wedding planning. They provide comprehensive wedding planning and venue services including planning, decor, consultation, catering, and live entertainment. The ownership of Desert Weddings, Inc. are former event coordinators so they understand how an event should be planned, executed, and managed. Clients can depend on their unique wedding planning processes to ensure the whole event runs smoothly. Desert Weddings, Inc. takes the stress out of the planning process and are able to provide exceptional service every step of the way.

Taylor’s Weddings, LLC

Taylor’s Weddings, LLC is a trusted Las Vegas wedding hall that provides superior service to locals and tourists looking to get married in Las Vegas and the surrounding areas. They are able to provide a one-stop shop for couples looking for an all-inclusive wedding planner. Taylor’s Weddings, LLC eases the stress of clients who are overwhelmed by the hassles and complexities that come with planning a wedding. The venue’s pricing structure is simple and straightforward. Taylor’s Weddings, LLC offers three tiers for their services – the Silver Package (venue rental, minimum services included), the Gold Package (venue rental, essential services included), and the Platinum Package (venue rental and all services included).

Competitive Advantage

LV Wedding Hall will be able to offer the following advantages over their competition:

  • Friendly, knowledgeable, and highly qualified team of event coordinators who are ready to handle all details of the event no matter how large or small. 
  • Comprehensive menu of services that allows for clients to get everything they need for their event in one place rather than having to deal with multiple vendors. 
  • LV Wedding Hall offers the best pricing in town. With customizable packages and a la carte options, their pricing structure is the most cost effective compared to the competition.

Marketing Plan

Brand & value proposition.

LV Wedding Hall will offer the unique value proposition to its clientele:

  • Highly-qualified team of skilled employees that is able to provide a comprehensive set of wedding venue services (planning, consultation, catering, hosting, live entertainment, etc.).
  • Unbeatable pricing to its clients – LV Wedding Hall’s customizable service offerings allows clients to choose the services that work best for them and their budget. 

Promotions Strategy 

The promotions strategy for LV Wedding Hall is as follows:

Word of Mouth/Referrals

Brittany Anderson has built up an extensive list of contacts over the years by providing exceptional service and expertise to her clients. Once Brittany advised them she was leaving her current position to open her own wedding venue business, they agreed to help spread the word of LV Wedding Hall.

Print Advertising

LV Wedding Hall will invest in professionally designed print ads to display in wedding magazines, local newspapers, and direct mailers. 

Industry Events – Expos and Conventions

LV Wedding Hall will attend industry events such as wedding and bridal expos and conventions around the county to build a solid network of industry contacts and promote the venue. 

LV Wedding Hall will utilize an in-house marketing director to design and maintain their website. The website will be well organized, informative, and list all their services that LV Wedding Hall is able to provide. 

SEO Marketing

The marketing director will also manage LV Wedding Hall’s online presence with SEO marketing tactics so that anytime someone types in the Google or Bing search engine “Las Vegas wedding venue” or “wedding venue near me”, LV Wedding Hall will be listed at the top of the search results.

Social Media Marketing

The marketing director will create LV Wedding Hall’s social media accounts and maintain an active presence on various platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter. 

The pricing of LV Wedding Hall will be on par with competitors so customers feel they receive value when purchasing their services. 

Operations Plan

The following will be the operations plan for LV Wedding Hall.

Operation Functions:

  • Brittany Anderson will be the owner and president of the company. She will oversee all vendor and client relationships. Brittany has spent the past year recruiting the following staff:
  • Stephanie Smith – Venue Manager who will supervise the event coordinators, manage logistics, and schedule all staff. 
  • Mike Miller – Staff Accountant who will provide all client accounting, tax payments, and monthly financial reporting.
  • Sam Hernandez – Marketing Director who will provide all marketing campaigns and materials for LV Wedding Hall.
  • Mark Johnson – Head Chef who will provide all catering services for the venue.

Milestones:

LV Wedding Hall will have the following milestones complete in the next six months.

7/1/202X – Finalize contract to lease the wedding hall

7/15/202X – Finalize personnel and staff employment contracts for the LV Wedding Hall team

8/1/202X – Finalize contracts for vendors and suppliers

8/15/202X – Begin networking at industry events 

8/22/202X – Begin build out of LV Wedding Hall 

11/1/202X – LV Wedding Hall opens for business

Financial Plan

Key revenue & costs.

The revenue drivers for LV Wedding Hall are the fees they will charge to the clients for their services and fees charged to their clients for rentals (equipment, decor, sound system, etc.). LV Wedding Hall will provide customizable packages and a la carte services as well. 

The cost drivers will be the overhead costs required in order to staff a wedding venue. The expenses will be the payroll cost, rent, utilities, fees paid to suppliers, and marketing materials.

Funding Requirements and Use of Funds

Key assumptions.

The following outlines the key assumptions required in order to achieve the revenue and cost numbers in the financials and in order to pay off the startup business loan.

  • Number of Events per Year: 12
  • Average Fees per Event: $20,000
  • Venue Lease per Year: $100,000

Financial Projections

Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, wedding venue business plan faqs, what is a wedding venue business plan.

A wedding venue business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your wedding venue business. Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target customers, presents your marketing plan and details your financial projections.

You can  easily complete your wedding venue business plan using our Wedding Venue Business Plan Template here .

What are the Main Types of Wedding Venues?

There are a number of different kinds of wedding venues, some examples include: Banquet hall, Farm/Barn, and Loft/Modern Event Space.

How Do You Get Funding for Your Wedding Venue Business Plan?

Wedding venues are often funded through small business loans. Personal savings, credit card financing and angel investors are also popular forms of funding.

What are the Steps To Open a Wedding Venue Business?

Opening a wedding venue business can be an exciting endeavor. Having a clear roadmap of the steps to open a business will help you stay focused on your goals and get started faster.

1. Develop A Wedding Venue Business Plan – The first step in opening a business is to create a detailed business plan for a wedding venue that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include market research on the wedding industry and potential target market size, information on the services you will offer, marketing strategy, pricing strategies and a detailed financial forecast.  

2. Choose Your Legal Structure – It’s important to select an appropriate legal entity for your wedding venue business. This could be a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important to do research and choose wisely so that your wedding venue business is in compliance with local laws.

3. Register Your Wedding Venue Business – Once you have chosen a legal structure, the next step is to register your wedding venue business with the government or state where you’re operating from. This includes obtaining licenses and permits as required by federal, state, and local laws. 

4. Identify Financing Options – It’s likely that you’ll need some capital to open your wedding venue business, so take some time to identify what financing options are available such as bank loans, investor funding, grants, or crowdfunding platforms. 

5. Choose a Location – Whether you plan on operating out of a physical location or not, you should always have an idea of where you’ll be based should it become necessary in the future as well as what kind of space would be suitable for your operations. 

6. Hire Employees – There are several ways to find qualified employees including job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed as well as hiring agencies if needed – depending on what type of employees you need it might also be more effective to reach out directly through networking events. 

7. Acquire Necessary Wedding Venue Equipment & Supplies – In order to start your wedding venue business, you’ll need to purchase all of the necessary equipment and supplies to run a successful operation. 

8. Market & Promote Your Business – Once you have all the necessary pieces in place, it’s time to open promoting and marketing your wedding venue business. This includes creating a website, utilizing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and having an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. You should also consider traditional marketing techniques such as radio or print advertising to reach your target audience.

Learn more about how to start a successful wedding venue business:

  • How to Start a Wedding Venue Business

Where can I get a Wedding Venue Business Plan PDF?

You can download our wedding venue business plan PDF template here. This is a wedding venue business plan template you can use in PDF format.

Other Helpful Business Plan Templates

Photography Business Plan Template Event Venue Business Plan Template Catering Business Plan Template

Download wedding venue business plan template

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How to Start a Wedding Venue in 6 Easy Steps

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Whether you're a wedding professional, real estate investor, or simply an entrepreneur interested in the wedding industry, starting a wedding venue can be a big business opportunity. But it's also a big commitment. Learning how to start a wedding venue means you'll have to be undeterred by the idea of navigating zoning committees, renovation costs, and financing.

Because, even as changing trends sweep through the industry (ball jars one week, kraft paper another...), in reality, a great wedding venue doesn’t need a ton of bells and whistles to host fantastic weddings. So, if you're a fearless entrepreneur, starting a wedding venue just might be the perfect opportunity to open your first business, or expand an existing one.

These six steps should help you get on your way to starting the wedding venue of your (and many future couples’) dreams.

wedding business plan

Start a wedding venue with these 6 steps

Once you’ve decided to start a wedding venue business, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the industry. It’s a good idea to make connections with wedding vendors, who can provide helpful advice and recommendations throughout the process.

After you’ve set up a reliable network, the real work begins: You’ll need to assess your current finances, scout and renovate properties, and of course, secure financing.

How much do you need?

with Fundera by NerdWallet

We’ll start with a brief questionnaire to better understand the unique needs of your business.

Once we uncover your personalized matches, our team will consult you on the process moving forward.

1. Assess your current finances

A thorough understanding of your current financial health, and your predicted expenses, should guide all major decisions when you start a wedding venue. A few questions to ask yourself are:

Are you looking to purchase a property or lease one?

Do you have enough cash on hand for a down payment or will you require financing?

Are you building a new structure or touching up an existing building?

These questions, among others, will help you determine what type of small business loan you’ll need to apply for, and in what amount. While you’re at it, you should find out your credit score and create an organized, complete financial portfolio, which will be essential to securing a loan. Wherever you are financially, it’s crucial to start the process with a realistic estimate of the investment you’re able to make. With a handle on how much capital you can contribute, and how much additional capital you’ll need, you’re ready to start exploring potential properties.

2. Location, location... Which location?

With your finances in order, you can look for a property to convert into the perfect wedding venue.

If you’re interested in rural properties, keep in mind that a barn could require $250,000 in renovations just to be brought up to code. On the other hand, with an outdoor property, you can start by hosting events under a tent—a quality 100-person tent with a liner should cost less than $5,000, for instance—while you complete work on pre-built structures.

For leasing or purchasing in urban areas, your property costs will largely depend on the location and the state of the building you rent. You'll also want to look into the size of the wedding market in your area to gauge local demand.

Look for inspiration, too

As funny as it might sound, Pinterest can really be a great ally here—and not just for wedding party members. Try browsing popular pins to get ideas for your project. Before you reach out to a wholesaler, auctioneer, broker, or your personal connections in real estate, answer these questions about your ideal venue:

Are you looking for a rural or urban location?

An indoor or outdoor structure?

A multi-use space or a dedicated wedding venue?

Research local laws

In a location-driven business like a wedding venue, local zoning laws and building regulations determine much of what you’re able to do—and how quickly. If you’re not a property owner, or plan to open your wedding venue in a different county than where you live, start your search with a specific place in mind. Then, call the county where your prospective property is located, and ask for zoning information and code requirements for event spaces before making a down payment.

Once you’ve secured your location, conduct an audit of the property. Make preliminary decisions about how much renovation you’ll need to take on to bring your building up to code.

Finally, decide if your venue will provide any additional services. If you are currently active in the wedding industry, this could mean tying in a service you or a partner already provide. Otherwise, focus on finding a property with great potential, and worry about additional services once you have a business plan in place.

3. Decide what to renovate—and what can wait

Your financial plan is set, you’ve locked down a venue—and now you’re ready for financing... right? Well, not quite. Before you apply for a small business loan, you'll need to get an on-location estimate for the repairs, renovations, or additions you plan to make on your venue. It's important to know the number so you can figure it into the cost of the capital you'll need to invest.

Consult a contractor or architect about the cost of your initial renovations. Depending on your finances and time constraints, you might not be able to complete all of your ideal renovations in one fell swoop. To get your wedding venue up to snuff ASAP, prioritize the following projects:

Water and utilities. Identify a water supply and connect utilities. If your space is outdoors, this could require working with the city or county water works, and renting or purchasing a generator.

Bathrooms. Restrooms are essential to making your event space usable and code-compliant. If restroom facilities are not already on the premises, get estimates for installing plumbing, or seek a temporary solution, like rented portable restrooms.

Catering space. An onsite food preparation area is ideal for a wedding venue. But if your venue doesn’t have an existing kitchen, start by creating a place where caterers can set up and serve. Make sure it’s accessible to the reception area. Remember that different types of food prep and service have different types of permitting required—so you'll want to look into what permits you're willing to pursue in tandem.

Shelter. For outdoor venues, having a weather contingency plan is non negotiable. Depending on the structures available, this might mean investing in a tent.

Venue size. Another detail to keep in mind while handling zoning and code compliance for your venue property is maximum occupation or capacity.

Parking. No one will show up if there’s nowhere to park. Whether it’s a field with parking cones, or an adjacent parking garage, make sure you know how guests will park.

Bonus: Is it Instagram-ready?

Photography should definitely be a consideration in choosing a location and specifying renovations. If you envision a wedding venue as a visual and experiential backdrop for a couple’s special memories (including their posts), you’ll get a good idea of what makes some spaces so picture perfect.

4. Finance your venue

Okay: Now you’re ready to secure financing to get your wedding venue off the ground.

Depending on your available capital, and the work you need to conduct on your venue right off the bat, you might want to take an incremental approach to financing. Focus first on obtaining a loan to purchase or lease the property, then bringing the space up to code. Then you can start thinking about further additions, like changing rooms or a dance floor, which might require a different type of loan.

Start your search with these four options, which suit a variety of financial profiles and needs for your soon-to-be wedding venue.

Personal loans for business

If starting a wedding venue is your very first business endeavor, it’s unlikely that you’ll have the financial stats—like existing annual revenue and profitability—that most lenders want to see before extending you a loan. In that case, you might want to consider a personal loan for business. Personal loans are easier for new businesses with limited business history to obtain, since lenders use your personal credit score and finances to determine your eligibility and loan amount.

Heads up: Even though you can use your personal loan for business purposes, this loan blurs the line between your personal and business finances. For so many reasons, we recommend keeping your personal and business finances separate (not the least of which is avoiding a tax-season headache).

But if a personal loan for business is your only option, you can take the loan and work on building business credit in the meantime. That way, you can position yourself for an even better business loan down the line.

Short-term loan

For entrepreneurs who have already been in business for a year and have established credit, there's a wider variety of financing options. For instance, if this wedding venue is an expansion of an existing wedding business or service that generates revenue, you might be a good candidate for a short-term loan. Before deciding which financing option is best for you, find out more about business loan requirements, so you have an idea of the information you need to have ready before taking financial action.

The time it takes to get your venue up and running is a big factor in choosing a loan. If you’re in a time crunch, a short-term loan provides the financing you need within a compatible timeline, since repayment terms generally range between three and 18 months.

Short-term products are good options if you need a relatively small amount of funding—the average short-term loan amount is $20,000. So, if you own a venue with existing structures and plumbing, you might consider a short-term loan to cover your remaining, urgent expenses.

Business line of credit

Many wedding professionals move into event spaces as a natural complement to an existing catering, photography, or wedding-planning business. For business owners with demonstrable revenue and credit history, a business line of credit can give you access to the capital you need to run a wedding venue. Pull down on this revolving pool of resources whenever you want or need—say, for hiring employees, major equipment rentals, or installing a kitchen—and only pay for the funds you use.

Business credit card

Paying for major renovations and labor will likely require a loan, but you can take care of most daily expenses with a business credit card . For new business owners looking to refurbish an existing building or space, a business credit card gives you spending flexibility and helps you build credit for your business.

5. Improve on the go

One great thing about a wedding venue is that you can continue to make improvements while you conduct business—as long as you take the right precautions to ensure renovations never interfere with events.

Particularly for rural or outdoor spaces, you can start showing and renting the space as soon as you’ve finished foundational improvements and met code requirements, and continue to make incremental improvements as you begin to generate revenue. If you’re waiting on major structural renovations, but your bathrooms, parking, and utilities are squared away, consider renting or purchasing a large tent so you can rent your space ASAP.

Indoor spaces are less amenable to opening with ongoing work, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of your remodeling period. While you wait on renovations or inspections to be completed, use your time to expand your professional network and invite vendors and prospective clients to preview the space. An informal event or open house is an unparalleled opportunity to get industry and clientele feedback.

6. Keep the couple in mind

In the wedding industry, the customer—namely, the couple-to-be—really is always right. Because the wedding planning process is so personal, keep your target audience in mind when scouting locations, choosing improvements to prioritize, marketing your event space, and planning what kind of amenities you’ll provide.

Here are three places to start when marketing your wedding venue:

Website: Consider your website an outpost for your wedding venue, where potential clients will visit before deciding to view your space in person.

Focus on creating an attractive, easy-to-navigate user experience that reflects the positive experience your venue offers.

Think about writing blog posts on your site, which will also increase visibility without costing you extra marketing dollars. (Tip: This can be done in advance and posted later.)

Search: Make your business easy to find—think carefully about a searchable name—and then spread it as much as you can on your personal social media and within your existing business network.

Do a Google search for wedding venues in your area, and notice how you can set your venue apart.

Search for terms you would like to appear for (i.e. “Memphis outdoor wedding” or “converted barn venue”) and see what kind of businesses or websites appear. Later, this might be a strategy for identifying good terms for paid search on AdWords or with Facebook ads.

Social: You’re working on opening a great venue—before opening your doors, get a head start on social media to gain exposure and engage with potential clients.

Create Facebook and Instagram accounts for your venue. Even if you don't plan on using social media, your business needs a location on Facebook in order to be tagged in future posts. Instagram or Facebook posts with your geo-tag is a great way for clients to find you.

Start posting—now! Even before your venue is open for business, posting early and often will cultivate an audience and kickstart engagement with your business.

Remember, too, that the wedding industry relies heavily on word-of-mouth recommendations, and a happy couple is your best marketing asset (followed by a network of reliable vendors). Ask happy customers to write positive reviews on WeddingWire, the Knot, or social media when you can.

ZenBusiness

Start Your Dream Business

Start your wedding venue and get the word out

Starting a successful wedding venue is a complex process, but it doesn’t have to be frustrating. If you choose a property based on your experience and resources, and focus on preparing your venue to open, you can continue to make improvements while you bring in revenue. Because a venue space is adaptable by nature, you have more flexibility, which presents a great opportunity for investors ready to start a business. Throughout this process, one of the best ways to ensure that you keep expectations realistic is consulting other wedding professionals when possible.

Assess your finances. Get a clear understanding of your credit, as well as the size of investment you are in a position to make.

Find a location . If possible, tour local wedding venues, and try to identify an unsatisfied need. Visit different potential properties, and determine what kind of venue you want to open based on availability, price, and the degree of renovation you're equipped to oversee.

Identify improvements and estimate costs. With a firm grasp on your finances and the kind of wedding venue space you're looking for, you’re ready to start looking for properties and sizing up necessary functional renovations and value-adding additions, like a bridal lounge or catering kitchen. Before you seek financing for your wedding venue, consult an expert—a general contractor, venue owner, or experienced property flipper—to assess any necessary repairs, and estimate the cost and time for renovations.

Pick a financing plan. After getting remodeling estimates and determining how much financing your venue requires to get up and running, you’ll be able to choose the appropriate financial product and payment schedule.

Adapt as you go. Once you start working on the venue, you can make a roadmap for further improvements, and adjust your business plan to reflect work schedules and inspection appointments. Continue to make improvements—and potentially seek further financing—after opening your wedding venue, incorporating feedback from clients into planning new additions.

Focus on your clientele. When choosing between properties, renovations to prioritize, and venue decor, keep the couples in mind. Attend a wedding expo as a visitor, and talk to other visitors and vendors about what kind of wedding venue they are looking for.

Now that you have a clear idea of how to open a wedding venue, it’s time to start researching and reaching out to relevant connections—recently married couples, wedding vendors, or event space owners. You can even get a head start on marketing as you move through the process of checking your finances, viewing properties, and applying for funding.

This article originally appeared on JustBusiness, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.

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How to Start a Wedding Planning Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Start a Wedding Planning Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

Do you love all things romance, follow the wedding trends, and pay attention to detail?

Starting a wedding planning business could be just the thing for you.

The event and wedding planning market’s having a moment right now, and roughly 66% of millennials are willing to employ wedding planners for their special day.

Need help to get you on the right track?

Get your budding wedding planning business in full bloom with our comprehensive 9-step guide.

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How to start a wedding planning business in 9 steps 💒

How to start a wedding planning business is all about detailed planning, the right training, and good people skills.

You want to make sure you’re doing the right things to help your new business stand out from other successful wedding planners, right?

By not taking shortcuts you will be able to talk to your potential clients confidently and plan stunning weddings of the century.

Lights out of focus

1. Get the necessary training

For starters, if you don’t have prior experience in wedding planning, you should take the time to learn the necessary skills of a wedding planner.

There are many platforms to help you out. Search for online courses or enroll in educational programs hosted by professionals in the field. Consider joining organizations that offer certifications, e.g. the American Association of Certified Wedding Planners.

Pro tip 💁 – Look for internships to gain some experience in event coordination. Contact your local wedding planners and let them know you want to assist with upcoming events and bridal shows (those are never stress-free, so it’s likely that most wedding planners will appreciate the extra pair of hands). 

Since you’ll be running an event planning business, consider learning about marketing, finance management, customer service, and other relevant topics as well.

Consider joining networking events for wedding professionals and event planners to meet with other business owners and learn from them first-hand. This might require you to travel to big nearby cities (think New York City, San Francisco, Miami, and so on), but if you plan ahead, you can save on travel costs.  

2. Draft a solid business plan

Once you’re confident with your skills in the wedding planning business, it’s time to create a business plan and start building your own business from the ground up. 

A business plan will help you determine your goals, target audience, and financial plans. It will also help you understand your business structure, whether you need a business license. 

And if you’re looking to open a business bank account, or use a business credit card, chances are that your bank will require you to have a business plan in the first place.

But how do you start?

First and foremost, you should come up with a business name.

If you’re stuck, try using the Zyro Business Name Generator to help you out. After entering your keywords (related to terms such as a wedding, events, planner, and so on), memorable business name suggestions will be presented to you.

When you pick the right name, make sure it’s available as a domain and business name in your region. This way you’re able to build a strong brand that’s easier for your clients to remember.

Your business plan should cover your business information, services, marketing plans, and financial strategy. Use a free template if you don’t know what business accounts and aspects to include.

A happy couple by a pool releasing lots of balloons

3. Define your wedding planning services 

We get it – you want to become a successful wedding planner. 

In order to differentiate yourself from the other small business owners in the market, you can offer one, a selection, or all of the following services:

  • Full wedding planning. You’ll plan the entire wedding from the first consultation to the day of, including designing the concept and coordinating with the vendors. 
  • Partial wedding planning. Typically, the paying client will only hire you to help with their timeline and manage the wedding day.
  • Wedding consultation. You’ll only give recommendations on engaged couples’ event plans.

The service fee usually gets higher as you get more involved in planning the event. This means that full wedding planning is the most expensive of all options. Be sure to include your services and pricing in your plan.

As your wedding business grows, so will your business plan and the services you offer. In the early stages, it’s better to set out realistic expectations for your small business. After all, you don’t want to be working all the hours of the day simply because you didn’t realize the workload. 

Once your business has expanded, adjust your future goals and ideal clientele accordingly.

4. Take care of legal documents

Next, it’s time to become a legal entity and sort out the legal documents to run your business.

For this, consider hiring an attorney to consult on a suitable business structure . The structure you choose determines your taxes and the protection of your personal assets.

In the US, small companies like wedding and event planners are recommended to go with a limited liability company, an LLC .

This way, you’re personally not at big financial risk if your wedding planning business venture goes under for any reason. 

When you’ve decided on a structure, register your business name with your state and local governments.

If you’re a US citizen, make sure to sign up for an Employer Identification Number as well. This will enable you to file taxes, open a bank account, and hire assistants for your business.

Also, remember to get business insurance in case of disasters, accidents, or any other risks.

Don’t forget to take care of your client contracts for when you get hired. Generally, the contract includes terms for services, payment, cancellation, and termination, among other things.

Money, plant and a candle on a table

5. Understand your finances

On average, you can expect to make an average of $49,370 per year in the U.S. when you’re starting a wedding planning business. 

But in order to get to those figures, you need to be sure you have enough cash available to cover your initial costs.

While it’s possible to get your wedding and events planning business started for less than $1,000, you might want to play it safe and have a few thousand dollars available for your startup costs.

At the very least, you will need a computer, a phone, some software licenses, business cards, and office supplies to get your event planning business up and running.

Make sure to network and build a strong, marketable brand to turn your business profitable in the long run.

6. Create your own wedding planning brand

A successful wedding planning business is based on a unique brand.

With so many wedding planners constantly appearing on the scene, having a particular niche and a brand help you to catch the engaged couples’ eye.

You could focus on working with clients who want a big wedding with hundreds of guests or cater to people who want to get married in a nature reserve.

Think about:

  • Your niche. What sets you apart from the other wedding service providers and makes you the wedding planning business someone should choose?
  • Your logo. A good logo is simple, easy to remember, and unique.
  • The overall visual look of your wedding planning business. This includes other web design elements like the color palette and typography you will be using.
  • The tone and voice of your brand. How does your business sound like when you talk to potential clients or the people visiting your website?

Two people shaking hands

7. Find trusted vendors

Since you’ll be coordinating with various vendors (think florist, catering company, furniture rental, and so on) for your events, you should establish a professional relationship with these service providers, especially reputable ones.

As a new business, you might not have an existing pool of business partners to tap into. 

Look for vendors at online directories like Wedding Wire . The wedding website features a review system so you know which suppliers are trusted. Contact them to set up a meeting and get to know each other’s business.

Cooperating with trusted vendors can help you along the way. If you hire the right people, your clients will acknowledge that you’re knowledgeable in your field. 

Additionally, when you maintain a good relationship with these suppliers, they can recommend you to their customers if they need a wedding planner.

8. Create wedding concepts

As a novice wedding planner, you probably don’t have enough content for your portfolio. That’s OK – many wedding planners start their careers by creating mock-up wedding plans to use as marketing material.

First, research current wedding trends . Find out what the most popular themes and decorations are, and what kind of locations and venues are hot among successful wedding planners.

For example, if your business focuses on cultural weddings, look for such decorations. Gather what you’ve found and design several wedding concepts.

Next, contact vendors. Ask if they’re willing to work with you in creating the concepts. You’ll probably need a vendor for flowers, food, decoration, and lighting. Also, get a professional photographer to capture the entire setup.

To make your own mockup designs, get inspiration from Pinterest and similar sites – feel free to set them up in your own home.

Try making several mock wedding timelines for different occasions. This will help potential clients visualize their wedding day when they are deciding whether to hire you.

A sheet spelling out marketing strategy on a table

9. Promote your wedding planning business

To attract new customers, you should advertise your wedding planning business online.

Focus on creating a website to show off the previous weddings you’ve organized, as well as include testimonials of your services. You should also make use of word of mouth and social media platforms when you’re starting out.

How to start a wedding planning business is just as much about marketing as it is about the wedding planning itself. 

Create a professional website

Since most people use search engines and Facebook pages to find services , it’s important that your business has an online presence. Make sure to add your business to platforms like Google My Business to maximize the probability of potential customers finding out about your wedding business.

A website can also provide business information to users. When you put up online ads on search engines or wedding marketplaces, link them to your small business website where visitors can learn more about your business.

Unsure how to start a business website? 

The Zyro wedding website builder makes the process easy for any business owner. With its AI customizations and ready-to-use templates, you won’t need any technical knowledge to design a stunning wedding planner website.

Promote to friends and family

Another way to market your business is by telling your family and friends. And tell them to tell their friends and family, and so on. 

Send them an email about your business information or promote your services during a hangout or gathering.

If some of them or their friends are getting married, offer to plan their wedding day at a discount.

Use this opportunity to build your portfolio and gather testimonials. These will come in handy later on in your wedding planner career.

Share on social media

Lastly, it’s important to create social media accounts for your planning business on platforms like Facebook and Instagram . These sites can help with marketing your services to the right people – without you needing to whip out your business credit card to pay for ad space.

For instance, Facebook’s Audience Insights provides some key information about your target market, so that you can create better advertising and content overall.

Instagram can also offer analytics about your audience to help you with your small business marketing strategy.

People cheering and raising a glass at a wedding

Why you should start your own wedding planning business

Starting your own wedding planning business can be both exciting and profitable. Today, the wedding industry is a lucrative business.

In the US, about 2.4 million weddings happen each year. Furthermore, the “wedding planner” remains the top wedding-related search term .

Regarding startup costs, starting this business is quite affordable . You can basically work from anywhere on your computer and smartphone.

If you’re passionate and multi-skilled, this job could be for you. As a wedding planner, you need to be good at customer service, event coordination, management, and design.

Risks wedding planners should be aware of

Before starting a wedding planning business, you need to know the risks of becoming a wedding planner.

Since most weddings happen during weekends, event planners do sacrifice some of their free time for work. Consider scheduling some days off during the week to minimize burnout.

Furthermore, you can’t build a loyal clientele from a wedding planning business. Your past customers might recommend you to their friends, but it’s not likely that those who have worked with you will hire you again.

As a wedding planner, you also need to market your business more during low seasons when your business bank account might look grim. Craft a strategy that encourages more people to wed in other seasons. Otherwise, you might risk losing income during idle times.

Bride and groom's shoes against a wooden background

Becoming a wedding planner

The wedding industry remains a profitable business – but it takes a dedicated and multi-skilled person to become a wedding planner.

Before you start a wedding planning business, consider the time and money needed to invest in being a wedding planner and running your own business. You will have to work weekends and holidays, and market harder during the off-seasons.

Remember that as a wedding planner you will also need to have great people skills and be able to pay attention to detail, no matter how tiny they may seem. Since weddings are a once-in-a-lifetime event for many, your customers will expect to be able to have a say in everything.

If you think you can easily handle a bridezilla, and want to help create real fairytale weddings, starting a wedding planning business could be just the right career move for you.

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Matleena is a seasoned eCommerce writer, with a particular interest in emerging digital marketing trends, dropshipping, and growth hacking. She’s addicted to coming up with new eCommerce business ideas and making them a reality; she deserves her nickname of ‘print on demand business mogul.' In her free time, she enjoys cups of good coffee, tends to her balcony garden, and studies Japanese.

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How To Write a Successful Wedding Planner Business Plan + Template

Business Plan-LB

Creating a business plan is essential for any business, but it can be especially helpful for wedding planner businesses that want to improve their strategy and/or raise funding.

A well-crafted business plan not only outlines the vision for your company, but also documents a step-by-step roadmap of how you are going to accomplish it. In order to create an effective business plan, you must first understand the components that are essential to its success.

This article provides an overview of the key elements that every wedding planner business owner should include in their business plan.

Download the Ultimate Business Plan Template

What is a Wedding Planner Business Plan?

A wedding planner business plan is a formal written document that describes your company’s business strategy and its feasibility. It documents the reasons you will be successful, your areas of competitive advantage, and it includes information about your team members. Your business plan is a key document that will convince investors and lenders (if needed) that you are positioned to become a successful venture.

Why Write a Wedding Planner Business Plan?

A wedding planner business plan is required for banks and investors. The document is a clear and concise guide of your business idea and the steps you will take to make it profitable.

Entrepreneurs can also use this as a roadmap when starting their new company or venture, especially if they are inexperienced in starting a business.

Writing an Effective Wedding Planner Business Plan

The following are the key components of a successful wedding planner business plan:

Executive Summary

The executive summary of a wedding planner business plan is a one to two page overview of your entire business plan. It should summarize the main points, which will be presented in full in the rest of your business plan.

  • Start with a one-line description of your wedding planner company
  • Provide a short summary of the key points in each section of your business plan, which includes information about your company’s management team, industry analysis, competitive analysis, and financial forecast among others.

Company Description

This section should include a brief history of your company. Include a short description of how your company started, and provide a timeline of milestones your company has achieved.

If you are just starting your wedding planner business, you may not have a long company history. Instead, you can include information about your professional experience in this industry and how and why you conceived your new venture. If you have worked for a similar company before or have been involved in an entrepreneurial venture before starting your wedding planner firm, mention this.

You will also include information about your chosen wedding planner business model and how, if applicable, it is different from other companies in your industry.

Industry Analysis

The industry or market analysis is an important component of a wedding planner business plan. Conduct thorough market research to determine industry trends and document the size of your market. 

Questions to answer include:

  • What part of the wedding planner industry are you targeting?
  • How big is the market?
  • What trends are happening in the industry right now (and if applicable, how do these trends support the success of your company)?

You should also include sources for the information you provide, such as published research reports and expert opinions.

Customer Analysis

This section should include a list of your target audience(s) with demographic and psychographic profiles (e.g., age, gender, income level, profession, job titles, interests). You will need to provide a profile of each customer segment separately, including their needs and wants.

For example, the customers of a wedding planner business may include:

  • Bridal party members
  • Family of wedding couple
  • Wedding vendors (e.g., caterers, florists, photographers)

You can include information about how your customers make the decision to buy from you as well as what keeps them buying from you.

Develop a strategy for targeting those customers who are most likely to buy from you, as well as those that might be influenced to buy your products or wedding planner services with the right marketing.

Competitive Analysis

The competitive analysis helps you determine how your product or service will be different from competitors, and what your unique selling proposition (USP) might be that will set you apart in this industry.

For each competitor, list their strengths and weaknesses. Next, determine your areas of competitive differentiation and/or advantage; that is, in what ways are you different from and ideally better than your competitors.

Below are sample competitive advantages your wedding planner business may have:

  • Extensive industry knowledge and experience
  • Personalized service
  • Comprehensive planning and organization
  • Creativity and attention to detail
  • Value-driven perspective

Marketing Plan

This part of the business plan is where you determine and document your marketing plan. . Your plan should be clearly laid out, including the following 4 Ps.

  • Product/Service : Detail your product/service offerings here. Document their features and benefits.
  • Price : Document your pricing strategy here. In addition to stating the prices for your products/services, mention how your pricing compares to your competition.
  • Place : Where will your customers find you? What channels of distribution (e.g., partnerships) will you use to reach them if applicable?
  • Promotion : How will you reach your target customers? For example, you may use social media, write blog posts, create an email marketing campaign, use pay-per-click advertising, launch a direct mail campaign. Or, you may promote your wedding planner business via word-of-mouth marketing.

Operations Plan

This part of your wedding planner business plan should include the following information:

  • How will you deliver your product/service to customers? For example, will you do it in person or over the phone only?
  • What infrastructure, equipment, and resources are needed to operate successfully? How can you meet those requirements within budget constraints?

The operations plan is where you also need to include your company’s business policies. You will want to establish policies related to everything from customer service to pricing, to the overall brand image you are trying to present.

Finally, and most importantly, in your Operations Plan, you will lay out the milestones your company hopes to achieve within the next five years. Create a chart that shows the key milestone(s) you hope to achieve each quarter for the next four quarters, and then each year for the following four years. Examples of milestones for a wedding planner business include reaching $X in sales. Other examples include adding new products or services, expanding to new markets, or hiring new personnel.

Management Team

List your team members here including their names and titles, as well as their expertise and experience relevant to your specific wedding planner industry. Include brief biography sketches for each team member.

Particularly if you are seeking funding, the goal of this section is to convince investors and lenders that your team has the expertise and experience to execute on your plan. If you are missing key team members, document the roles and responsibilities you plan to hire for in the future.

Financial Plan

Here you will include a summary of your complete and detailed financial plan (your full financial projections go in the Appendix). 

This includes the following three financial statements:

Income Statement

Your income statement should include:

  • Revenue : how much revenue you generate.
  • Cost of Goods Sold : These are your direct costs associated with generating revenue. This includes labor costs, as well as the cost of any equipment and supplies used to deliver the product/service offering.
  • Net Income (or loss) : Once expenses and revenue are totaled and deducted from each other, this is the net income or loss.

Sample Income Statement for a Startup Wedding Planner Business

Balance sheet.

Include a balance sheet that shows your assets, liabilities, and equity. Your balance sheet should include:

  • Assets : All of the things you own (including cash).
  • Liabilities : This is what you owe against your company’s assets, such as accounts payable or loans.
  • Equity : The worth of your business after all liabilities and assets are totaled and deducted from each other.

Sample Balance Sheet for a Startup Wedding Planner Business

Cash flow statement.

Include a cash flow statement showing how much cash comes in, how much cash goes out and a net cash flow for each year. The cash flow statement should include:

  • Cash Flow From Operations
  • Cash Flow From Investments
  • Cash Flow From Financing

Below is a sample of a projected cash flow statement for a startup wedding planner business.

Sample Cash Flow Statement for a Startup Wedding Planner Business

You will also want to include an appendix section which will include:

  • Your complete financial projections
  • A complete list of your company’s business policies and procedures related to the rest of the business plan (marketing, operations, etc.)
  • Any other documentation which supports what you included in the body of your business plan.

Writing a good business plan gives you the advantage of being fully prepared to launch and/or grow your wedding planner company. It not only outlines your business vision but also provides a step-by-step process of how you are going to accomplish it.

A well-written business plan is an essential tool for any wedding planner company. If you are seeking funding from investors or lenders, it’s important to have a polished and professional business plan. Use the template above as a guide as you write your own wedding planner business plan.  

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OK – you've made this HUGE decision that you want to start a wedding planning business. But not just ANY kind of wedding planning business. You want to build a business that gets amazing clients, is successful, and allows you to build and grow something that's YOURS.

You want to plan gorgeous weddings, work with incredible clients, get featured in magazines, and spend your days obsessing over linen swatches, pretty flowers, candles, and of course, the logistics that make all the pretty happen.

In this blog post, I've put together my 12+ years of experience in running a profitable, multi six figure, multi-country wedding planning & design business so you can learn how to start a wedding planning business you love quicker, faster, and better.

First, let me say how delighted I am for you. In other words, when I started my wedding planning and design company back in 2007, I had the same feelings you did about creating the life and career I wanted.

I was excited, nervous, energized, and willing to consume any information on starting a wedding planning business.

(Back in 2007, that information was hard to come by. There were not a lot of resources on how to start a wedding planning business. However, you've got a lot of information on hand to guide you.)

I'm going to break down how to start a wedding planning business–but not just any kind of wedding planning business–one that will be profitable and scalable.

Here are the 11 steps you need to take to start and grow your new wedding planning business:

I'm going to break down how to start a wedding planning business–but not just any kind of wedding planning business–one that will be profitable and scalable.  In this blog post, I've put together my 12+ years of experience in running a profitable, multi-6-figure, multi-country wedding planning & design business so you can build a business you love quicker, faster, and better.

Step 1: Know What Kind Of Wedding Planning Business You Want to Build

Before you do anything, knowing what kind of wedding planning business you want is the first step. I've got an easy exercise for you to figure this out, too.

We call it vision casting.

It's important to know what kind of business you want, which will help you write strategies to make that business come to life.

In addition, we can't know what we're really building until we see the destination we want to arrive at, right?

That's what vision casting is. It's knowing the destination you want to arrive at–the business that you want.

To make this even easier for you, I've recorded an entire podcast episode on how to vision cast for your business. 👇

Episode 42 of my podcast for wedding pros, The Power in Purpose Podcast gives you step-by-step guidance and action on how to start your wedding planning biz with vision casting.

Everyone is building a different kind of business under different circumstances. For instance, you might want to have a career that allows you to raise your family at the same time. Or, you might want to build a million-dollar empire.

This is why it's important to know what kind of business YOU want so that you can reverse engineer the strategies that it will take to get there.

Don't skip this step. And listen to this podcast episode to get started.

Step 2: Write A Business Plan For Your Wedding Planning Business

Yes, I know you wanted to skip this part–biz plans are so 2007, aren't they?

No. They're essential. To build the wedding planning business YOU want (the one you're going to vision cast for!), you have to write a strategy to get there.

That's what a business plan is: an overarching strategy for getting from where you are today to where you want to go. And it cannot be overlooked.

Writing your business plan doesn't have to be challenging or overwhelming. You don't need an MBA or a fancy degree to start a business.

Instead, you just need to discover a problem that needs solving, and then your business becomes the solution.

With that said, I know that writing a business plan isn't the easiest (or sexiest) task.

That's why I've created my Free Business Plan Outline + Guide , a way to jumpstart your efforts and get you to write a plan for your wedding planning business.

Write a wedding planner business plan with this free guidebook and outline. It'll take you from stuck to start. I take all the guesswork out of how to write a business plan and even teach you some strategies. Plus, it's free! That's why I want to make sure you grab it.

Step 3: Know The “Ideal Clients” Your Wedding Planning Business Will Serve

The #1 reason why businesses fail is they don't know who their customers are. They don't really, truly, and personally know their customers. 

Their values.

Their problems.

However, this isn't going to be you; you're here to learn how to start a wedding planning business–and a crucial step is knowing your ideal clients!

Instead, you're going to create a business that fully understands who your ideal clients are so that you can solve their problems quicker, faster, and better than anyone else.

You must get specific about your ideal clients and why they need you to solve their problems. Knowing more about what motivates them, what they value, what challenges they face, and yes, what problems they have means you can position yourself as the solution.

I want to clarify that knowing your ideal clients is more than knowing what kind of car they drive, their favorite color, and their age range. Moreover, those things are essential but only tell you part of the story.

If you want to book high-end clients in the wedding industry, you need to check out The Client Cocktail . In this mini-training, I teach you how to call in dreamy clients and magazine-worthy weddings.

When you start your business, you'll be tempted to serve everyone and anyone. That's one of the biggest mistakes new entrepreneurs make: they reason they'll cast a wide net, increasing their chances of customers. After all, the wider the net, the more you can catch, right?

What ends up happening is you become too watered down, too unspecific, and too generic. However, by appealing to everyone, you appeal to no one because no one can really connect with your company.

They don't look at what you offer, your message, and say, “This is for me.”

Step 4: Create A Wedding Planning Brand That Gets Noticed

There are a lot of wedding planners out there. What makes you different?

One of the cornerstones of marketing is that people buy with their eyes, and your brand–aka the visual manifestation of your company–is what sets you apart.

You need to create a visual brand that gets noticed.

One that makes YOUR ideal client stop in their tracks.

One that makes your perfect client buy with their eye.

Your visual branding helps to accelerate the know/like/trust factor with your customers. The couple who wants to hire someone like you lands on your website or sees some of your marketing, and because of its polished nature and overall experience, they want to know more.

After you've set a vision and written your business plan, don't let it all fall apart by having a bad logo and website.

Your clients will notice immediately that your business doesn't live up to what it offers. And they will click off.

You have a matter of seconds to capture someone's attention (sometimes, it's a fraction of that number!). How will you capture the attention of your ideal clients with your marketing and branding?

Here are some quick resources for you to start creating a kick-ass wedding planning brand from DAY ONE (bc that's how we roll!)

  • Showit Website Platform : To create a GORGEOUS website (it's my website platform!)
  • Sourced Co : For incredible stock images created JUST for wedding pros. You can find images for marketing and your website, making it easy to start without a portfolio. Use code PLAYBOOK to get a special discount.
  • Hautestock : Use code CANDICE for 15% off gorgeous stock images that don't look stock. Firstly, Hautestock's images are great for your website to fill in the gaps where you might not have a portfolio. Secondly, they make perfect social media posts so you can start marketing TODAY – even if you don't have any clients or work!
  • Styled Stock : Another fantastic styled stock membership for beautiful stock images that don't look like “stock images.”

I'm going to break down how to start a wedding planning business–but not just any kind of wedding planning business–one that will be profitable and scalable.  In this blog post, I've put together my 12+ years of experience in running a profitable, multi-6-figure, multi-country wedding planning & design business so you can build a business you love quicker, faster, and better.

Step 5: Work More On Your Wedding Planning Business Than In It

You had the idea to start a wedding planning business because you want to be a wedding planner. However, when you decide to open up your own company, you're a business owner first. Wedding planner, second.

They say that businesses fail not only because they don't know their ideal clients but because the owner of that business doesn't work on their business. 

You toil away at being the best wedding planner, focusing all your time on planning weddings and serving your clients, but what about the business owner side? 

I want you to work more ON your business than IN your business. Consider yourself a business owner above all other roles you might have in your business.

Owning a business is like having a classic car: it needs love, care, and attention. It needs you to tune it, fix what's broken, and invest in its care.

If you're serious about owning a wedding planning business, consider yourself an entrepreneur first and a business owner second.

My advice? Seek education to help you build and grow your wedding planning business from the ground up correctly. Find mentors and business owners who are where you want to be and hire them to help you.

In addition, you should invest in courses , conferences, and other educational avenues to learn all you can and speed up your results.

Always learning, always moving forward. That's my motto.

Step 6: Network With The Right People

The wedding industry is mostly about connections, and some of the most incredible business comes from referrals (if you sign up for The Client Cocktail , you'll know how important this is!).

You have to seek out new connections as much as possible–but not just any old “links”–and focus on the right ones.

As you set out to market your business, you must get in front of the right people. Ideally, the people and companies that are already in front of your ideal clients.

They have the power to refer to you and to help lift your business alongside theirs.

Do you want to know one of the first things I did when I started my business?

I networked my butt off. Networking with the right people was one of the first things I did when I started my business, which paid off. I was armed with my biz plan, a vision for the future, and a nice-looking brand/website. I sought out businesses that were already in front of my ideal clients.

And it paid off in dividends. 

Step 7: Know Your Marketing Message And Market Your Wedding Planning Business As Much As You Can

Marketing is simply sharing your message so that it reaches the right people. What's your message?

Your company's mission, vision, and purpose are vital. They connect you to your customers and ground you when the going gets tough.

You need to have a clear, concise message about what your company does, how life looks for your customers after you do it, and why you do it in the first place.

wedding business plan

Step 8: Make Mistakes, Try New Things & Do It Your Way

When you start a business, you follow the same path as those you admire. No doubt you've rapidly followed a bunch of people on the ‘gram who are killing it in their wedding planning biz right now.

And you're probably thinking: I need to do it this way too.

Maybe. Or maybe not. Don't fall into the trap of copying what other folks are doing. That's their business–their vision–not yours.

I want you to feel empowered to do it YOUR way. Sure, you can seek out roadmaps and blueprints on how to build your business, but make sure you adapt what you learn as it fits your unique circumstances.

Don't build someone else's business. Build yours.

If you want to hear some of my epic wedding planning mistakes, check out my tales from the clipboard email series.

Step 9: Give Your Business Time To Grow & Take Root

As a business coach for wedding planners and pros, I've seen biz owners quit just when the going gets going. Owning a wedding planning business is a marathon and not a sprint. It takes time for your efforts to start to take root.

When I started my company, it took me six months to land my first client. Imagine if I had quit five months and two weeks in? 

I want you to know that things take time. Give your business time to take root. It will happen with consistency and perseverance. Don't quit at the first failure. 

Remember, your failures lead you toward your successes.

Patience is necessary for business (just like with most things in life). The strategies you implement today may not show results for 3-6 months. But they will see results if you give them a chance. 

Step 10: Hire A Wedding Planning Mentor And Learn, Learn, Learn

Let me ask you a serious question. Why not hire someone to help you do all the above and teach you the ropes so that you can accelerate your business quicker and faster?

There is no greater gift you can give your biz than enlisting the help of someone who has been where you want to go.

As a wedding industry business coach and mentor , of course, I will advocate for what I do. And that's because I've seen the results my expertise brings to those that I humbly help.

If you're serious about starting a wedding planning business, pay for an expert to teach you the road to success. 

I want you to be open to learning as much as you can from trusted sources as you navigate the tricky road of entrepreneurship. Recognize that you don't know everything, be 100% coachable, and apply what you learn in your business.

The truth is, you'll achieve the results you want quicker, better, and faster than you had expected.

Step 11: Believe In Yourself

Finally, I want you to believe in yourself because you were put on this earth for great things.

No, seriously, I want you to believe in your abilities to design a business you love, a business YOU want. While you may lack experience in certain areas, you have a wealth of knowledge about how things work.

You're smart. You're driven. And you're here for the right reasons. Believe in your abilities to learn as you go and apply your knowledge and unique life experiences to the services and products you provide.

For instance, too many people quit because they lack the confidence and belief in themselves to do what they want to do. I don't want you to be one of those people. 

I believe in you. So believe in yourself. All things are possible, and you CAN design a business that you love–and one that gives back to your meaningful life.

And if you're ready to take your wedding planning dreams to the next level, I want to invite you to check out my coaching program for wedding planners .

The Planner's Playbook is your secret weapon for planning, designing, and coordinating high-end weddings like a pro. The doors to this program are open now for a limited time. Click here to learn more about The Planner's Playbook!

Not ready for that? Then grab my free course on how to start your wedding planning business!

Let's summarize this post so you can start your wedding planning business:

How do I start a wedding planning business?

Follow these steps to start and launch your wedding planning business:

It's important to know what kind of business YOU want so that you can reverse engineer the strategies that it will take to get there. Don't skip this step.

Every business needs a strategy to grow and scale. Sit down and write your business plan using your vision as a guide for the strategies you'll create in marketing, sales, services, and pricing.

Businesses exist to serve their customers. Who are you serving? Know your ideal client as well as you know your BFF–and then create products and solutions that help them.

The wedding industry is a saturated market. You'll need to create a brand that stands out from the competition and gets noticed. How will you be different from the rest?

Initially, it'll be easy because you won't have many clients. But as your business grows, it's important to continue working on it more than in it.

The wedding industry is a people industry. Form relationships and connections with the right people–the businesses already in front of your dreamy clients–and watch your biz grow.

Marketing is simply sharing your message so it reaches the right people. Know your message and watch your ICAs start knocking on your door.

Resist the temptation to copy others and be confident that you can do things your way. A signature way of doing anything for your customers will set you apart from the competition.

Nothing happens overnight. It could take months to land your first wedding, so give your business time to take root. Don't rush the brush, so to speak. That moment you feel like quitting? Keep going.

Why try and figure this out all on your own when you could hire someone to help you achieve your goals quicker, faster, and better? Hire a mentor who has been where you want to go and watch how quickly you scale.

A little confidence goes a long way. Believe in your worthiness, experience, creativity, and capabilities. You can do this.

If you're serious about starting your wedding planning business, here are some resources I offer to help:

  • Free Business Plan Outline + Guide
  • Free Course To Launch Your Wedding Planning Business
  • The Client Cocktail
  • The Planner's Playbook
  • WeddingPro Insiders
  • Wedding Planner Business Tools

Know that I'm cheering you on and believing in you. 

Explore More Wedding Industry Resources

  • How To Become A Wedding Planner With No Experience
  • 9 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your Wedding Planning Business
  • How To Build Your Portfolio As A Wedding Planner When You’re Just Starting Out
  • Why You Need To Create A Client Journey As A Wedding Planner
  • How To Get Wedding Clients When You’re Just Starting Out
  • Day of Coordination: The Pros and Cons as a Wedding Planner
  • How Much Should You Charge As A Wedding Planner? Learn How To Figure Out Your Wedding Planner Pricing
  • 5 Contracts Every Wedding Planner Must Have To Be Legally Set
  • The #1 Reason Why You’re Not Booking The Right Wedding Clients (And How To Fix It)
  • 5 Online Wedding Planning Tools You Need to Use
  • How To Become A Destination Wedding Planner
  • 4 Strategies That Will Help You Book MORE Of Your Ideal Clients
  • 5 Tips On Crafting a Business Plan To Book Out Your Biz With Your Ideal Clients And Get Paid
  • What A Business Plan Will REALLY Reveal About Your Business
  • 6 Reasons Why I Recommend Asana for Wedding Planners
  • Are You a Disorganized Wedding Planner? Let’s Fix That With These Organized Wedding Planner Tips!

For More Wedding Planner Business Secrets Follow Me On Instagram

Did you read the timeline?🙄 One of the biggest problems wedding planners have to deal with is unprofessional colleagues. It’s one of the hardest parts of our job - and we don’t talk about it enough. I talked about this and more in my latest YouTube video! #weddingplannereducation #weddingplanning #weddingplanners #weddingpros #weddingvendor #weddingvendors #weddingpro #weddings #candicecoppola #plannersplaybook

wedding business plan

Is your website built like a museum or an airport? Engagement sales season is here, and I’m not gonna lie - your website probably needs a little refresh! But before you blow some dust off your homepage and start adding your most recent weddings, I’d love for you to listen to my conversation with @alexcollierdesign. She’s a Showit and Brand designer for wedding pros, and in this episode of The Power in Purpose Podcast, Alex shares how your website sets the tone for your client experience. As a business coach for wedding pros, I know how obsessed you are with giving your couples and clients an amazing experience. You invest in software, templates, service providers, gifting experiences, and business coaches to help you make your client experience the best on the block.... but what about your website? What role does it play in your overall client experience, and what does it tell a couple about what life will be like for them once they start working with you? We chat about all this and more - in today’s episode! #thepowerinpurposepodcast #candicecoppola #showit #showitdesigner #weddingpros #weddingindustry #weddingwebsite #weddingpro #businesspodcast #weddingpodcast

I’m making today a decision day in my business. I do this when I’ve let a lot of decisions pile up to the point where it feels overwhelming to make ANY decision about anything. I feel super stuck on where to focus my energy right now because so many things are ‘hanging in the balance.’ Can you relate?! So, today is a decision day - and I’m working on laying out my calendar, figuring out my marketing strategy for the year, deciding on new products, launches, roadmaps, and lots of other things. If you ever find yourself stalled and stuck because you’ve ignored making decisions about big and small things - consider having a decision day in your business, too! PS - would you like to see more reels and videos like this from me on IG? I’d love to know if you found this helpful! #candicecoppola #honeybook #weddingpro #weddingindustry #businessowner #businessstrategy #decisionmaking #weddingplannereducation

We’re back! I’m so happy to share that the newest season of The Power in Purpose podcast is here, and just in time for you to build your business this year. Today, I’m joined by one of my most favorite guests to date, @annadkornick! Anna is a time management coach who shows you how you can win your week before it even starts. One of the many challenges we face as business owners is finding the time to do #allthethings. Even if you start your week with the best of intentions, things can quickly spiral out of control and devolve into utter chaos. If you feel like you end the week accomplishing NOTHING that was on your original to do list, Anna gives you a new way to think about time and tasks with her simple but brilliant productivity method. We also talk about how to get back on track when things go off the rails. You know, when one task or email opens up a huge can of worms that you spend the next week having to fix. #lifeofaweddingplanner So grab a cup of caffeine, your new 2024 notebook, and your AirPods! You’re going to love this episode. #thepowerinpurposepodcast #powerinpurposepodcast #candicecoppola #weddingpro #weddingpros #timemanagementtips #weddingindustry #honeybook

Want more? Check out this video on my YouTube channel ↓

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Wedding planning business can be very successful career, if you work properly before establishing it. Many people learn the basic etiquettes about wedding planning while event planning course. If you want to get basic knowledge you can also get a course from a good institution and start up your business. Though it is a very interesting and joyful business for those, who love thrill and fun, but at the same time it demands commitment lots of energy and stress. Before starting up your business for wedding planning if you follow some important points, you can get better result in start and get good grip over your business soon.

Great post! I read your blog fairly often and you’re always coming out with some great stuff. I shared this on my Facebook and my followers loved it! Keep up the good work. 🙂

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Each week, we explore how to build a profitable business with purpose—and the stories behind successful entrepreneurs who have. Get ready to dig in and have meaningful conversations about business and life, as we explore the strategies and techniques that build the kind of business you want. 

I believe entrepreneurs who lead with their purpose are more successful, less likely to burn out, and deeply connected to why they do what they do. 

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How to Build Your Wedding Coordinator Business Plan

  • November 8, 2021

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When you know better, you do better. Having a business plan for your wedding coordinator business is “knowing better.” As you learn how to become a wedding planner, planing the business side of the equation your business is the first foundation step. 

Statistics show that entrepreneurs who plan their business are more likely to succeed . 

Since your business is planning (for weddings), you should prove your mettle with an effective business plan to help you scale your wedding coordination business.

Just like you would plan each individual wedding for your clients, a business plan takes care of the nitty-gritty for your consultancy. 

6 Benefits of Having a Wedding Coordinator Business Plan in 2022 

woman writing business plan

Benjamin Franklin famously said that “if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” 

As a wedding planner and coordinator, you are in the planning business. By not planning your business, you are leaving room for unknown factors that may ruin your business. 

The benefits of having a plan for your wedding coordinator business is even more far-reaching than a business plan for the average consultancy. 

Consider that planning your business path has these six benefits:

1. Raise Funds and Attract Investors 

Nobody will give you money without some well-laid plans. Simply knowing you want to make a living from coordinating weddings is not enough. 

You need to create a life plan for your business that will prove you have the goods to be financially successful in the long-term. 

A comprehensive business plan helps you attract the right investors (should you choose to go this route). 

2. Prove Your Business Smarts

Being business smart is not just about calculating finances. You need to be able to handle issues, resolve challenges, and manage all the resources at your disposal. 

By being smart, you ensure your investors find value.

3. Spot Issues Before They Appear

If you can see the edge before you fall, you can avoid weakness. Generate industry insights by consulting with people in your field and people who have used planners in the past. What issues to they experience? What mistakes do they think should be addressed? Learn from others, so that you don’t make this same mistake.

4. Become an Effective Communicator

With your business plan, you can show investors precisely what you want to achieve, and you can explain clearly what you want from them. 

You can use it as proof to convince people to work with you, securing supplier credit and attracting new customers.

5. Gain New Insights 

A business plan isn’t set in stone once it is written. Instead, see it as a living document that helps you think creatively about how to start and grow a wedding planning business. 

If you come across a challenge, use this opportunity to update your plan. Keep adding and subtracting as you iron our services, firm up mission statements, and pivot target audience.

6. Business to Action Plan

With a business plan, your wedding planning business can schedule action items, future steps, and forthcoming activities to show you where you need to focus and expand. 

Create an outline, fleshing it out as you learn about wedding planning and ask the right questions. 

The Elements of Wedding Planner Business Plan 

The wedding coordinator business plan is where you gather all your thoughts, ideas, and future budget so you can plan how you will address issues and reach goals. 

The aspects of a comprehensive business plan are: 

The Structure of Your Wedding Planning Business 

As part of your strategy on how to become a wedding planner, you should look at the legal aspects of your business, such as the legal name of the consultancy and whether you will be operating as a sole proprietor or even enter into a partnership with a fellow coordinator. 

You can also include all the relevant contact information and a brief professional bio for each of you. Valuable should you seek investors, or for adopting as a part of your website.

Your Mission and Goals 

Your business should strive to become a recognizable brand in your local wedding industry. To do this, you need to stand apart from the flock. 

You should evaluate the economic trends and patterns of expansion in the wedding industry. Use these insights to craft a mission statement, and set specific goals you wish to accomplish. You missio statement should be powerful and dialled in. “Planning weddings for couples” is not good enough.

The Services You Provide 

Not all wedding planners provide a full-stack service. You can choose to be a one-stop-shop for your clients or specialize in offering partial wedding planning packages . 

Full wedding planning includes coordinating everything from concept design up until the wedding event (and even the honeymoon). 

Partial wedding planning involves helping the happy couple with their wedding timeline. You may also be asked to manage the wedding day and ensure everything flows smoothly. 

Then there are also wedding consultation services. If you choose to offer this service, you are only responsible for providing recommendations to the bride- and groom-to-be. 

Suppliers, Vendors, and Contractors Your Business Will Use 

By identifying contractors and future suppliers you will regularly use, you will build a reference list to help you make estimates for services, fees, and contracts.

Turnaround Times and Delivery Methods for Each Wedding 

Often, your investors will be actual clients too, and by having methods to plan the turnaround times for each project, you can explain how you intend to meet deadlines, schedule deliveries, and set milestones for your clients and investors.

Your Target Market 

A groom and bride in a green garden, back turned

Every business needs to know their target market. 

While you should consider the profile of your bride and groom, and whether you want to help all couples or those in a certain income bracket, you should also check out your competitors. 

Knowing what your competitors are doing well and where there are gaps can help you set your wedding planning business apart.  

Your Marketing Strategy

Identify what methods you will use to find clients. This is your marketing approach. 

Investigate different marketing verticals such as traditional advertisements and digital alternatives like social media and search engine marketing. 

With the right keywords in your website or blog, you can attract clients through Google search. 

Be sure to have the information ready to answer client questions. A price list, commission rates, and a list of services will come in handy. Lead the industry with blogs that predict wedding trends and showcase your work. 

Generate social oomph with resources such as Pinterest , TikTok, and Twitter. Attend conventions as a vendor or speaker and be noticed. 

Financial Aspects of Your Business

Become financially responsible, balancing your bank statements, accurately reporting your expenses and income, and showing you can manage your cash flow effectively. 

These all boost investor confidence and help clients trust you to manage their wedding budgets too. 

The Executive Summary 

With a business plan, just like with a wedding, presentation is everything. 

The executive summary is the icing on the wedding business cake . This is where you draw everything together, presenting a succinct and coherent business statement, vision, goals, and mission statement. 

You need to prove you know exactly what you want for your wedding coordination business and that you know how to overcome challenges to get there. 

Entirely based on your executive summary, investors may decide to invest or not, and this is often the first impression your business plan will make. 

An executive summary is also a great way for you to touch base with your original business intentions, keep yourself on track, and keep pushing for success.  

Final Thoughts on How to Become a Wedding Planner

Your wedding coordinator business plan is one important aspect in your journey of how to become a wedding planner. 

Use the document as a roadmap to show you where you are and where you want to be, with detailed planning, issue spotting, and solution finding.    

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Annette Corrie

Our ‘Certificate of Professional Wedding Planning Course’ is here to help you through the process, by providing a step-by-step guide to getting started and becoming successful in your new career. This course will help you gain the skills, knowledge, and confidence you need to oversee all the details of a wedding. This course will help you prepare a successful and magnificent event!

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How to Write a Wedding Planner Business Plan in 9 Steps

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A clear and concise wedding planner business plan is essential for securing funding and outlining your goals. Learn how to create a winning plan with our guide.

A business plan is like a roadmap for entrepreneurs — it shows you how to start, run, and grow your business. It’s a written document that lays out your goals, strategies, and financial projections. To make an effective business plan, clearly define your objectives and paint a picture of your vision. Market research is important to understand your target market, competition, and industry trends. Your plan will also cover financial projections, sales targets, and pricing strategies. Having a solid plan helps you get funding from banks or investors and gives you a clear idea of your return on investment.

Business Plan Basics

Wedding planning can be a lucrative industry. The bridal industry has a market size of $70.7 billion . Nearly 2.5 million couples got married in 2022, and the average bride and groom spent $29,195 on their wedding, according to Wedding Report . For a successful wedding planner business, having a detailed business plan is crucial. It should include the following components:

  • Executive summary: An overview of your business idea, goals, and strategies.
  • Company description: Detailed information about your wedding planner business, including its legal structure, services offered, target market, and unique selling proposition.
  • Market analysis: Analyze the wedding industry to determine target market demographics, customer preferences, and create a competitive analysis.
  • Organization and management: Description of the company’s organizational structure, management team, and key personnel.
  • Service offering: Details of the wedding planning services you will provide, including packages, pricing, and any additional offerings.
  • Marketing and Sales Strategy: Include a plan for promoting and advertising your services, identifying target customer segments, and outlining sales strategies.
  • Operations: Provide information on how your business will be structured, including office location, equipment, and technology requirements, as well as vendor and supplier relationships.
  • Financial projections: Detailed financial forecasts, including startup costs, revenue projections, expenses, and profitability analysis. It should also include a break-even analysis and cash flow projections.
  • Risk assessment: Identify potential risks and challenges that may affect the success of your business, along with strategies to mitigate them.

Find the Right Match with a Franchise

While starting a wedding planner business from scratch can be overwhelming, partnering with a franchise like Complete Weddings + Events simplifies the process and provides a brand with an established reputation in the industry, giving you an immediate advantage in attracting clients and securing business. We’ve honed our concept and have a well-defined and tested business model.

Planning a wedding or event can be stressful. Once engaged, 33% of couples said they feel like they’re planning their wedding “all the time.” We aim to alleviate that burden by offering a range of services. We simplify the process for our customers, allowing them to relax and enjoy their special day without worrying about logistics. We take a comprehensive approach by providing wedding planning, photography, videography, DJ services, lighting, and more.

Opening a Complete Weddings franchise requires an investment of $56,820 to $71,070. We keep startup costs down with a home-based business model. As part of your investment, we provide a turnkey operation with training, support, and marketing guidance to relieve some of the hassles of launching a business.

All new franchisees attend a 10-day interactive training program. If you’re hiring a manager, they can attend training with you to get up to speed. During your in-person training, we cover business development, operations, sales, accounting, marketing, computer software, and networking. After you open your doors, we’ll help you stay up to date on the latest industry trends and business strategies at weekly webinars, monthly meetings, and annual conferences. And every franchisee regularly meets with a franchise business coach to stay on track.

Fall in Love with Complete Weddings

Partnering with an industry leader can help you build an accurate wedding planner business plan and streamline your startup process. Get started to learn more about starting a business in the wedding industry.

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Wedding Planning Business Plan

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If you are into creating memorable experiences, then planning a picture-perfect wedding for someone would be blissful and rewarding.

Anyone can start a new business, but you need a detailed business plan when it comes to raising funding, applying for loans, and scaling it like a pro!

Need help writing a business plan for your wedding planning business? You’re at the right place. Our wedding planning business plan template will help you get started.

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Free Business Plan Template

Download our free business plan template now and pave the way to success. Let’s turn your vision into an actionable strategy!

  • Fill in the blanks – Outline
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How to Write A Wedding Planning Business Plan?

Writing a wedding planning business plan is a crucial step toward the success of your business. Here are the key steps to consider when writing a business plan:

1. Executive Summary

An executive summary is the first section planned to offer an overview of the entire business plan. However, it is written after the entire business plan is ready and summarizes each section of your plan.

Here are a few key components to include in your executive summary:

Introduce your Business:

Start your executive summary by briefly introducing your business to your readers.

Market Opportunity:

Wedding planning services:.

Highlight the wedding planning services you offer your clients. The USPs and differentiators you offer are always a plus.

Marketing & Sales Strategies:

Financial highlights:, call to action:.

Ensure your executive summary is clear, concise, easy to understand, and jargon-free.

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wedding business plan

2. Business Overview

The business overview section of your business plan offers detailed information about your company. The details you add will depend on how important they are to your business. Yet, business name, location, business history, and future goals are some of the foundational elements you must consider adding to this section:

Business Description:

Describe your business in this section by providing all the basic information:

Describe what kind of wedding planning company you run and the name of it. You may specialize in one of the following wedding planning businesses:

  • Full-service wedding planner
  • Destination wedding planner
  • Theme wedding planner
  • Wedding consultant
  • Describe the legal structure of your wedding planning company, whether it is a sole proprietorship, LLC, partnership, or others.
  • Explain where your business is located and why you selected the place.

Mission Statement:

Business history:.

  • Additionally, If you have received any awards or recognition for excellent work, describe them.

Future Goals

This section should provide a thorough understanding of your business, its history, and its future plans. Keep this section engaging, precise, and to the point.

3. Market Analysis

The market analysis section of your business plan should offer a thorough understanding of the industry with the target market, competitors, and growth opportunities. You should include the following components in this section.

Target market:

Start this section by describing your target market. Define your ideal customer and explain what types of services they prefer. Creating a buyer persona will help you easily define your target market to your readers.

Market size and growth potential:

Describe your market size and growth potential and whether you will target a niche or a much broader market.

Competitive Analysis:

Market trends:.

Analyze emerging trends in the industry, such as technology disruptions, changes in customer behavior or preferences, etc. Explain how your business will cope with all the directions.

Regulatory Environment:

Here are a few tips for writing the market analysis section of your wedding consultant business plan:

  • Conduct market research, industry reports, and surveys to gather data.
  • Provide specific and detailed information whenever possible.
  • Illustrate your points with charts and graphs.
  • Write your business plan keeping your target audience in mind.

4. Wedding Planning Services

The product and services section should describe the specific services and products that will be offered to customers. To write this section should include the following:

Describe your services:

Mention the wedding planning services your business will offer. This list may include services like,

  • Initial consultation
  • Venue selection
  • Budget planning & management
  • Wedding design & theme development
  • Wedding day coordination

Explain the service process:

Additional services.

In short, this section of your wedding planning plan must be informative, precise, and client-focused. By providing a clear and compelling description of your offerings, you can help potential investors and readers understand the value of your business.

5. Sales And Marketing Strategies

Writing the sales and marketing strategies section means a list of strategies you will use to attract and retain your clients. Here are some key elements to include in your sales & marketing plan:

Unique Selling Proposition (USP):

Define your business’s USPs depending on the market you serve, the equipment you use, and the unique services you provide. Identifying USPs will help you plan your marketing strategies.

Pricing Strategy:

Marketing strategies:, sales strategies:, customer retention:.

Overall, this section of your wedding planning business plan should focus on customer acquisition and retention.

Have a specific, realistic, and data-driven approach while planning sales and marketing strategies for your wedding planning business, and be prepared to adapt or make strategic changes in your strategies based on feedback and results.

6. Operations Plan

The operations plan section of your business plan should outline the processes and procedures involved in your business operations, such as staffing requirements and operational processes. Here are a few components to add to your operations plan:

Staffing & Training:

Operational process:, equipment & machinery:.

Include the list of equipment and machinery required for wedding planning, such as office supplies, camera & photography equipment, project management software, wedding planning software, social media management tools, file transfer tool, etc.

Adding these components to your operations plan will help you lay out your business operations, which will eventually help you manage your business effectively.

7. Management Team

The management team section provides an overview of your wedding planning business’s management team. This section should provide a detailed description of each manager’s experience and qualifications, as well as their responsibilities and roles.

Founders/CEO:

Key managers:.

Introduce your management and key members of your team, and explain their roles and responsibilities.

Organizational structure:

Compensation plan:, advisors/consultants:.

Mentioning advisors or consultants in your business plans adds credibility to your business idea.

This section should describe the key personnel for your wedding planning business, highlighting how you have the perfect team to succeed.

8. Financial Plan

Your financial plan section should provide a summary of your business’s financial projections for the first few years. Here are some key elements to include in your financial plan:

Profit & loss statement:

Cash flow statement:, balance sheet:, break-even point:.

Determine and mention your business’s break-even point—the point at which your business costs and revenue will be equal.

Financing Needs:

Be realistic with your financial projections, and make sure you offer relevant information and evidence to support your estimates.

9. Appendix

The appendix section of your plan should include any additional information supporting your business plan’s main content, such as market research, legal documentation, financial statements, and other relevant information.

  • Add a table of contents for the appendix section to help readers easily find specific information or sections.
  • In addition to your financial statements, provide additional financial documents like tax returns, a list of assets within the business, credit history, and more. These statements must be the latest and offer financial projections for at least the first three or five years of business operations.
  • Provide data derived from market research, including stats about the industry, user demographics, and industry trends.
  • Include any legal documents such as permits, licenses, and contracts.
  • Include any additional documentation related to your business plan, such as product brochures, marketing materials, operational procedures, etc.

Use clear headings and labels for each section of the appendix so that readers can easily find the necessary information.

Remember, the appendix section of your wedding planner business plan should only include relevant and important information supporting your plan’s main content.

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This sample wedding planning business plan will provide an idea for writing a successful wedding planning plan, including all the essential components of your business.

After this, if you still need clarification about writing an investment-ready business plan to impress your audience, download our wedding planning business plan pdf .

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Frequently asked questions, why do you need a wedding planning business plan.

A business plan is an essential tool for anyone looking to start or run a successful wedding planning business. It helps to get clarity in your business, secures funding, and identifies potential challenges while starting and growing your business.

Overall, a well-written plan can help you make informed decisions, which can contribute to the long-term success of your wedding planning company.

Where to find business plan writers for your wedding planning business?

There are many business plan writers available, but no one knows your business and ideas better than you, so we recommend you write your wedding planning business plan and outline your vision as you have in your mind.

What is the easiest way to write your wedding planning business plan?

A lot of research is necessary for writing a business plan, but you can write your plan most efficiently with the help of any wedding planning business plan example and edit it as per your need. You can also quickly finish your plan in just a few hours or less with the help of our business plan software .

How do I write a good market analysis in a wedding planning business plan?

Market analysis is one of the key components of your business plan that requires deep research and a thorough understanding of your industry. We can categorize the process of writing a good market analysis section into the following steps:

  • Stating the objective of your market analysis—e.g., investor funding.
  • Industry study—market size, growth potential, market trends, etc.
  • Identifying target market—based on user behavior and demographics.
  • Analyzing direct and indirect competitors.
  • Calculating market share—understanding TAM, SAM, and SOM.
  • Knowing regulations and restrictions
  • Organizing data and writing the first draft.

Writing a marketing analysis section can be overwhelming, but using ChatGPT for market research can make things easier.

Can a good wedding planning business plan help me secure funding?

Indeed. A well-crafted wedding planning business plan will help your investors better understand your business domain, market trends, strategies, business financials, and growth potential—helping them make better financial decisions.

So, if you have a profitable and investable business, a comprehensive business plan can certainly help you secure your business funding.

What's the importance of a marketing strategy in a wedding planning business plan?

Marketing strategy is a key component of your wedding planning business plan. Whether it is about achieving certain business goals or helping your investors understand your plan to maximize their return on investment—an impactful marketing strategy is the way to do it!

Here are a few pointers to help you understand the importance of having an impactful marketing strategy:

  • It provides your business an edge over your competitors.
  • It helps investors better understand your business and growth potential.
  • It helps you develop products with the best profit potential.
  • It helps you set accurate pricing for your products or services.

About the Author

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Upmetrics Team

Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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Download Wedding Planning Business Plan

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Wedding Planning Business Plan [Sample Template]

By: Author Tony Martins Ajaero

Home » Business ideas » Entertainment Industry » Event Planning

Are you about starting a wedding planning company? If YES, here is a complete sample wedding planning business plan template & feasibility report you can use for FREE. Okay, so we have considered all the requirements for starting a wedding planning company .

We also took it further by analyzing and drafting a sample wedding planning service marketing plan template backed up by actionable guerrilla marketing ideas for wedding planning companies. So let’s proceed to the business planning section.

Wedding planning is a business that anyone with the necessary soft skills (i.e. organizing skills) can venture into. Wedding planning requires that you take off the burden of planning a wedding off the shoulders of your clients. Therefore, you would need an eye for details in addition to the eye you have got.

Confused? Do not be, that was on a lighter note. Now, the truth is that you would need to be extremely detailed. You do not want to come across your clients as one who leaves some kills important details out. If you do not possess this skill now, you may consider building it up.

Starting a wedding planning company is not too expensive except for the money required to rent and furnish an office space. The key to a successful wedding event is to ensure that all that is listed in your wedding event planning checklists is ticked.

As a matter of fact, if you undergo wedding cum event planning training, you are going to be taught how to draft event planning checklists for various events and key components that must be listed in your checklists.

One good thing about wedding planning is that most often than not, weddings are done during weekends and if you are lucky not to be working during weekends, you can successfully test run a wedding planning business. The truth is that, most of the basic skills needed to effectively run a wedding planning business are some of the soft skills you are likely going to acquire in your workplace.

If you are truly convinced that starting a wedding planning company is the right business for you to do, then you need to write your own business plan. Below is a sample wedding planning company business plan template that will help you successfully write yours with little or no stress;

A Sample Wedding Planning Business Plan Template

1. industry overview.

Wedding planners organize and design marriage ceremonies and receptions. A wedding planner ensures that they work with the stipulated budget of their clients and ensure that they deliver a successful wedding event as agreed. In some cases, it is the responsibility of the wedding planner to draw – up a budget for the client once they get a brief of the nature of the wedding event to be hosted.

A close study of happenings in the Wedding Planners industry in the united states shows that the industry has experienced remarkable growth and this is due to stronger economic conditions. It is normal that with increase in disposable incomes, there will be encouragement for more couples to marry, and to spend more on wedding planning or services related to their weddings.

So also, increased internet usage has made wedding planners more accessible to clients, decreasing the industry’s marketing costs and boosting profit margins.

These trends will offset the impact on the industry of changing social norms that have led couples to postpone marriage longer. No doubt, as the economy continues to strengthen, the growth in the wedding planners industry is expected to accelerate.

The Wedding Planners Industry is indeed a large industry and pretty much active in countries such as United States of America, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Holland, Nigeria, Switzerland, Australia and Canada et al.

Statistics has it that in the United States of America alone, there are about 39,643 registered and licensed wedding planning company scattered all across the United States responsible for employing about 41,714 and the industry rakes in a whooping sum of $1 billion annually.

The industry is projected to grow at -1.9 percent annual growth within 2011 and 2016. It is important to state that there is no establishment in this industry that has a lion market share.

A recent report published by IBISWORLD shows that the Wedding Planners industry is highly fragmented and largely distributed proportionally with population in the United States. The report stated that in 2015, the Southeast held the most industry establishments of any region, at 29.7 percent of the total. New England and the Rocky Mountains are expected to hold the least, at 4.4 percent each.

The Southeast region is expected to have 29.7 percent of industry establishments. This region also includes the state with the most establishments, Florida, which has an estimated 13.7 percent of industry establishments. The report further stated that States like Florida are population destination wedding locations.

Locations such as Disney World are very popular for weddings, which is why the number of establishment outpaces the proportion of population located in the region.

Lastly, one thing is certain about starting a wedding planner company, if you are able to conduct your market research and feasibility studies, you are more likely not going to struggle to secure clients because there are always individuals (bachelors and spinsters) who would want to hire your services when they are about getting married. Just ensure that the business is properly located and you have the right business network.

2. Executive Summary

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is a standard and licensed professional wedding planning company that will be based in Panama City – Florida. We have been able to secure a standard and well – positioned office facility in a business district in the heart of the city.

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC will handle all aspect of wedding planning such as wedding coordination, wedding shower / Bachelor’s eve, manage client’s time constraints, manage client’s budget, day-of-coordination services, conceptualization and design, full coordination services, and month of direction et al.

We are aware that to run a standard wedding planner company can be demanding which is why we are well trained, licensed and equipped to perform excellently well.

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is a client-focused and result driven wedding planner company that provides broad-based services at an affordable fee that won’t in any way put a hole in the pocket of our clients.  We will offer a standard wedding planner services to all to our clients at local, state, national, and international level.

We will ensure that we work hard to meet and surpass our clients’ expectations whenever they contract their wedding planning to us.

Our client’s best interest would always come first, and everything we do is guided by our values and professional ethics. We will ensure that we hire professionals who are well experienced in the Wedding Planners industry cum event planning industry.

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC will at all times demonstrate her commitment to sustainability, both individually and as a firm, by actively participating in our communities and integrating sustainable business practices wherever possible.

We will ensure that we hold ourselves accountable to the highest standards by meeting our client’s needs precisely and completely. We will cultivate a working environment that provides a human, sustainable approach to earning a living, and living in our world, for our partners, employees and for our clients.

Our plan is to position the business to become the leading brand in the professional wedding planners’ line of business in the whole of Panama City – Florida, and also to be amongst the top 20 professional wedding planner companies in the United States of America within the first 10 years of launching the business.

This might look too tall a dream but we are optimistic that this will surely come to pass because we have done our market research and feasibility studies and we are enthusiastic and confident that Panama City – Florida is the right place to launch our wedding planner company before spreading to other parts of The United States.

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is a private registered business that is owned by Mrs. Cloe Davenport and her immediate family members.

Mrs. Cloe Davenport has well over 10 years of experience working at various capacities within the wedding planners cum Event Planners industry in the United States of America.  She will work with a team of other core professionals to help build Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC to become a top brand in the Event Planners industry.

3. Our Products and Services

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is going to offer varieties of services within the scope of the Wedding Planners industry in the United States of America. Our intention of starting our wedding planner company is to favorably compete with leading players in the Wedding Planners industry both in the United States of America and in the world at large.

We are well prepared to make profits from the industry and we will do all that is permitted by the law in the United States to achieve our business goals, aim and ambition. Our business offerings are listed below;

  • Wedding coordination
  • Wedding shower / Bachelor’s eve
  • Manage client’s time constraints
  • Manage client’s budget
  • Day-of-coordination services
  • Conceptualization and design
  • Full coordination services
  • Month of direction
  • Wedding planning consulting and advisory services

4. Our Mission and Vision Statement

  • Our vision is to build a professional wedding planner company brand that will become one of the preferred choices for about to wed couples in the whole of Panama City – Florida and every other city where our services will be advertised. Our vision reflects our values: integrity, service, excellence and teamwork.
  • Our mission is to provide professional and trusted wedding planners services that assist our clients in achieving their personal goals as it relates to their wedding event. We are going to position the business to become one of the leading brands in the wedding planner line of business in the whole of Panama City – Florida, and also to be amongst the top 20 professional wedding planner companies in the United States of America within the first 10 years of launching the business.

Our Business Structure

Normally we would have settled for two or three full – time staff members, but as part of our plan to build a standard professional wedding planner company in Panama City – Florida, we have perfected plans to get it right from the beginning which is why we are going the extra mile to ensure that we have competent, honest and hardworking employees to occupy all the available positions in our organization.

The picture of the kind of professional wedding planner company we intend building and the business goals we want to achieve is what informed the amount we are ready to pay for the best hands available in and around Panama City – Florida.

We will ensure that we only hire people that are qualified, honest, hardworking, customer centric and are ready to work to help us build a prosperous business that will benefit all the stakeholders (the owners, workforce, and customers).

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our senior management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of five years or more depending how fast we meet our set target. In view of that, we have decided to hire qualified and competent hands to occupy the following positions;

  • Chief Executive Officer / Principal Partner

Wedding / Event Planning Consultant

Admin and HR Manager

  • Business Developer / Marketing and Sales Executive
  • Customer Care Executives

5. Job Roles and Responsibilities

Chief Executive Officer / Principal Partner:

  • Increases management’s effectiveness by recruiting, selecting, orienting, training, coaching, counseling, and disciplining managers; communicating values, strategies, and objectives; assigning accountabilities; planning, monitoring, and appraising job results; developing incentives; developing a climate for offering information and opinions; providing educational opportunities.
  • Creates, communicates, and implements the organization’s vision, mission, and overall direction – i.e. leading the development and implementation of the overall organization’s strategy.
  • Responsible for fixing prices and signing business deals
  • Responsible for providing direction for the business
  • Responsible for signing checks and documents on behalf of the company
  • Evaluates the success of the organization
  • Organizes wedding and other events from start to finish
  • Responsible for interviewing and hiring vendors, selecting and ordering materials, negotiating rates, coordinating the sequence of wedding events, following up with guests and vendors and producing full-scale events.
  • Plans, designs and produces wedding events while managing all project delivery elements within time limits
  • Liaises with clients to identify their needs and to ensure customer satisfaction
  • Conduct market research, gather information and negotiate contracts prior to closing any deals
  • Provides feedback and periodic reports to stakeholders
  • Propose ideas to improve provided services and wedding event quality
  • Organizes facilities and manages all wedding event’s details such as decor, catering, entertainment, transportation, location, invitee list, special guests, equipment, promotional material etc.
  • Ensures compliance with insurance, legal, health and safety obligations
  • Specify staff requirements and coordinate their activities
  • Cooperate with marketing and PR to promote and publicize wedding event as requested by our client
  • Proactively handle any arising issues and troubleshoot any emerging problems on the wedding event day
  • Conducts pre- and post – wedding event evaluations and report on outcomes
  • Research market, identify wedding event opportunities and generate interes
  • Responsible for overseeing the smooth running of HR and administrative tasks for the organization
  • Designs job descriptions with KPI to drive performance management for clients
  • Regularly hold meetings with key stakeholders to review the effectiveness of HR Policies, Procedures and Processes
  • Maintains office supplies by checking stocks; placing and expediting orders; evaluating new products.
  • Ensures operation of equipment by completing preventive maintenance requirements; calling for repairs.
  • Defines job positions for recruitment and managing interviewing process
  • Carries out staff induction for new team members
  • Responsible for training, evaluation and assessment of employees
  • Responsible for arranging travel, meetings and appointments
  • Updates job knowledge by participating in educational opportunities; reading professional publications; maintaining personal networks; participating in professional organizations.
  • Oversees the smooth running of the daily office activities.

Marketing Executive / Business Developers

  • Identifies, prioritizes, and reaches out to new partners, and business opportunities et al
  • Identifies development opportunities; follows up on development leads and contacts; participates in the structuring and financing of projects; assures the completion of development projects.
  • Writes winning proposal documents, negotiate fees and rates in line with company policy
  • Responsible for handling business research, marker surveys and feasibility studies for clients
  • Responsible for supervising implementation, advocate for the customer’s needs, and communicate with clients
  • Develops, executes and evaluates new plans for expanding increase sales
  • Documents all customer contact and information
  • Represents the company in strategic meetings
  • Helps to increase sales and growth for the company
  • Responsible for preparing financial reports, budgets, and financial statements for the organization
  • create reports from the information concerning the financial transactions recorded by the bookkeeper
  • Prepares the income statement and balance sheet using the trial balance and ledgers prepared by the bookkeeper.
  • Provides managements with financial analyses, development budgets, and accounting reports; analyzes financial feasibility for the most complex proposed projects; conducts market research to forecast trends and business conditions.
  • Responsible for financial forecasting and risks analysis.
  • Performs cash management, general ledger accounting, and financial reporting for one or more properties.
  • Responsible for developing and managing financial systems and policies
  • Responsible for administering payrolls
  • Ensures compliance with taxation legislation
  • Handles all financial transactions for the company
  • Serves as internal auditor for the organization

Client Service Executive

  • Welcomes guests and clients by greeting them in person or on the telephone; answering or directing inquiries.
  • Ensures that all contacts with clients (e-mail, walk-In center, SMS or phone) provides the client with a personalized customer service experience of the highest level
  • Through interaction with clients on the phone, uses every opportunity to build client’s interest in the company’s products and services
  • Manages administrative duties assigned by the manager in an effective and timely manner
  • Consistently stays abreast of any new information on the company’s products, promotional campaigns etc. to ensure accurate and helpful information is supplied to clients when they make enquiries
  • Receives parcels / documents for the company
  • Handles enquiries via e-mail and phone calls for the organization
  • Distributes mails in the organization
  • Handles any other duties as assigned by the line manager

6. SWOT Analysis

Going by our vision, our mission and the kind of business we want to set – up, we don’t have any other option than to follow due process. Following due process involves hiring business consultant to help us conduct SWOT analysis for our business.

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC hired the services of a seasoned business consultant with bias in start – ups in the United States to help us conduct a thorough SWOT analysis and to guide us in formulating other business strategies that will help us grow our business and favorable compete in the Wedding Planners industry.

As a company, we look forward to maximizing our strength and opportunities and also to work around our weaknesses and threats. Here is a summary from the result of the SWOT analysis that was conducted on behalf of Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC.

Our core strength lies in the power of our team; our workforce. We have a team that are considered experts in the industry, a team with excellent qualifications and experience in the Wedding Planners industry.

Aside from the synergy that exist in our carefully selected team members and our strong online presence, Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is well positioned in a city with the right demography and we know we will attract loads of corporate and individual clients from the first day we open our doors for business.

As a new professional wedding planner company in Panama City – Florida, it might take some time for our organization to break into the market and gain acceptance especially from top profile clients in the already saturated Wedding Planners industry; that is perhaps our major weakness.

So also, we may not have the required money to give the business the kind of publicity that we would love to give the business.

  • Opportunities:

The opportunities available in the Wedding Planners industry is massive considering the number of wedding and other events that takes places on a daily basis in the United States. As a standard and licensed professional wedding planner company, we are ready to take advantage of any opportunity that comes our way.

Some of the threats that we are likely going to face as a professional wedding planner company operating in the United States of America are unfavorable government policies , the arrival of a competitor within our location of operations and global economic downturn which usually affects purchasing power.

There is hardly anything we can do as regards these threats other than to be optimistic that things will continue to work for our good.

7. MARKET ANALYSIS

  • Market Trends

The Wedding Planners industry is in a continuous state of evolution and as such, ground breaking strategies and ideas that are once highly successful are no longer as productive as they were in time past. Close observation of the trend in the industry reveals that the past few years have seen the rise and proliferation of social media and new tech tools.

The trend also extends to increased attention paid to engagement and new market segments, adopting eco-friendly measures and sustainability when planning wedding events, and of course increases in demands from wedding event sponsors.

Although operators in the Wedding Planners industry are increasingly investing in computers and software to engage members and market their organizations online, the industry remains highly labor intensive. The research further states that wedding planner companies rely much more heavily on labor than technology to conduct their operations.

As a matter of fact, social media has now become one of the most important tools wedding event planners leverage on to disseminate information about their wedding events, interact with attendees, solicit feedback, and create year-round engagement with their target audience.

Furthermore, new software apps and emerging technology have made it easier for wedding planners to gather all the needed data and information that will help them plan and project for the future.

In recent time, mobile event apps are becoming more popular; wedding cum event planner can now successfully market their services via social media platforms / online platforms. In the United States for example, there several vendors providing mobile apps with more wedding cum event planners patronizing the apps.

Over and above, increased internet usage has made wedding planners more accessible to clients, decreasing the industry’s marketing costs and boosting profit margins.

These trends will offset the impact on the industry of changing social norms that have led couples to postpone marriage longer. No doubt, as the economy continues to strengthen, the growth in the Wedding Planners industry is expected to accelerate.

8. Our Target Market

Even though Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC will initially serve clients within the location where our business is, but that does not in any way stop us from growing to be able to compete with the leading professional wedding planner companies in the United States.

As a standard and licensed professional wedding planner company, Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC offers a wide range of services as it relates to wedding planning hence we are well trained and equipped to services a wide range of clientele base.

Our target market cuts across people of different class and people from all walks of life, local and international clients as well.

We are coming into the industry with a business concept that will enable us work with the highly – placed people (celebrities and public figures et al) and at the same with the lowly placed people. Below is a list of the people that we have specifically design our products and services for;

  • About to wed couples
  • Religious organizations
  • Celebrities and public figures who are still singles and are getting set to wed

Our competitive advantage

No doubt, the Wedding Planners industry is indeed a very prolific and highly competitive industry. Clients will only hire your services if they know that you can successfully help them organize their wedding events and take away the stress from them.

We are quite aware that to be highly competitive in the Wedding Planners industry means that you should be able to deliver consistent quality service, your clients should be fell less stress or no stress at all and you should be able to meet the expectations of your clients at all times.

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC might be a new professional wedding planner company in the Wedding Planners industry, but the management team and the owner of the business are considered gurus in the industry, professional who have what it takes to grow a business from scratch to become a top brand within the shortest time possible.

They are people who are core professionals; licensed and highly qualified, people that can successfully help their clients organize successful wedding events. These are part of what will count as a competitive advantage for us. Aside from our robust experience and expertise of our team of experts, we have a very strong online presence that will enable us attract clients from any part of the world

Lastly, our employees will be well taken care of, and their welfare package will be among the best within our category (startups wedding planner companies in the United States) in the industry.

It will enable them to be more than willing to build the business with us and help deliver our set goals and achieve all our business aims and objectives. We will also engage freelance marketing agents on a commission level to help us market our services.

9. SALES AND MARKETING STRATEGY

  • Sources of Income

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is established with the aim of maximizing profits in the Wedding Planners industry and we are going to go all the way to ensure that we do all it takes to attract clients on a regular basis. Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC will generate income by offering the following services to individual clients and for corporate organizations;

10. Sales Forecast

One thing is certain, there would always be about to wed couples who would always need the services for professional wedding planners and also there would always be parties and events in the United States of America and as such the services of professional wedding planners cum event planners companies will always be needed.

We are well positioned to take on the available market in Panama City – Florida and of course throughout out the United States of America and we are quite optimistic that we will meet our set target of generating enough income / profits from the first six month of operations and grow the business and our clientele base beyond Panama City to other cities in Florida and other states in the U.S.

We have been able to critically examine the professional wedding planner market space and we have analyzed our chances in the industry and we have been able to come up with the following sales forecast. The sales projections are based on information gathered on the field and some assumptions that are peculiar to similar startups in Panama City – Florida.

Below are the sales projections for Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC, it is based on the location of our business and the wide range of wedding planning services that we will be offering;

  • First Fiscal Year-: $150,000
  • Second Fiscal Year-: $350,000
  • Third Fiscal Year-: $750,000

N.B : This projection is done based on what is obtainable in the industry and with the assumption that there won’t be any major economic meltdown and natural disasters within the period stated above. There won’t be any major competitor offering same additional services as we do within same location. Please note that the above projection might be lower and at the same time it might be higher.

  • Marketing Strategy and Sales strategy

We are mindful of the fact that there are stiffer competitions amongst professional wedding planner companies in the United States of America; hence we have been able to hire some of the best business developer to handle our sales and marketing.

Our sales and marketing team will be recruited base on their vast experience in the Wedding Planners industry and they will be trained on a regular basis so as to be well equipped to meet their targets and the overall goal of the organization.

We will also ensure that our excellent job deliveries speak for us in the market place; we want to build a standard professional wedding planner business that will leverage on word of mouth advertisement from satisfied clients (both individuals and corporate organizations).

Our goal is to grow our professional wedding planner company to become one of the top 20 professional wedding planner companies in the United States of America which is why we have mapped out strategy that will help us take advantage of the available market and grow to become a major force to reckon with not only in the Panama City – Florida, but also in other cities in the United States of America.

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is set to make use of the following marketing and sales strategies to attract clients;

  • Introduce our business by sending introductory letters alongside our brochure to corporate organizations, religious organizations, households and key stake holders in Panama City and other cities in Florida.
  • Advertise our business in relevant business magazines, newspapers, TV stations, and radio station.
  • List our business on yellow pages ads (local directories)
  • Attend relevant international and local expos, seminars, and business fairs et al
  • Create different packages for different category of clients in order to work with their budgets and still deliver quality wedding planning services to them
  • Leverage on the internet to promote our business
  • Engage direct marketing approach
  • Encourage word of mouth marketing from loyal and satisfied clients
  • Join local chambers of commerce and industries with the aim of networking and marketing our services

11. Publicity and Advertising Strategy

We have been able to work with our brand and publicity consultants to help us map out publicity and advertising strategies that will help us walk our way into the heart of our target market.

We are set to take the Wedding Planners industry by storm which is why we have made provisions for effective publicity and advertisement of our company. Below are the platforms we intend to leverage on to promote and advertise Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC;

  • Place adverts on both print (community based newspapers and events related magazines) and electronic media platforms
  • Sponsor relevant community based events / programs
  • Leverage on the internet and social media platforms like; Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google + et al to promote our brand
  • Install our Bill Boards on strategic locations all around Panama City – Florida
  • Engage in road show from time to time in targeted neighborhoods
  • Distribute our fliers and handbills in target areas
  • Contact corporate organizations and religious organizations by calling them up and informing them of Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC and the services we offer
  • List our professional wedding planning firm in local directories / yellow pages
  • Advertise our professional wedding planning company in our official website and employ strategies that will help us pull traffic to the site.
  • Ensure that all our staff members wear our branded shirts and all our vehicles are well branded with our schools’ logo et al.

12. Our Pricing Strategy

Just like in consulting business, hourly billing for wedding planning / event management / training services is also a long – time tradition in the industry. However, for some types of professional wedding planning services flat fees make more sense because they allow clients to better predict the overall service charges.

As a result of this, Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC will charge our clients both flat fee and hourly billing as long as it favors both parties.

At Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC we will keep our fees below the average market rate for all of our clients by keeping our overhead low and by collecting payment in advance.  In addition, we will also offer special discounted rates to our clients from time to time especially when they recommend clients to us.

We are aware that there are some clients that would need regular access to professional wedding planning consultancy and advisory services and assistance, we will offer flat rate for such services that will be tailored to take care of such clients’ needs.

  • Payment Options

The payment policy adopted by Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is all inclusive because we are quite aware that different customers prefer different payment options as it suits them but at the same time, we will ensure that we abide by the financial rules and regulation of the United States of America.

Here are the payment options that Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC will make available to her clients;

  • Payment via bank transfer
  • Payment with cash
  • Payment via online bank transfer
  • Payment via mobile money
  • Payment via Point of Sales Machines (POS Machines)
  • Payment via check
  • Payment via bank draft

In view of the above, we have chosen banking platforms that will enable our client make payment for our professional wedding planning services without any stress on their part. Our bank account numbers will be made available on our website and promotional materials to clients who may want to deposit cash or make online transfer for our professional wedding planning services.

13. Startup Expenditure (Budget)

Starting a professional wedding planner business can be cost effective; this is so because on the average, you are not expected to acquire expensive machines and equipment.

Basically, what you should be concerned about is the amount needed to secure a standard office facility in a good and busy business district, the amount needed to furniture and equip the office, the amount to purchase the required software applications, the amount needed to pay bills, promote the business and obtain the appropriate business license and certifications.

However, this is what it would cost us to start our own standard and world class professional wedding planner company in the United States of America;

  • Equipping the office (computers, printers, projectors, markers, pens and pencils, furniture, telephones, filing cabinets, and electronics) will cost – $10,000
  • Acquiring an office space that will accommodate the number of employees we intend employing for at least 6 months (Re – Construction of the facility inclusive) will cost – $35,000.
  • The budget for liability insurance, permits and license will cost – $3,500
  • Business incorporating fees in the United States of America will cost – $750.
  • The cost for accounting software, event planning apps, CRM software and Payroll Software – $3,000
  • Other start-up expenses including stationery – $1000
  • Phone and Utilities (gas, sewer, water and electric) deposits – ( $3,500 ).
  • Launching an official website will cost – $500
  • Amount need to pay bills and staff members for at least 2 to 3 months – $70,000
  • Additional Expenditure such as Business cards, Signage, Adverts and Promotions will cost – $5,000
  • Miscellaneous – $5,000

Going by the report from the market research and feasibility studies conducted, we will need about one hundred and fifty thousand ( 150,000 ) U.S. dollars to successfully set – up a medium scale but standard professional wedding planner company in the United States of America. Please note that the salary for the payment of staff members for the first 3 months is included.

Generating Funds / Startup Capital for Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is a partnership business that will be owned by Mrs. Cloe Davenport and her immediate family members. They are the sole financial of the business which is why they decided to restrict the sourcing of the start – up capital for the business to just three major sources.

These are the areas we intend generating our start – up capital;

  • Generate part of the start – up capital from personal savings and sale of his stocks
  • Generate part of the start – up capital from friends and other extended family members
  • Generate a larger chunk of the startup capital from the bank (loan facility).

N.B: We have been able to generate about $50,000 ( Personal savings $35,000 and soft loan from family members $15,000 ) and we are at the final stages of obtaining a loan facility of $100,000 from our bank. All the papers and document has been duly signed and submitted, the loan has been approved and any moment from now our account will be credited.

14. Sustainability and Expansion Strategy

The future of a business lies in the numbers of loyal customers that they have the capacity and competence of the employees, their investment strategy and the business structure. If all of these factors are missing from a business (company), then it won’t be too long before the business close shop.

One of our major goals of starting Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC is to build a business that will survive off its own cash flow without the need for injecting finance from external sources once the business is officially running.

We know that one of the ways of gaining approval and winning customers over is to offer our professional wedding planning services a little bit cheaper than what is obtainable in the market and we are well prepared to survive on lower profit margin for a while.

Cloe Davenport Wedding Planners®, LLC will make sure that the right foundation, structures and processes are put in place to ensure that our staff welfare are well taken of. Our company’s corporate culture is designed to drive our business to greater heights and training and retraining of our workforce is at the top burner of our business strategy.

As a matter of fact, profit-sharing arrangement will be made available to all our management staff and it will be based on their performance for a period of three years or more as determined by the board of the organization. We know that if that is put in place, we will be able to successfully hire and retain the best hands we can get in the industry; they will be more committed to help us build the business of our dreams.

Check List / Milestone

  • Business Name Availability Check: Completed
  • Business Incorporation: Completed
  • Opening of Corporate Bank Accounts various banks in the United States: Completed
  • Opening Online Payment Platforms: Completed
  • Application and Obtaining Tax Payer’s ID: In Progress
  • Application for business license and permit: Completed
  • Purchase of All form of Insurance for the Business: Completed
  • Leasing a standard office facility in a good location plus reconstruction: In progress
  • Conducting Feasibility Studies: Completed
  • Generating part of the start – up capital from the founders: Completed
  • Writing of Business Plan: Completed
  • Drafting of Employee’s Handbook: Completed
  • Drafting of Contract Documents: In Progress
  • Design of Logo for the school: Completed
  • Graphic Designs and Printing of Packaging Marketing / Promotional Materials: Completed
  • Recruitment of employees: In Progress
  • Purchase of the needed furniture, office equipment, electronic appliances and facility facelift: In progress
  • Creating Official Website for the business: In Progress
  • Creating awareness for the business in Smethport – Pennsylvania: In Progress
  • Health and Safety and Fire Safety Arrangement: In Progress
  • Establishing business relationship with vendors and key players in various industries: In Progress

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How to Create a Wedding Venue Business Plan

Wedding venue set up for reception

Wedding Venue Essentials

Blog: Collection: Wedding Venue Essentials

Weddings are the cure for weekends full of empty hotel rooms , and they can turn a farm or turn-of-the-century farmhouse into a money-making event destination. In order to grab a piece of the wedding business for your hotel or event space , you’re going to need a business plan.

Read on to learn how to craft a wedding venue business plan that gets couples to choose your venue over the competition. 

How much can a wedding venue make?

According to ValuePenguin research,  the average cost of a wedding in the U.S. is approximately $25,000, give or take. The potential is there for a significant revenue stream. Be proactive in researching your local demand and competition to avoid surprises when starting a wedding venue business. Set realistic financial goals based on how your particular venue can generate money:

  • Rent your facilities for weddings and receptions. Think about couples spending over $2,000 on ceremony venues, and more than $15,000 on reception spaces. Multiply this out based on how many weddings you can host each week/month/year for a baseline revenue.
  • Give guests a place to stay. Weddings can vary in size, and many couples opt for destination weddings . Whether they’re inviting dozens of people or hundreds, those guests need a place to stay. Hoteliers are uniquely positioned to host these special events and provide rooms for an entire wedding party , all under one roof.
  • Build all-inclusive packages. Couples may think they can handle an à la carte reception until they see the list of things they're expected to bring (and pick up). A well-priced deal where you provide everything — from tables and chairs to linens, décor and even centerpieces — will save your customers time and hassle.
  • Add more revenue with food and beverage. Food at a wedding is extremely important. Whether in-house or through a vendor, consider rolling in catering to your all-inclusive packages . 
  • Go the extra (revenue) mile with valet parking. Whether in crowded cities or bucolic remote locales, some couples will look to cover the cost of valet parking for their guests. At approximately $15 a person, this generates a decent amount of extra revenue while showcasing your desire to enhance the guest experience .
  • Get listed on Wedding Spot .  Wedding Spot is the only directory exclusively showcasing venues, meaning no distractions or barriers to couples finding your venue. Wedding Spot processes 200,000 requests each year, offering a new way for special event venues and hotels to attract wedding business. 

CTA to Ebook: How to Maintain a Resilient Weddings Business

Understand the elements of a successful wedding venue

What do couples want from a wedding venue? As you start to conceptualize your business plan, take a hard look at what you already have in place and what you may need to invest in to give your customers what they want.

  • You’ll need a charming location with the right capacity.  If you're a hotelier with multiple ballrooms, you’re able to cast a wider net for different size weddings. If you run a unique wedding venue with less space, like a farm or barn, you need to target your marketing more narrowly. Investments in décor and furnishings may come into play as well.
  • Experienced, friendly staff is key. One of the top priorities for couples is making sure their guests are well taken care of. Remember, you're offering more than just a physical venue — you’re offering a memorable experience. Emphasize customer service with your staff training, or choose outsourced event staffing agencies with a critical eye.
  • Hook up couples with in-house services or a trusted vendor network.  Become a lifesaver for busy brides and grooms by coordinating the logistics (and costs) of a photographer, band or DJ, florist, bakery, and catering team. Strengthen your vendor partnerships by sending couples their way, or package everything together.
  • Provide accommodations for friends and family.  Aside from offering convenience for on-site wedding guests, position your hotel as an option for couples using other venues for their special event. They will still need wedding guest accommodations, usually under 30 minutes away. If you're running an independent wedding venue , make an effort to build strategic partnerships with area hotels, bed and breakfasts, and vacation rental companies to minimize a pain point for your customers.

Build a wedding venue business plan that makes sense for you

When writing your plan, think of your wedding venue business as a separate, independent entity , even if it’s part of an existing business.

This is an organic document, meaning it's meant to be updated on a regular basis as you experience ups and downs. In crafting your business plan, be sure to focus on these key sections:

Whatever your value proposition is, this is where to spotlight it. Go ahead and list your mission statement as well as a condensed version of every other business plan section listed below.

2. Company overview

Think of this as a high-level view of your business, explaining what you’re all about and what customers can expect out of you. Focus on your background, facilities, key resources and offerings, and your strengths and weaknesses.

3. Market analysis

Summarize all your research here so you can update it as you experience ebbs and flows in your local wedding marketplace. Be sure to include information and data on: 

  • Customers.  Segment your target customers, such as couples and event planners . Use this to personalize marketing messages to maximize your R.O.I.
  • Competitors.  Evaluate the businesses that are going to give you a run for your money. What do you do better than the competition ? In what areas do you need to play catch-up?
  • Potential growth.  Project what the wedding marketplace will be like for the next year, three years, and five years.

4. Sales and marketing

In order to enter your local wedding market successfully, you’re going to need to position your business the right way to attract customers. To do this, detail a sales and marketing strategy that includes: 

  • Goals.  Determine how many weddings per week/month/year you're looking to host. Also include how you plan to turn wedding guests into future customers.
  • Lead generation tools.  List all your online and offline marketing resources. This includes your wedding venue sourcing software , email marketing packages, websites and social media, direct marketing, advertising, sponsorships, partnerships, wedding industry memberships, and public relations efforts.

5. Organizational structure

Pay attention to your behind-the-scenes and public-facing management and staffing teams, which are essential to your operational success. List names, titles, and responsibilities to keep tabs on who's doing what. This is also the place to include the legal status of your business (sole proprietorship, limited liability company, corporation, S corporation, partnership, nonprofit, etc.).

6. Finances

As the old saying goes, you need to spend money to make money. Focus on what you need to spend on launching your endeavor, along with what you'll generate in cash flow and income.

  • Funding.  Clarify whether you own your building or will need to pay rental or lease space. Include details on any lines of credit or loans needed to purchase property, kitchen equipment, and other fixed assets. Do the same thing if you need cash to cover startup operational costs. 
  • Revenue projections.  Include your forecasted income statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets if and when you have them.
  • Expense projections.  Cover any capital expenditures you'll need to purchase items such as your building, land, and equipment. Incorporate any operational expenses you’ll be incurring on a regular basis like staff salaries and climate control.

Clearly define your critical milestones and timeline to launch your wedding event venue business. Challenge yourself with these, but be sensible and balance your enthusiasm with realistic expectations based on research.

Make your wedding venue stand out from the competition!

Example: Barn wedding venue business plan summary

Check out this fictitious example of a wedding venue business plan for the Azalea Gardens Farm. Even though this is focused on barn weddings , you can adapt it easily to your own outstanding event space . Remember to flesh out each section in your complete business plan, adding numerous details as appropriate.

1. Mission statement

The vibrant colors of azalea blooms bring joy and hope. Our mission at the Azalea Gardens Farm is to bring that same feeling to your special day.  

Owners Stacy and David Dean bring their three decades-plus of service industry experience to bear on creating memorable wedding ceremonies and receptions. The Azalea Gardens Farm centerpiece, our 75-year-old refurbished barn, accommodates up to 150 wedding guests. Couples have use of our historic main house for rehearsal dinners as well as wedding-day prep for the bride and groom and their wedding parties. Photographers love our country setting, in addition to our convenient location just 15 minutes from the beautiful beaches of Topsail Island, North Carolina.

We provide several options for couples:

  • Rehearsal dinner: $500 - $1,200 (depending on size)
  • Wednesday-Thursday à la carte wedding rental: $1,000
  • Weekend à la carte wedding rental: $1,500
  • Weekday wedding package: $2,500
  • Weekend wedding package: $3,000

The wedding services industry is experiencing increasing per capita disposable income from couples, enabling them to spend more on weddings. Industry revenue is expected to expand to $78 billion in the U.S. Locally, the growing population and vacation popularity of the southeastern North Carolina coast is leading to an increase in 25- to 55-year-olds visiting and moving here. This provides us a market for traditional and non-traditional weddings.

Our main competitors are vacation rental agencies in North Topsail Beach, Surf City, and Topsail Beach who leverage their properties as destination wedding locations. Secondary competitors are event venues in Wilmington, North Carolina, including historic mansions, craft breweries, and a handful of boutique hotels. Third, we compete locally with Belvedere Plantation for indoor/outdoor combo weddings. There are no other farm-oriented wedding venues in a 50-mile radius.

We are looking to host five to seven weddings a week during the peak wedding season of May through November, and one to three per week throughout the rest of the year. 

Leveraging our unique, picture-perfect venue and customer service-focused guest services, we will appeal to unmarried wedding guests who want a similar experience. We also plan to use visual-oriented social media channels like Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to grow our presence organically. In combination with a vigorous content marketing effort via our popular blog , we plan to drive website traffic with online PPC advertising on Google and YouTube; banner advertising on regional travel websites; and geofencing for area beachgoers and other tourists.

Owners Stacy and David Dean are co-founders, with David serving as CEO and Stacy as COO. General manager Heidi Kipp will coordinate all events as well as wedding planner and vendor partnerships, working with event coordinator Steve Antonsen, who will run wedding day operations.

The Deans own their facilities outright and have appropriated a $50,000 SBA loan to begin operations in the spring of 2021. Azalea Gardens Farm is uniquely positioned, with its fixed costs and low overhead, to reach $300,000 in revenue by Year 3 with a 75% gross margin.

The leadership team is currently cementing partnerships with vendors and wedding planners. Facility upgrades are complete, with plans for purchasing tables, chairs, linens, and other equipment in summer 2021. A photographer has been hired to shoot the facilities in June 2021 with actors for use in marketing efforts which will begin July 2021. We will book our first weddings in the fall of 2021, with positive cash flow realized the following summer. 

Use this wedding venue business plan information to get started!

Managing your event venue and tracking sales are as important as building your business and generating the sales themselves. Software solutions from Cvent save you time and money while freeing you up to follow through on pre-qualified leads to grow your wedding venue business.

Up next, check out how to come up with wedding venue name ideas in five simple steps

Don't let your wedding venue get left behind!

Cvent Guest

Cvent is a market-leading meetings, events, and hospitality technology provider with more than 4,000 employees, ~21,000 customers, and 200,000 users worldwide.

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Wedding Venue Business Plan

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Wedding Venue Bliss

Value proposition.

Wedding Venue Bliss provides a stunning, customizable event space that couples can tailor to their dream wedding experience. Featuring picturesque outdoor settings and stylish indoor facilities, the venue offers a flexible, all-in-one location for ceremonies, receptions, and overnight accommodations.

The Problem

Many wedding venues lack the versatility and resources to accommodate diverse wedding themes and personal touches. Couples often struggle to find a venue that offers both a beautiful environment and the necessary amenities for a seamless, memorable event.

The Solution

Wedding Venue Bliss addresses these challenges by offering a customizable space that caters to various wedding themes and preferences. With indoor and outdoor options, on-site accommodations, and personalized services, couples can create the perfect setting for their big day.

Target Market

The primary market for Wedding Venue Bliss is engaged couples seeking a unique and adaptable location for their wedding ceremony and reception. The secondary market includes event planners, corporate clients, and families organizing special events and celebrations.

Competitors & Differentiation

Current alternatives.

  • Traditional wedding venues (e.g., hotels, banquet halls)
  • Country clubs and golf courses
  • Parks and gardens
  • Vineyards and wineries
  • Historic sites and landmarks

Wedding Venue Bliss stands out with its customizable event spaces and a comprehensive range of services, ensuring a stress-free and memorable experience. Our team of professionals offers personalized assistance in event planning, catering, and design, allowing couples to bring their vision to life.

Funding Needs

The target property costs $600,000. The property will be purchased with a 20% down payment plus closing costs. $50,000 in renovations and upgrades are required. The estimated funding needed for furniture, event equipment, initial supplies, and a contingency fund is $50,000. The total initial funding needed is $230,000.

Sales Channels

  • Wedding Venue Bliss Website
  • Wedding Planner Associations
  • Social Media Platforms
  • Local Tourism Boards
  • Wedding and Event Websites

Marketing Activities

  • Social Media Campaigns
  • Blogging and Content Marketing
  • Collaborations with Local Wedding Vendors
  • Press Releases and Media Outreach
  • Bridal Expos and Trade Shows

Financial Projections

2023: $120,000

2024: $150,000

2025: $180,000

Expenses/Costs

2023: $80,000

2024: $90,000

2025: $100,000

2023: $40,000

2024: $60,000

2025: $80,000

  • Obtain necessary permits and licenses — June 1, 2023
  • Complete renovations and upgrades — August 1, 2023
  • Set up event spaces and accommodations — September 1, 2023
  • Launch website and social media accounts — September 15, 2023
  • Open for business — October 1, 2023
  • Host first wedding event — December 1, 2023
  • Partner with local wedding vendors — January 1, 2024
  • Achieve 70% or higher booking rate — June-September, 2024
  • Expand event offerings and services — January 1, 2025

Team and Key Roles

Owner/operator.

Responsible for overseeing the daily operations of Wedding Venue Bliss, including event coordination, guest accommodations, and community engagement.

Event Manager

Manages the coordination and execution of events, working closely with clients and vendors to ensure a seamless and memorable experience.

Housekeeping and Maintenance Staff

Ensure the cleanliness and upkeep of event spaces, accommodations, and common areas, as well as maintaining the venue’s facilities and equipment.

Partnerships & Resources

The purpose of these partnerships is to provide clients with a comprehensive range of services and resources to create a seamless and memorable wedding experience while supporting local businesses and fostering collaboration within the community.

Local Wedding Vendors

Partner with photographers, florists, caterers, and entertainers to offer clients a one-stop solution for their wedding needs, ensuring seamless coordination and high-quality services.

Bridal Boutiques and Tuxedo Rentals

Collaborate on promotional offers, cross-promotion of products and services, and referrals to offer clients a complete wedding package.

Local Hotels and Accommodations

Establish relationships with nearby hotels and accommodation providers to offer overflow lodging options for wedding guests and secure special rates for clients.

Wedding Planners and Event Coordinators

Develop partnerships with local wedding planners and event coordinators to increase referrals, collaborate on marketing efforts, and streamline the planning process for clients.

Community Organizations and Nonprofits

Engage with community organizations and nonprofits to host charity events, fundraisers, and awareness campaigns, positioning Wedding Venue Bliss as a community-conscious business.

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wedding business plan

Create The Perfect Wedding Venue Business Plan

Wedding venues are extremely lucrative and are a great way to supplement your venue’s income. But to establish a successful wedding venue business and lure in investors, you need to create an engaging wedding venue business plan.

Today’s guide will help you establish your business plan and cement your spot in the wedding venue industry.

Learn about wedding venue business plans, who needs them, and what points to cover when creating your wedding venue business plan.

What Is a Wedding Venue Business Plan?

A wedding venue business plan is a document that examines your wedding venue business in the present and provides an overview of goals for the future. The business plan lays out short and long-term goals, strategies to reach these goals, and financial forecasts.

Who Needs a Wedding Venue Business Plan?

Any wedding venue business can benefit from a business plan.

A successful wedding venue understands its goals, services, and strategies, and a business plan is a great way to conceptualize the practical aspects of business management.

While most business plans are created for new businesses, a wedding venue business plan is also advantageous if you’re hoping to grow your business. Crafting strategies for growth and putting these strategies on paper works wonders for wedding venues that have gone stagnant or are losing money.

Finally, a business plan is essential for gaining investors or applying for loans.

wedding business plan

The business plan provides investors with a snapshot of the business success plan. If you approach a potential investor with vague thoughts and dreams of success with no practical plans, you become a risky investment.

A business plan lets you bring your wedding venue plan to life. The practical applications and clear goals and strategies will encourage confidence in your business endeavors – increasing the chances of investors buying in.

Wedding Venue Business Plan | Points To Cover

Now that we’ve got the theory out of the way, let’s discuss how to create your wedding venue business plan.

Executive Summary

The executive summary is an overview of the entire wedding venue business plan.

Start the summary by creating a short mission statement for your wedding venue. The mission statement should be objective and to the point. It should also list the current status of your wedding venue business. Are you a start-up or aiming to expand your wedding venues into a franchise?

Next, create a summary for each of the below sections. The executive summary should be a short, to-the-point overview that condenses the entire report into its key points.

Keep the writing simple and firm. The report should convey confidence and engage the reader.

Company Overview

After the executive summary, the next section should outline the company overview. The company overview is an analysis of your company.

wedding business plan

The company overview should contain:

  • Background: What is the background of the business? This is especially important if you’re not a start-up. If you are a start-up, list your experience in the wedding industry.
  • Wedding Venue Facilities: What type of event space do you have available? Is it a modern wedding venue that wedding planners can convert to fit multiple themes? Is it a niche wedding venue like a barn or farmstead?
  • Business Milestones: If the wedding business is already accepting business, list all business milestones and achieved goals.
  • Strengths & Weaknesses: Be honest and objective about your business's strengths and weaknesses. It’ll help you maintain your strengths and supplement your weaknesses.
  • Legal Status: Explain the legal status of the business. Is the business owned solely by you or do you have partners? Is all business paperwork up to date? Does the wedding venue have a liquor license?

If you have any other information that you think is relevant to the business plan, add it to the business overview.

Market Analysis

Market analysis is an essential step in any wedding venue business plan. Educating yourself on the wedding venue industry ensures you build strategies backed by research and statistics. Working off guesswork leaves too much up to chance.

Doing market research will also ingratiate you to any investors or stakeholders. A well-informed and researched business owner is more likely to put resources to good use and win investments from interested parties.

wedding business plan

So, thoroughly research the wedding venue industry in your area. Your business plan should answer the following market questions.

  • What are the wedding venue trends in the local wedding market?
  • Is the wedding venue industry growing or declining?
  • Is the change consistent or influenced by external factors that will change in the future?
  • How much is the wedding venue industry bringing in annually in your area?
  • Which wedding venues are dominating the wedding market in your area?
  • What does the industry forecast look like for the next 10 years?

Add any other relevant local venue statistics you think could influence your venue business.

Customer Profile and Analysis

Next, establish your target audience. To effectively sell your wedding venue, you need to understand your customers.

First, consider your area and the local market. What is the average age of the marrying population? What wedding reception themes are doing the best? What’s the average wedding spending price?

Use this data to create customer segments – older married couples, young couples, wedding vow reaffirmation couples – and fill out the customer profiles with the gathered data.

Once you know which groups are in the area, you can create promotions, event packages, and prices that suit the local market. The customer profile should be backed by data analysis which you can gather with the help of CRM software .

Marketing Strategy

Once you understand the local market and who you want to sell to, create an effective marketing strategy to tap into local demand. An effective marketing strategy will also provide a competitive advantage and encourage investments.

First, list what the wedding venue offers. This includes the type of event space as well as catering services, wedding or event planning, and any available officials to officiate weddings.

Second, list the exact location of the wedding venue and what makes it unique. Also list the surroundings, whether it be natural landmarks or businesses, that could influence the venue’s marketing. For example, if the venue is near the mountains, it could draw in nature enthusiasts.

After you’ve established your services, create wedding venue packages for all the venue services.

Lastly, create a promotional strategy. The promotion strategy should be comprehensive and backed by research. Use the customer profiles from the previous steps to lay out how you’ll find, attract, and book target customers.

Competitor Analysis

The wedding venue business is highly competitive. To ensure your business is successful, you’ll need to examine wedding venue competitors in the area.

Create profiles for the wedding venues near you and answer the following questions.

  • What makes them different?
  • What are their strengths and target audience?
  • What are their weaknesses and how can you exploit these weaknesses?
  • Which promotional activities do they utilize that work well in the local market?
  • How does their pricing structure work?
  • How can you gain a competitive edge?

Add any other relevant competitor information that you observe and update it regularly.

wedding business plan

Wedding Venue Business Structure

In this section, list the business operations structure of your venue business. The operations summary should showcase the internal hierarchy, teams, titles, and responsibilities of every individual.

Also, use this section to provide an in-depth overview of the legal structure of your wedding venue business.

Financial Plan

For both startups and businesses hoping for a boost, finances play a crucial role. To ensure accurate spending and financial projections, create a financial plan section where you cover the following:

  • Cash Flow Statement: What funds will you need to start and manage the business? Be thorough and list all expenses, even the ones you believe are miscellaneous.
  • Income Statements: List a breakdown of annual income for previous years. Create mock-ups of income statements based on average venue incomes and the average number of weddings you aim to host. Be realistic and honest.
  • Running Costs: Running costs include all the financing you’ll need to run the wedding business and to fulfill all the wedding venue services. Include all operations expenses like salaries, electric bills, uniforms, etc. Creating an event management budget will also streamline venue running costs.

Wedding Venue Business Goals

Lastly, manifest success by clearly outlining your business goals. List short and long-term goals for revenue, clients, and brand growth. Measure the business success by tracking the growth metrics to ensure you’re on the right track.

When creating your goals, stay within a challenging but achievable framework.

wedding business plan

The wedding planning and hosting industry is massive. While wedding venues are extremely lucrative, it’s not easy money. Business planning plays a big role in the success story.

To set your wedding venue up for success and to entice investors, you need an effective business plan. Fortunately, you can use this guide to create an effective and engaging business plan.

Increase wedding venue sales, save time, and get organized with Perfect Venue event management software. Sign up with Perfect Venue today!

Have thoughts on the article? Feel free to email us at [email protected] - we'd love to hear it!

wedding business plan

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Wedding Planning Business Plan

JAN.30, 2018

Wedding Planning Business Plan

Do you want to start wedding planning business?

Do you want to start a wedding planning business ? Well, if you have a passion to plan events along with good management skills, you can certainly enter into this venture. The biggest benefit of starting this business is that it requires the least capital investment as compared to many other businesses. You can start this business in a small office with a small team and a little inventory comprising of mostly office and stationery products. Secondly, this business starts yielding a profit as soon as it is launched. Finally, this business never gets down since 2.3 million couples wed every year in the US and nearly $72 billion dollars are spent annually on these weddings. Considering these stats, it is evident that this business can prove immensely profitable provided that you plan it successfully. So, before you move on to starting this venture, you will have to prepare a comprehensive business plan which will establish the basis of your company’s future operations and decisions. If you are wondering how to write an effective business plan then here we are providing you the business plan of a wedding planning business startup named ‘Kelly Weddings’.

Executive Summary

2.1 the business.

Kelly Weddings will be a bonded, insured and licensed wedding planning business, located in the Manhattan borough of the New York City. We aim to serve the nearby residential community of the city by proving them the highest quality wedding planning services so as to make their weddings the best events of their lives. Kelly Weddings will be owned and operated by Kelly Rin who has been associated with the wedding planning industry for more than 10 years and is best known for her creative ideas, innovative décor accents and exquisite attention to details. Having a decade-long experience in this industry and tons of social connections, she is undoubtedly the most suitable person for this venture and knows how to start wedding planning business.

2.2 Management

Kelly will manage the overall operations of the company while she will be assisted by some of her friends for the startup. Initially, she will hire a small team for managing and operating the company. The team will primarily comprise of decorators, photographers, inventory managers and sales executives along with other necessary personnel.

2.3 Customers & Services

Our target market will be the residential community of the New York City. The community comprises of well-established residents who can easily spend extravagantly on their weddings. We will offer various services to our esteemed customers like menu planning, venue planning, accommodation planning, budget planning, event decorating, etc. Our customers can either avail any of our individual services or they can avail all services as a wedding package. As per the theme of weddings, customers can either choose from our set of pre-defined themes or may get a customized theme created specifically for them. Wedding planning industry is really a competitive one since there are more than 39,000 registered wedding planning businesses in the United States, as of 2017. Our two biggest competitive advantages will be offering of the individual wedding services and our unparalleled customer service. Considering these two aspects, we hope that we can excel all of our competitors.

2.4 Target of the Company

The target of the company is to become the best wedding planner business in the New York City within the next five years and to balance the initial cost of the startup with earned profits by the end of the first year.

Wedding Planning Business Plan - 3 Years Profit Forecast

Company Summary

3.1 company owner.

Kelly Weddings will be owned and operated by Kelly Rin. Kelly has been associated with the wedding planning industry for more than 10 years. She has been working at executive positions in various event planning companies throughout the United States for creating memorable and unique weddings. Kelly is best known for her creative ideas, innovative décor accents and exquisite attention to even the tiniest bit of details. She is capable of planning everything from a party of two to a party for thousands. Kelly is expert in planning stylish, personalized, unique and unforgettable weddings irrespective of the number of the guests.

3.2 Why the Business is being started

Kelly has been planning, organizing and executing school events since her high school days. She is extremely passionate about planning events and parties, especially weddings. That’s why she became associated with some of the biggest event organizers of the United States and has planned the weddings of many celebrities and high-profile clients. Ultimately, her clients recognized her creativity and at their urging, she decided to start a wedding consultants business.

3.3 How the Business will be started

You have to consider many aspects before you think about how to start a wedding planning business . Being associated with this industry, Kelly successfully planned everything about her business including the required personnel and inventory. The office of Kelly Weddings will be located in Manhattan borough of the New York City. A 300 square feet office, which was previously used by an IT firm, has already been procured on lease in the center of the main commercial district of Manhattan. In addition to renovation works, the company will procure office furniture including four filing cabinets, five work desks, couch and chairs for customer waiting area, and a round table with chairs for the meeting area. The financial experts have forecasted following costs for expenses, assets, investment, and loans for the start-up.

Wedding Planning Business Plan - Startup Cost

The detailed start-up requirements, start-up funding, start-up expenses, total assets, total funding required, total liabilities, total planned investment, total capital and liabilities as forecasted by experts, is given below:

Services for customers

At Kelly Weddings, we will make sure to create a unique, personal wedding that will be beautifully managed as well as artfully designed. Kelly Weddings will primarily be a wedding consulting company but we will also provide following services:

  • Contract review & negotiation
  • Venue & vendor selection/ management
  • Menu & caterer selection/ management
  • Accommodations & travel coordination
  • Budget & timeline development/ management
  • Event design including ceremony, room décor & tabletop

Customers can avail any of the abovementioned services or a complete wedding package including all of them. Our weddings will be completely customized to reflect the personality of every couple.

Marketing Analysis of wedding planning business

The most important component of an effective wedding planning business plan is its accurate marketing analysis that’s why Kelly acquired the services of marketing experts to help her through this phase. It is only after this stage that a good wedding consultant business plan could have been developed. After identifying the local market trends in the New York City, the marketing experts and analysts also helped her to select the best site for establishing the main office of the company. The success or failure of a business totally depends upon its marketing strategy which can only be developed on the basis of accurate marketing analysis. Marketing analysis is a must-do thing before you even think about how to start a wedding planner business . Therefore, it must be considered before developing a wedding planning business plan sample . There are four main steps to carry out an accurate marketing analysis which are to identify the current market trends, identify your target audience and potential customers, set out the business targets to achieve, and finally set the prices of your products and services.

5.1 Market Trends

Wedding planning industry is one of the biggest industries of the United States. Its market can be estimated by considering the fact that more than 2.3 million weddings take place each year in the United States. In other words, more than 6,200 weddings take place daily in the United States. Another important factor behind the vast market of this industry is that people don’t mind to spend extravagantly on their weddings. For instance, the citizens of the United States spend more than $72 billion each year on their weddings. Considering these figures, it is clearly evident that the wedding planning industry can be immensely profitable provided that you plan your business successfully.

5.2 Marketing Segmentation

Kelly Weddings will be a Manhattan-based wedding planning business and will target the community living in the residential zone of the city located at 10 minutes’ drive from our office. Before starting a wedding planning business it was crucial to analyze the market segmentation of the future customers of our services. A successful and efficient marketing strategy business plan can only be developed after we completely know our potential customers. The community consists of all types of people from varying backgrounds. As per the financial position, nearly half of the community has a monthly income ranging from $40k to $50k while nearly 10% people have incomes even around $100,000. Our experts have identified the following type of target audience which can become our future consumers:

Wedding Planning Business Plan - Market Segmentation

The detailed marketing segmentation of our target audience is as follows:

5.2.1 Couples aged 20-35 years:

The first target group will be the couples lying in the range of 20-35 years. These couples are usually getting married for the first time and hence are even willing to go to lengths in order to make their wedding day the best day of their lives. These people often like modern party-style weddings with glamorous lights and latest music. Since most of the people get married while they are in between 20-35 years of their age, this target group will be the biggest consumer of our services and our marketing strategy will be specifically built to target them.

5.2.2 Couples aged 35-45 years:

The second target group will be the couples lying in the range of 35-45 years. These couples have a sober nature as compared to the first group and hence the themes of their wedding are more decent and classical. In addition to that, these couples are usually getting married for the second or third time of their lives hence they don’t spend extravagantly on their weddings. Considering the needs of this customer group, we have developed economy packages so as to target them.

5.2.3 Couples aged 45+ years:

The third category includes senior people with ages more than 45 years. Since the number of such weddings is negligible as compared to the previous two groups, this target group does not play any significant role in defining our marketing strategy. The detailed market analysis of our potential customers is given in the following table:

5.3 Business Target

We aim to become the best wedding planners of the New York City within next five years of our startup. Our main business targets to be achieved as milestones over the course of next three years are as follows:

  • To achieve the net profit margin of $10k per month by the end of the first year, $15k per month by the end of the second year, and $25k per month by the end of the third year
  • To balance the initial cost of the startup with earned profits by the end of the first year
  • To open up a second company office by the end of three years in San Francisco, and a third office by the end of five years in Los Angeles

5.4 Product Pricing

Product and service pricing is one of the most important factors in deciding the strategy for an event planning business. Selecting the price for the services is a difficult task, especially for the startups, because one has to attract customers while yielding a profit at the same time. After considering the market demands, we have priced all our services in the similar ranges as of our competitors. The reason behind our pricing policy is to achieve the minimum attractive rate of return which would not be possible in case of offering our services at low prices. Customers can avail any of our individual services or they can avail all services as a wedding package. Currently, we are offering the following two packages:

  • Economy Package: Starting from $5,000
  • Luxury Package: Starting from $20,000

The exact price of our services and packages depends on the number of guests. As per the theme of weddings, customers can either choose from our set of pre-defined themes or may get a customized theme created specifically for them.

Like marketing analysis, sales strategy is also an important component of your business plan so make sure to plan it before you even think about how to start your own wedding planning business . The key to develop an effective sales strategy is to conduct a thorough competitive analysis so as to know what business aspects are missed by your competitors.

6.1 Competitive Analysis:

As of 2017, there were more than 39,000 registered wedding planners in the United States and the numbers are still on rise. Likewise, there are hundreds of established wedding planners in the New York City that’s why we have a really tough competition ahead of us. Considering the immense competition in this field, one has to provide highest quality services so as to survive in this competitive industry. Our biggest competitive advantage will be the offering of individual wedding services. As of now, all wedding planners in the New York City offer complete wedding packages but we will allow our clients to choose any of service/s they want. Secondly, we will treat every client with utmost respect and make sure that they get more than what they had expected from us.

6.2 Sales Strategy

After carrying out a detailed analysis, our experts came up with the following brilliant ideas to advertise and sell ourselves.

  • We will advertise our business in relevant business magazines, newspapers, TV stations, and social media.
  • We will introduce our company to corporate organizations and key stakeholders by sending introductory letters alongside our brochures.
  • We will offer a 25% discount on our services for the first three months of our launch.
  • We will offer a 40% discount on all of our services on client’s referral.

6.3 Sales Forecast

Considering the quality of our services and our unparalleled customer service, our sales pattern is expected to increase with years. By analyzing our market segmentation strategy, our experts have forecasted the following sales on a yearly basis which are summarized in the column charts:

Wedding Planning Business Plan - Unit Sales

The detailed information about sales forecast, total unit sales, total sales is given in the following table:

6.4 Sales Monthly

Our monthly sales, as forecasted by our experts, are as follows:

Wedding Planning Business Plan - Sales Monthly

6.5 Sales Yearly

Our yearly sales, as forecasted by our experts, are as follows:

Wedding Planning Business Plan - Sales Yearly

Personnel plan

Kelly has been associated with event planning industry for about a decade. During her career, she developed a lot of business and personal friends, many of which will join her in this venture. She has been thinking about starting a wedding planner business for the last couple of years and now she is fully prepared and all set to enter this industry along with her team of friends. Having a decade long experience in this industry and tons of social connections, she is undoubtedly the most suitable person to know how to start wedding planning business.

7.1 Company Staff

Kelly will act as the General Manager of the company and will initially hire the following people for the startup:

  • 1 Accountant to maintain financial records
  • 2 Sales Executives responsible for marketing and discovering new ventures
  • 4 Decorators to decorate the venues
  • 2 Photographers to capture the beautiful moments of the memorable events of our customers
  • 1 Inventory Manager to manage the merchandise needed for events
  • 2 Drivers for moving the team between different places
  • 1 Front Desk Officer to act as a receptionist
  • 1 Security Officer

To ensure the best quality service, all employees will be selected through vigorous testing and will be trained for a month before starting their jobs.

7.2 Average Salary of Employees

The following table shows the forecasted data about employees and their salaries for next three years.

Financial Plan

After deciding the strategy and personnel plan of the company, the next step is to develop a financial plan which covers the cost of startup, inventory, payroll, equipment, rent, utilities and describes how these costs will be covered by the earned profits. Financial plan is also an important component of a wedding planner business plan template , so make sure to pay a lot of attention to it. The Kelly Weddings’ financial plan outlines the development of the company over the next three years and is specifically developed to achieve both the company’s short-term and long-term objectives.

8.1 Important Assumptions

The company’s financial projections are forecasted on the basis of following assumptions.

8.2 Brake-even Analysis

The following graph shows the company’s Brake-even Analysis.

Wedding Planning Business Plan - Brake-even Analysis

The following table shows the company’s Brake-even Analysis.

8.3 Projected Profit and Loss

The following charts show the company’s expected Profit and Loss situation on the monthly and yearly basis.

8.3.1 Profit Monthly

The following graph shows the monthly profit, as forecasted by the company’s financial experts.

Wedding Planning Business Plan - PROFIT MONTHLY

8.3.2 Profit Yearly

The following graph shows the yearly profit, as forecasted by the company’s financial experts.

Wedding Planning Business Plan - PROFIT YEARLY

8.3.3 Gross Margin Monthly

The following graph shows the monthly gross margin, as forecasted by the company’s financial experts.

Wedding Planning Business Plan - GROSS MARGIN MONTHLY

8.3.4 Gross Margin Yearly

The following graph shows the yearly gross margin, as forecasted by the company’s financial experts.

Wedding Planning Business Plan - GROSS MARGIN YEARLY

The following table shows detailed information about profit and loss, and total cost of sales.

8.4 Projected Cash Flow

The following column diagram shows the projected cash flow.

Wedding Planning Business Plan - Projected Cash Flow Diagram

8.5 Projected Balance Sheet

The following table shows detailed data about pro forma cash flow, subtotal cash from operations, subtotal cash received, sub-total spent on operations, subtotal cash spent. The following projected balance sheet shows data about total current assets, total long-term assets, total assets, subtotal current liabilities, total liabilities, total capital, total liabilities and capital.

8.6 Business Ratios

The following table shows data about business ratios, ratio analysis, total assets, net worth.

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wedding business plan

Zola wants to bring the wedding industry into the 21st century

wedding business plan

Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups.

This week Becca and Dom are joined by Shan-Lyn Ma, the co-founder and CEO of Zola, an online platform for wedding planning and gift registries. Ma talked about why she decided to launch the business after trying to buy a gift for a friend and realizing that wedding registries were still living in the past. Ma also spoke about:

  • How the company has listened to its customers and evolved to offer new features its clients are requesting.
  • How Zola navigated through the pandemic, which completely disrupted the wedding industry.
  • How AI can be incorporated into the wedding process.
  • Why Ma had always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

In the outro, Becca and Dom dive into some of the questions that remained after the conversation, such as how Zola stands out from an increasing competitive field or how its handled controversy in the past such as when the company was asked to remove slate plantations venues from its marketplace. The hosts also got into the company’s fundraising history and whether or not they’d be offended by an AI-generated thank-you note.

Subscribe to Found to hear more stories from founders each week.

Connect with us:

Here’s the full transcript, which has been edited for clarity.

Becca Szkutak: Hello, and welcome to Found, TechCrunch’s podcast that brings you the stories behind the startups from the folks that are building them. It’s me your host, Becca Szkutak, and I’m joined, as always, by the mysterious, the lovely, Dominic-Madori Davis. Hey, Dom how’s it going?

Dominic-Madori Davis: I’m hanging in there. What about you?

BS: I feel like I’m also hanging in there. But something that will maybe pull us through is today’s amazing episode that we have for you, dear readers. So if you also feel like you’re just hanging in there, maybe this will brighten your day. Maybe it won’t. Who knows? Today we have on Shan-Lyn Ma, the co-founder and CEO of wedding registry and planning site Zola.

DMD: Yes, we had an amazing conversation with her. And as always, before we get to the episode, we’re going to do two truths and a lie. So listen carefully to see what am I lying about. Okay, so Shan was able to raise a seed round after one conversation. Is that true or not? The idea for Zola came from the need for a usable gift registry. Or is it true or not that Becca used Zola last week? Stay tuned, you gotta listen to the episode. And then afterward, as always, we’re going to reveal what was the lie.

BS: This one is particularly fun. So definitely listen in, and we’ll catch you back at the outro.

Shan-Lyn Ma:  Becca, how are you?

BS: I am doing well. Happy to have you on the show.

SLM: Thank you so much for having me. Fan of the pod.

BS: Very timely, too . . . we’ll dive into this in a second. But I am actually going to a wedding. Not this Saturday. But next Saturday and my friend set everything up on Zola. So I think probably the perfect place to dive in. Why don’t you start by telling us a little about the company?

SLM: Sure. Well, we aim to serve newly engaged couples. From that first day they get engaged through their entire wedding planning journey, everything you have to do in the lead-up and day of the wedding. And then after that into their first years of newlywed life. So we aim to be that one-stop shop where you can do everything you need to do for that big day.

BS: And of course, because I know weddings are obviously something that have a lot of cultural meaning to them. It’s not necessarily a universal experience. But everyone either goes to weddings or they get married themselves. It does have that universal feel in a lot of ways that some things don’t. How did you get interested in starting a business around it?

SLM: Well, very similar to you, Becca. I had that time in my life where it felt like all my friends were getting married at exactly the same time. It seems like you have that year where you spend every weekend going to a different wedding. It’s a wonderful year, but it’s also very expensive, stressful. And as part of that, you know, going to a lot of friends’ weddings, you end up buying a lot of gifts from their wedding registries. So I was having that year in 2013. That was the year we started Zola. I found myself on my friend’s wedding registries. And my background was I had worked in e-commerce building e-commerce products. And I was on these wedding registry websites. And I thought these are just some of the worst shopping experiences I have ever seen online. At that time the wedding registries were really dominated by the big, traditional department stores and websites or mobile apps were really not their strength or their focus. And so I was talking to my co-founder, Nobu [Nakaguchi], who also has been working in shopping products. And I said, this is terrible. We can do a much better job. And our friends who are the ones getting married really deserve a lot better than this. This is kind of insulting now, Nobu. He’s married; he’s gotten married. He was complaining about it from the couple side. He was saying, yeah, it was. [It] nearly caused a breakup of his fiancée before they even got married. It was so terrible. They had so many fights over it. And so we thought we had the perfect people to work on this, and we can do better. And that was the beginning of Zola.

BS: What was it like going from that idea stage realizing the problem, figuring out the pain point, thinking of how you guys could attack it? What was it like actually building out the company? Because I know Zola does so much more now than just sort of like the registry side. So what has the journey been like of taking that idea and turning it into what we all want? I am going to go on and use this week to buy a wedding gift because I will not forget this time.

SLM: It really started off with [us thinking] . . . this is an interesting idea. But let’s make sure that it’s actually a good idea and when that’s valuable when that’s needed. And so we just tried to find as many people as we could who had either recently gotten married or engaged in planning their weddings, and we ended up going to a lot of coffee shops having a lot of one-on-one coffees, lunches, breakfasts, asking people, “Tell us how you’re thinking about your wedding. What are you excited about? What you’re stressed about? What do you use? Say what’s good and bad about that.” And through these coffee conversations, we found a lot of stress and anxiety, and everyone said the same thing: “I’ve never done this before. This is the first time I’m getting married. I have no idea what to do. But I have a deadline, and just help, please help me and tell me what I should be doing.” And so [we thought]  . . . we could reimagine the wedding registry [and it] expanded into this bigger idea of we could help couples with their entire wedding planning journey; we can start with the registry. But the the industry itself is so antiquated, that it really needs to be disrupted in the same way that every other industry has been with technology. And so through those user conversations, we kind of validated this is a need, this is a pain point. And slowly we started designing a prototype for what would be a better product; we started having these design brainstorming sessions together in my living room, on my coffee table, on the floor. And we would sketch out on pieces of paper these designs, what we thought would be a better user experience, and then put those into an online prototype, go back to the same couples and friends and say, “Okay, based on that conversation, what do you think? Is this what you had in mind? Would you want to use this?” And over that period of a few months, [we] designed what is the basis for Zola today.

DMD: Talking about industry disruption. What was the reception like from the big box retailers? Who just came in there and did their whole thing? What was the reception like in the industry?

SLM: Yeah, I think we were lucky in that we were kind of flying a little bit under the radar, because the big box retailers had a lot going on, and they were being disrupted, and you had people migrating away from traditional department stores [and going] online . . . We were able to build this business, kind of under their noses. I think a few years in, we started to really find product-market fit and brand recognition. Some of these department stores came to us wanting to work together. And we also were interested in how do we offer products from stores that our couples do want, but they don’t necessarily want us to create three different registries at three different stores, just for one wedding. They would rather have that all in one registry. And so can we be that place, but still partner with those stores to offer their products. And today we do have partnerships with some great stores, where their products are only sold at their store as well as Zola.

DMD: And this seems like such an obviously amazing idea that taps into a really pressing need. Did you initially start bootstrapping this? Or did you immediately go to investors and pitch this?

SLM: Well, every founder that I’ve spoken to has always had a very unique fundraising story. And our story of how we initially got our seed funding is no different and that it’s very different. So what happened was Kevin Ryan, who is a well-known New York entrepreneur and investor who had built many successful businesses over the years, including Gilt Groupe, he was someone that Nobu and I had worked with for many years at Gilt where we were joined in the early days and built that on the product side . . . So we were all talking together about this idea for a new weddings company — Nobu and I were talking to Kevin about what we’d heard, what we were interested in doing. And he said to us, “I love this. I’ve always wanted to do something in weddings. I would love to work with you guys. I will give you the seed funding. And let’s just get started.” When I tell people that, they’re like, “Wow, that was so easy. You raised your seed round in a second. I wish I could do that, too.” And what I always say is, “No, Nobu and I worked our butts off for four years, day, night, weekend, 24/7, to prove that we were good enough to be able to have someone to say, ‘Okay, I’ll invest in you in a second.’ And so [it was] both luck and hard work. But that was how we had seed funding to really be able to invest in building the first product, building the MVP, and getting it out there into the world.

BS: And thinking about when you guys got started, a lot has changed since then, because I know even just talking about what you mentioned was sparked the idea of these big box retailers not even being really designed yet for smooth e-commerce transactions, let alone wedding registries. That kind of stuff has all come up to date by this point. Plus this category has gotten more crowded in general. I know there are a couple other venture-backed startups that are also trying to do wedding registries and wedding websites — all a little bit different, but all kind of trying to solve the same problems that you guys set out to as well. What has it been like riding that wave and keeping Zola . . . as a major player in this category? How has it been able to ride the changes that have happened in this space since you guys launched?

SLM: Yeah, so my background, and my co-founder’s background is really around product and product design. And so naturally, we believe that the best product always wins in the market. And what we are very proud of is that even though our wedding registry product has been out there in the world now for 10 years, there is no other player that offers the same things that we do in our very first product that everyone could see and potentially could do the same thing. But for some reason, they just can’t. We let you add products from anywhere, including the Zola store, which you can then decide when you want to ship. We integrate our registry fully into wedding websites into our guest list, invitations and paper. All the things that we’ve built are built in a way that’s a seamless kind of ecosystem of products. I think if you were to look at each product available in a winning space, you would find that really isn’t the case anywhere except for Zola. And so I think the way that we’ve stayed ahead is through product development; day in, day out, we think about what can make the couple’s lives easier and better. We just keep adding on to that day by day, brick by brick, until we see 10 years later, this ecosystem of products that are both wide in terms of breadth, but each product in and of itself is best in class. And each product competes with a different set of competitors but is the winner in that category. And then no one connects these products together like we do.

BS: To stick to the product side for a second, I’m curious how you guys decided to add on to that original idea with the wedding registries. What products made sense to add on, which things were nice to have, but maybe our clients don’t need to have that? I know something I’ve seen in this space is how some companies now do baby showers. You can do a registry for a baby shower or you can book your Lyft for after the wedding through the platform. So people are going off in different branches. I’m definitely curious how you guys decided when and where to expand as you were building out these different products?

SLM: This is an interesting question. Because in the early years, we tried to stay very focused on just let’s make sure where we can really win and get it right in our first product. And so we stayed on that wedding registry product and doing only that 24/7 for four years. But pretty much from day one we find we kept hearing people say, “Well, I love Zola from my registry. If I could just add a few details about my wedding. I could also [use] it as my wedding website. [If it was] both together, then I’d be done. Can you please do that?” And we purposely kind of said, “No, we aren’t doing that right now.” After four years of hearing that we said, “Okay, it’s time we can do that.” So we launched the wedding website, and it was a hit straightaway. It took off out the gate. And so we thought, okay, maybe we shouldn’t wait for years to listen to couples and what they’re telling us they want. I think once we launched that wedding website, we very quickly heard, “I love the design I picked for that website. Could I also just print my save the dates and my invitations in the same design? Because you already have the guest list of the guest list manager. If I could just print it all out, send it, that would be great.” So we did that, actually. We did that very quickly after the wedding website. And similarly by listening to the couples, that turned out to be a runaway success in terms of people wanting to use that. It led to our next product of couples who were saying, “Okay, you have all these older couples. You probably know where they’ve booked their weddings. Which venues should I be considering? Which photographers do people like me like? Which photographers did my friends use?” So that led to probably one of our biggest launches yet, which is our venue and vendor marketplace where couples can find venues where they want to get married or vendors for the day of their wedding from their photographer, caterer, DJ, salon. That marketplace has really been informed by couples, and we see where all the couples have gotten married, and then how can we get those onto Zola so that other couples can see and find where they want to get married faster?

DMD: It’s so interesting, because you’re obviously talking about adapting with the times and moving product really fast. But I remember a few years ago there was something with Color of Change in terms of where someone wanted to throw their weddings and how there’s a lot of sociopolitical weirdness that might come up with weddings these days. So how do you navigate that as a company, when someone wants to get married at a very weird location that they should not be getting married at? How do you say, “Oh, we’re not going to have our users do this, or we’re going to have them do that?”

SLM: So obviously we can’t tell our users or our couples what they can and can’t do on their wedding day, because we can’t control everyone. But we can decide who we want to accept into the Zola vendor marketplace based on a vendor vows. Every vendor that shows up on Zola has to sign up for these vendor vows. And what’s included in those is that vendors must not discriminate against couples based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, you know, all these dimensions that are, frankly, offensive and hurtful and just wrong. So, if someone was to discriminate against a couple on those dimensions, we would not have them on Zola. That has been very important to us and to our team, important to our couples. And we are proud that we were able to say that.

BS: If you want to talk about that a little bit more? I’m curious, because that sounds like a great policy, having people put this commitment forward to be able to use the site and advertising that way and get connected with potential couples. Was that a reaction to something that happened? Or was that something that you guys baked in from the beginning? How did that come to be? Because I definitely agree with Dom, that is something that I feel like we weren’t talking about as much 10 years ago, but now obviously is a much bigger part of the conversation when we’re talking about weddings, and just decisions about events in general, based on where the country’s going, what we’re talking about in the zeitgeist and such. So what how did that decision come to be?

SLM: I think it’s very reflective of Zola culture and values from day one, which was very consciously Nobu. And I said, even before we had launched a single design of Zola, that we want to be inclusive of all couples. One thing that really offended us was that many of the other wedding sites that we looked at would just automatically assume that it was a bride and groom getting married. When you fill out the form to sign up, the default is what’s the bride’s name and what’s the groom’s name. And, of course, that makes no sense. For us, it sounds so obvious now when I say it, but 10 years ago, what no one else was doing that we built in from day one was, let’s not assume who’s getting married. Let’s just ask for names. They can tell us who they are. And the images that we show on the website, we used to show a silhouette. If it was a groom and groom getting married, it would show a silhouette of a groom and groom. I can’t tell you the number of emails and outreach that we got from couples saying, “Thank you so much for not assuming that this is a bride and groom thing.” We tried to weave that inclusive value throughout the entire user experience from the very beginning and continue to do so in every product that we launched. It’s a natural conversation that comes up [in the vendor marketplace] where we say, okay, let’s make sure that we’re not discriminating against anyone in the design of this new product.

BS: Expanding on that, too, not even getting into that side of it, where we’re talking about discrimination, but weddings are so broad. I’ve been to a number of weddings. I’ve been to a wedding in the yard of a bar in New Orleans. I have been to a wedding at a very fancy club in Nantucket, Massachusetts. There’s so many different cultural traditions, traditional commercial traditions; there’s just so much. How can you design a product that fits every kind of potential couple that does come through the door just based on everything else that’s going on? Because I know every one I’ve been to has both felt the same in some ways, but also felt very, very different.

SLM: Yeah. So this was another thing that we actually tried to do early on in one of our products, which is a checklist where everyone’s like, I have no idea where to start what to do; please help me. And so we have a wedding checklist where we say, here are the things you need to think about. Think about the venue — where do you want to get married? Who do you want to invite? And to your point, it could have been easy to fall into a default one-fits-all. But, no, there’s very different cultures with very different traditions that, depending on the type of wedding you want to have, your checklist would change. So we incorporate that into the product. If you’re from a certain type of culture, [we would modify] activities in the checklist based on that. For example, an Indian wedding has different ceremonies and so we incorporated that into the planning and the timeline of the checklist. What I will say is that you are right, everyone’s wedding and experience is different. And it’s really up to them. We kind of say, “You do you.” What we try to do is offer a very flexible platform where people can pick any of the designs that we have, say for their wedding website, or their invitations, or they can upload their own. You can always personalize your wedding to really reflect you well, which is something, again, we’ve really seen as a big change over the last 10 years. Hopefully we’ve been a part of that in the degree to which people want to personalize their wedding day.

DMD: I’m so curious, I have to ask this. What was the pandemic like when the wedding industry just exploded, in terms of people having to cancel in that time?

SLM: It was one of the hottest periods of time, potentially the hottest of my professional career. As you might have guessed, everyone’s pushed their wedding back in terms of date or timing. Very early in that first week of lockdowns in the country, everyone was pushing their wedding dates back to later in the year. Because we could see that happening, we knew this was going to be a very hard time for both the company and the industry. And we started thinking two things. One is what do we need to do to support the couples who are obviously very stressed and upset that they’ve had to postpone something that they’ve probably already invested a lot in both emotionally and cash wise, but also what do we need to do to secure the business? What do we need to do to just plan for any scenario that could happen? And frankly, one of the hardest things during that period of time — apart from everyone just being panicked about what does this pandemic mean for me and my family — from a Zola perspective, was we were thinking who knows when weddings will come back, because who knows how long this pandemic is going to last. And while of course, we could put scenarios down on paper, like what if it lasts three months, what if it lasts six months, what if it lasts nine months. The thing is no one knew. Now sitting up here a few years later, now 2024, what did happen was that we saw, even though the pandemic might not have been over by the end of 2020, people did start to get married again. So what we thought was going to be kind of a no weddings year ended up being actually pretty strong in the latter part of the year. People decided, you know what, I’m going to get married. And so the bounce-back in terms of the wedding industry happened faster than I guess anyone would have projected. It was really toward the end of the year weddings picked up again. And then 2021, 2022, huge years for the weddings industry. I think a lot of people postponed and then also maybe put forward their wedding. So 2022 was the biggest year in decades in terms of the number of weddings in the U.S. But yeah, I would not want to relive 2020 again.

BS: I’m curious, coming out of that experience — which, of course, every business runs into those hurdles, runs into those peaks, those pits, as you can’t always plan for everything — what is something you’ve taken away from going through the pandemic that you guys can continue to implement at Zola to protect you from having something like that happen again? At the end of the day, is it helping push the business for you to have been through that experience and have been able to navigate a challenge like that?

SLM: I think one thing that it taught us is that speed is of the essence. And that you’re as soon as we saw people starting to move their wedding dates out. And we knew what the implications would be for both the couples and the business, we were able to act very quickly in terms of okay, thinking about what kinds of features and products do couples need in terms of how we can support them. So we launched this feature on people’s wedding websites where they could put a message to their guests in terms of how they were postponing their weddings or what they were doing what the plan was. We launched a virtual weddings feature we let anyone who had ordered a save the date or an invitation from us. We gave them free change-the-date cards. And so that quick response was really just overwhelmingly well received by couples and I think just kind of paid back in terms of the loyalty that Zola couples have to Zola, particularly from that timeframe is out of this world from the business perspective. I think we saw very quickly we have to start planning now. And for what we do if this pandemic lasts, all these different time periods, and how are you going to get through this? So those quick actions that we took to support the couples in the business, it kind of makes you think, okay, if we lived through that, we could live through anything, because we know how we can react is really dependent on us. I’m proud of the way that the team handled that. Because during what was clearly a time that people could potentially just freeze, no one froze. No one panicked. Everyone was like, Okay, we need to do what what the right thing is. And let’s just do it.

DMD: And switching gears just a little bit. I want to know more about your entrepreneurial journey. Growing up, did you always want to be a founder? Did you know that when you would have a wedding business, like what has been this process?

SLM: I was a nerd and still am a nerd. But growing up, I had always dreamed of being part of something, an industry that was changing the world, something where people who started from nothing kind of like myself came from the middle of nowhere. I grew up in Australia. It’s a lovely country, but it’s very remote, and you really feel like you’re very far away from the action. So growing up, I had posters of entrepreneurs I admired like Jerry Yang, the founder of Yahoo, was kind of on my bedroom wall. And so yes, I had always wanted to do what I’m doing now. I’m very lucky in that way. I don’t think I ever would have thought that it would be in weddings, because, I never particularly dreamt about my own wedding. I’m not married. So it’s just something where the stars aligned, and it was a combination of a market that I thought was really interesting and fun and joyful. And my skills and experience seem to match it. And there was this huge, exciting opportunity to go after and really serve my friends. And so here we are.

BS: And what has it been like personally for you? Because I know you worked at Yahoo for a while as well. And of course Dom. We love Yahoo, as Yahoo employees technically. You started at Yahoo. And then you were at Gilt, which was definitely more of kind of in that startup step phase, like in that scaling phase, and then launching your own company. What has this journey been like for you? Personally, I know, of course, being a founder, being an entrepreneur isn’t exactly the easiest job on the planet, and how have you kind of been able to adapt to that job in a business that has had so many challenges and ups and downs, since you guys got started?

SLM: You know, I think the years that I spent at Yahoo and Gilt were the best possible experience on trading ground for starting my own company. And I get many potential founders who come up to me and say I’m thinking of starting a business, but I don’t have that kind of experience. Do I need to get that kind of experience? Can I just start it now? And, of course, it always depends on the individual. But for me, I never felt ready. I personally felt like I wanted to get the experience and learn from people who could teach me how to do something that is best in class. So at Yahoo, what I learned was how to build products that are best in class from best-in-class products, people, once I started to see those great product leaders leaving for other companies. That’s when I started to think maybe it’s time for me to leave to at Gilt. I learned what does best in class look like in all these different startup functions. That then helped me identify what kind of qualities would I want in leaders in what ultimately became Zola. So for example, you get exposure. Even if you’re working in one particular function, you get exposure to so many things in a startup. So I learned, oh, what a merchandising people do want to finance, accounting, legal, talent, and HR people do, and got to do a little bit of everything. And then got also had the opportunity to launch and start my own business unit within that safety net of a bigger business, which was in retrospect, the best practice for then lodging a startup myself. So the advice I always give to people is follow people that you think you can learn from, and no matter what it is the company, the industry, if you are really inspired and think you can learn from and want to work for these people, you will gain so much in terms of how you then apply that to your future startup. Otherwise, you could learn it the hard way you could learn it yourself in your own startup. People do that, too. Sometimes it works out great. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. And for me, I really, I wasn’t in a financial position where I could just start a startup and afford to have it fail. And so many reasons why I did that journey. But I don’t regret it for a second. I’m so glad I did. And I hope and another thing Nobu and I, my co founder and I spoke about when starting Zola is we hope to give that experience to people who work at Zola, we hope that one day after many, many years of working with us, they will then go on and start their own startup and it will be better because they worked with us and we were able to hopefully pass something onto them.

BS: And thinking especially with talking about what you’ve learned and how that kind of affected how you started the business. If there was one thing and you can’t say nothing. What’s one thing if you could go back and change about starting the business getting started being new to being a founder? What would you change?

Shan-Lyn Ma I really wish I would have prioritized if finance and accounting function and skill set much earlier than I did. You know, I think in many early stage startups you kind of running to get the product launch, then get the product into the hands of users or couples for us then get some kind of revenue so that you can afford to keep going. And you have all these 101 priorities. And for me, it never quite made it to the top of the list to make sure that books were best in class. And so yeah, we had a bookkeeper, a part time bookkeeper, like many startups do, but it was not until we started to raise more serious rounds of funding that I realized, oh, no, we actually need an in house team of great finance and accounting people. And I wish we had built that team much earlier, because it resulted in a lot of long, sleepless nights and weekends, trying to put it all together in a very condensed timeline, which, you know, in retrospect, was just unnecessary stress that both myself and team much more than I should have

Becca Szkutak I’m definitely curious, you guys are now just a little over 10 years into the business, what are the next 10 years look like? I know about it products, you’ve added these different aspects to the business, but kind of where does it go from here?

Shan-Lyn Ma You know, when one thing we realize is that we really are a modern life stage company. So speaking about where to couples kind of ask us our biggest to kind of expand into next. Another thing that I’ve heard pretty much from the first year of Zola is, can you please now helped me with my baby registry. So I think we spoke a bit about baby earlier. But for 10 years, we said again, no, we can’t do that yet. That’s not the right time for us. And then last year, with the closure of byebye. Baby, we thought, Well, if there’s ever a time to do it, this is the time so we did launch Zola baby, we now kind of see a great number of people who use all of their weddings over the past few years use us for baby. And I think it’s one another kind of life stage or category where there is no clear tech driven market leader. And so it’s an exciting phase because we continue to expand both in weddings and the number of things that we do right from that first day of getting edge. And then we are also expanding outwards. Now, first day that you learned that you you might be having a baby. Other than that I continue to be excited about AI, as is the entire world. We’re kind of playing around with the tech to see how can we use it to support couples in a way that they find genuinely useful. We just recently launched an AI tool that helps couples right there thank you notes, which is one of the top things couples complain about in terms of how painful it is to write like 75 to 200. thank you notes and perfect use case. Right. So we launched that in our mobile app. And we’ll continue I think to launch more things like that to help take the workload off. That’s unnecessary. Unfortunately, I wish I could could say this is not the case. But unfortunately, women still do an unfair share of wedding planning work. And so yeah, we’re passionate about helping make that both more equitable, but also maybe lighten that load.

Becca Szkutak I think that’s a good place to wrap because we’re pretty much right at time. But I love the thought of an AI. thank you note, you said that. And I started thinking about it. And I’m like, they really are like, Hey, thanks for coming to the wedding. Thank you for the gift, like love the couple edits. Like it’s true. It’s like I don’t expect something heartfelt because I know how many they have to do. So that actually does make a great case for AI. One, then Sam Altman should look into that. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Shan-Lyn Ma Well, we have your guest list that, you know, we helped you put together and we have the designs that you picked out for your invitation. So imagine you could use the AI tool to have the note done right there, edit it slightly, and then we can print it directly into your thank you card for you. And you’re done.

Becca Szkutak We love a practical use case for AI. But thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been really fun. So thanks for taking the time.

Shan-Lyn Ma Thank you. It was great. Appreciate it.

Becca Szkutak And that was our conversation with Shan starting with the two truths and a lie I’m going to take at this time because unfortunately the lie was something that I said by accident. So a little bit of a different format than our usual two truths and a lie. When I mentioned that my friend was getting married next weekend she had a site on Zola. I was confusing her wedding with one of the very many I went to last year. Her site is on The Knot. I went to a couple of weddings on Zola last year. I regret the air. I had just been getting off a red eye flight that morning. No excuse but the reason your listeners we decided to keep it in as opposed to say cutting it out is that we think it sparks an interesting conversation about competition. Sure. Well, my brain was kind of fried when I said that. We asked Shan a little bit about the competition between some of the different platforms like Joy, Zola, and the Knot I think they’re a little more similar than Shin let on to especially as a guest I know personally, I have never noticed really any difference between the platforms. I don’t know what you thought about that, Dom.

Dom Davis I, oh, my goodness, I’ve only been to one wedding. And it was very recently. And so I’ve never used any of these wedding platforms before. But I mean, based off of just a simple elite, I don’t see how different day could be really, I mean, when the service functions are like the same, basically, right?

Becca Szkutak Because it’s like, in theory, people want the same things. And we’re all talking about the same thing surrounding the same event. I was curious. And I definitely put myself out there by bugging my friend about this, who is literally preparing for her wedding in one week. But I asked her, like, why did you use The Knot over Zola, or some of the other options? And she said, largely word of mouth. Like they just knew other people who had used it. And there was like, a little bit of the pricing stuff, but it didn’t sound like that was kind of what drove the decision at the end of the day. But I mean, it’s a bit of industry that it would seem weird if there was one player, so I don’t really necessarily think there being a fair amount of competition in this space really matters as much as some other industries.

Dom Davis No, I don’t I don’t think it matters at all. I think there should be more. I mean, how many wedding companies are there like this? Because I don’t hear about it often. But I’m also none of my friends are getting married, man. It’s hard out here. So I’m like, Nah, I’m, like totally disconnected from this wedding world. How many of there are there because I feel like I’d heard of Zola. But now that I’m thinking back, I think I’ve also heard of the knot.

Becca Szkutak Yeah, the only other one I know of is Joy, which is another venture backed startup. And I know of them because I covered one of their funding rounds a couple of years ago. But again, like even with them to chatting with them, some of their answers are on like how they were different, kind of or similar to what Shan said about being able to just if a customer tries to use them, which she had mentioned a few times, and they are like, we want this feature, which you don’t already have. And she was like, Oh, we learned to be quick to build it, like build these products that our customers are asking for as like a competitive edge. And it sounds like they all do that. But I guess if you are hearing different things from your different customers, they’re gonna end up with like, slightly different differences on the back end too

Dom Davis Yeah, I think I don’t know how many different ways there are to plan a wedding. I think the basics are the same. Right. But I wouldn’t know once again, I wouldn’t know. But what what are your thoughts on the the AI? thank you notes. I think that’s it. I mean, does it matter if the thank you note, or the gift note is personal or not? Is that a big deal?

Becca Szkutak Personally, one, I am a thank you note, Stan. I still write them for my birthday and things like that to my older family members because I know that they like getting them even though I know people always joke like Gen Z doesn’t even know what a thank you card is. I love a thank you note but I also think for weddings and and I think you know what, I actually don’t hate that because I get that they have to do so many. And I also just feel like my attendance like No one plans, their weddings so that I come you know, like I get how big of like a hurdle it is to do those kind of things. You know, it’s I remember I raise money for like a race a couple of years ago, and I was like, I’m gonna send thank you notes to everyone who donated over like $50 or something like that. And I sat down to write them and there weren’t crazy personal but after 25 I was like oh my god fuck this like I was like this is taking hours just to like do like a significantly smaller amount like most weddings have. So I may be pro AI thank you note, but that might be a controversial take.

Dom Davis No I mean, my hand hurts thinking about it. I would definitely be like a thanks exclamation point moving on, because what but were people handwriting these anyway? Or were they using some type of Microsoft Word or like I’m basing it off the thank you note that I got from the wedding that didn’t look handwritten to me. It looked like it was like that was thought that was clear font from like a font machine or something. Yeah, maybe that’s like the personalized thank you note industry.

Becca Szkutak I have no idea. Big thank you note.

Dom Davis The big thank you. No industry. Sam Altman is coming. Okay. But I guess that is the way AI would disrupt the wedding industry. Yeah, AI is everywhere.

Becca Szkutak It really is. But I think one of the other things that stood out to me about this conversation is some of the talk we had about inclusivity, which I know it sounds like Zola really prides themselves on how inclusive they’ve been as far as making sure their site is set up for same sex couples, as well as just like different wedding arrangements than the traditional, say, bride and groom. But there definitely is some other stuff in their history that’s worth touching on.

Dom Davis When I was talking about when I mentioned, like some people are getting married in places they shouldn’t be. That was a direct hit at people who get married at slave plantations. And that Wall Street Journal article that shows people are now getting married in prisons. That’s weird behavior, everyone, I just have to first call that out. So there was a controversy a few years ago, or not a controversy. It was just this advocacy organization called Color of Change, sent a note out to kind of all the big wedding players, including the knot, I believe, just saying like, hey, people are getting married at slave plantations. That’s weird. Can you tell them to stop? And you know, the big players said, Yeah, you’re right. That is weird. So they’ve stopped and I think the thing that happened with Zola was, at first they were like, Oh, this doesn’t violate our policy, and then they came back and they were like, actually, we’re gonna start working with Color of Change to be better being more inclusive and everything. And so that was something that happened a few years ago. And I brought it up, because I don’t know, it’s just really interesting. Like, how do you as a platform, weddings are very magical days for people? And how do you kind of create boundaries with people like that saying, like, Hey, you can’t get married at Alcatraz? Like, that’s insane. You know, but at the same time, you want to please your customers, but she did not address that at all.

Becca Szkutak No, no, it definitely feels like one of those situations where it’s like, the substack argument, where people they’re like, Well, we’re a free speech platform. And like, anyone can write whatever they want here. We can’t like police them. And then users are like, well, then you’re gonna have bad stuff on there. Like you have to like, and I’m sure, cuz you mentioned their whole agreements with vendors on the platform sounds like that existed prior to that. But it was just that they wouldn’t discriminate against any couples who wanted to potentially get married there, which I know, that doesn’t sound like that was the issue. Obviously, that’s not the issue of when she said like, Sure, it doesn’t violate that. But like, we can look a little more big picture.

Dom Davis That was so funny when she said that I was like, No, that was not the issue. The issue was not always getting married. It was where

Becca Szkutak no, but I mean, I do on the one hand, you do get her argument where it’s like, even if they take them off the marketplace, it’s like someone, there’s probably wedding sites on there. Right now we’re getting married at save plantations, they just didn’t find the vendor through the marketplace. So it’s like she did make a good point where it’s like, they only can do so much. But they definitely can at least acknowledge, like, what they can do.

Dom Davis I guess Definitely. It’s just an interesting conversation, I guess, in terms of the role that companies and founders play in shaping society. I do not think people should get married in prisons. No, that’s not something that I would help someone do. If you’re a wedding planner, and someone is trying to get married at Rikers, stop, like say, no, just say no. So I guess it’s, I guess this is where capitalism intersects with society and values and everything, and kind of where’s the line for a company and a founder to walk that line, especially

Becca Szkutak with the being like a marketplace to because I’m sure, it’d be interesting to talk to other marketplace. And obviously, this is not fully a marketplace. But what we’re talking about relates to the marketplace that they do have, but like, I’m sure you’d get the argument a lot. But it’s like, well, people can choose who they want to work with. Like, they are just the platform to connect people. So it’s like, I don’t know, I can see people making the argument. It’s not an endorsement of having stuff like that on the site. I personally don’t agree with that. But um, I definitely can see why there would be a perceived gray area, even though I don’t think there’s a greater personally Yeah,

Dom Davis but you know, that’s just us. Those are just our thoughts and opinions.

Becca Szkutak I mean, those kinds of wedding venues are probably booked every weekend isn’t just a different world.

Dom Davis Those antebellum weddings are ripping to the south, please stop. Why? Just be more creative, just be more creative. Like, seriously.

Becca Szkutak it’s such a huge thing, too. It is nice that these platforms have kind of been able to stay. And I know, she talks about like, COVID. And it’s interesting how they were able to adapt, even though I’m glad to have not been planning a wedding at that time, because a virtual wedding may have killed me, like I cannot I cannot do a virtual wedding.

Dom Davis I wanted to ask her about if she seen any of the Animal Crossing weddings, because that was like a thing. You know, like people were having graduations they were we trust I remember the Animal Crossing meet up this people were having I was using Animal Crossing, because that’s I don’t know, why was I doing that? I don’t know. I also wanted to ask her if she saw an increase in people having multiple weddings, because it seems like a lot of people just had two weddings at the time.

Becca Szkutak Yeah, I would be curious about that, too. Because it is kind of a product where you hope use it once. Like, that’s why it is interesting. Weddings are such a huge industry, which is interesting, because it’s a one time industry, which usually those kind of things aren’t good businesses to invest in and like aren’t huge industries, trying to do another example. Like I always think about cars, like when they get like car demand wrong. And it’s like, well, sure, I’m interested in getting electric vehicle, but I’m planning to buy a car every 12 to 14 years. So it’s like, it’s not something you do all the time, when the new thing comes out. You don’t like go and get a new car. So it’s like the weddings is so interesting in that way that it like has been able to be this like, ginormous thing that it is, even though it’s like people you hope to use it once.

Dom Davis I know. Which makes me think how, how sustainable and profitable. Oh, actually, what are the metrics of the wedding industry? Aside from them up charging people at venues for food and stuff? What are the metrics of but I guess also, do people even get married once now or are a second or third? Like I don’t know. I always tell people I would be a great second wife. So already that’s like two weddings for Zola. How many times are people getting married now? Anyway? I don’t know what the financials are of this industry.

Becca Szkutak Oh, I just know it’s big. And if it gets a news to be big, I mean, it’s a good industry to grow in for sure.

Dom Davis Big Wedding into St. This is going to be the next will. But will investors still get it? Will investors get it? Because they always miss out on the big industries?

Becca Szkutak Yeah, I don’t know. It sounds like this one has like worked out decently well, for the companies in it. Yeah. What’s the next disruption in the wedding industry?

Dom Davis And is it seen as a women’s industry? Did we talk about that a little bit? Like, how is the wedding industry seen to investors who are looking at are they saying like, Oh, this is just like a targeted toward women? Or do they see it as like an everything in every one type of business.

Becca Szkutak That’s what was interesting, because she had mentioned, obviously, like, raising the seed round was relatively easy for her and her co founder. And, of course, not all weddings, but a lot of weddings include men, as well. But I definitely feel like planning is seen as like a women’s thing, like setting up the website and stuff like that. But then it’s also that weird thing, because when you have same sex couples have you have two men, there is no woman to be setting up the site. So it’s like maybe that’s what kind of has shielded it from getting put into that box. Because I know one of the other companies in the space I’ve talked to is like the founding teams, all men who like we’re running into the same issues like going to their friend’s weddings and stuff like that. So it was like, maybe it is that universal, even though it definitely gets that more like perception of being a more feminine aspect. Wedding wedding planning in general seems like a more feminine aspect of it. But yeah, maybe it is more universal, which would be a good thing because it should be but it doesn’t usually work out that way.

Dom Davis I hope more investors back more wedding planning businesses because it’s clearly everyone is suffering as a guest and that is what I’m seeing and hearing. So that’s it. invest more in wedding put help us help us.

Becca Szkutak Help us plan our future weddings. Dom second wedding.

I'm a HENRY financial planner who makes $125,000. Here's how I manage my money — and the mistakes I see others making.

  • Georgia Lord, a HENRY and financial planner, earns a salary of $125,000 but doesn't feel wealthy.
  • Lord's financial goals include early retirement, travel, a wedding, and a larger NYC apartment.
  • She warns HENRYs against investing without knowledge and recommends financial planning for everyone.

Insider Today

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Georgia Lord, a 27-year-old certified financial planner and HENRY in New York City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I studied finance and started my career in Brisbane, Australia.

When I was 22, I moved to New York to join Morningstar in the credit ratings division. I pivoted to financial planning for a Canadian Fintech called Wealthsimple a year later.

I discovered that I love financial planning and working one-on-one with clients. Last year, I got my certified financial planning license .

I now make a comfortable living, but I consider myself a HENRY and have a way to go before I hit my goals.

I make 6 figures but don't feel wealthy

I earn a base salary of $125,000 and manage to live in New York City by being frugal. I love a bargain or a sale. I save for certain things I want, and I'm good at it because it's my job. I'd feel like a hypocrite if I didn't do what I told others to do.

I save on my Broadway tickets by entering into the lottery. I splurge on some things — I spend around $600 monthly on dining out. I also travel a lot, so I automate a certain amount of money every month for travel.

I lived with roommates for four years, and I've lived with my boyfriend for the last year. We split the rent more favorably to me since he makes quite a lot more, so I contribute $1,500 per month. That's also been helpful for managing my finances.

I have a few financial goals

One of my financial goals is to save up for the professional designations available in my field since they can be expensive.

I want to retire early , and I want to keep prioritizing saving for travel and visiting my home in Australia, which is not cheap.

I'm also saving for a wedding and improving cash flow to move into a larger apartment.

To reach my savings goals, I automate at least 20% of my paycheck every two weeks and deposit it in a high-yield savings account . I use Wealthfront but also like Ally, CapitalOne360, and Betterment. I preach that to all of my clients who are HENRYs : Automate your savings for big goals.

There's not a number in mind that I'm looking to reach to feel rich, but I will feel successful if I can achieve my goals without sacrificing my lifestyle in the process. Being in a great financial position today and in the future is what I consider rich.

I see HENRYs making one big mistake

Because the market did well in 2023 , I've noticed HENRYs (both in my personal life and those I see as clients) wanting to throw money into it without thinking about how they will fund other goals, like a down payment for a house.

Not only is it harder to access funds once they're invested, but there can also be financial benefits to other strategies. For example, some stock market returns might've been 3% last year, but some high-yield savings accounts have a return of 4.5%.

I still invest in the market, but I do so strategically. I have a 401(k) , Roth IRA , Traditional IRA , brokerage account with Betterment, and a brokerage account in Australia. I mostly invest in ETFs — I'm not a stock picker and love the diversity that ETFs provide.

It can be difficult to figure out how to divide your money and where to put it, so I recommend HENRYs work with a financial planner . We're not just for the rich — I've worked with clients in many different financial situations, and all can benefit.

Even if you're not ready for a financial planner, take the time to think through what your goals are and what you want to spend your money on. That's just as important as putting $100 into the stock market every week.

wedding business plan

Watch: A financial planner reveals an important money lesson young people can learn from the rich

wedding business plan

  • Main content

India Today

Hotels expect wedding business to flourish in 2024, plan to enhance marketing spend

A fter a handsome show in 2023 owing to the removal of all the Covid-related restrictions, hotels in New Delhi are expecting the wedding segment to witness further growth in business in 2024 amid the emergence of fresh trends.

According to several hotels, their wedding business in 2023 not only grew over 2022 but was also better than the pre-Covid year of 2019. This has, in turn, prompted the hotels to increase their marketing budget for the wedding segment to give it a further boost in 2024.

Taj Palace General Manager Nayan Seth told India Today that 2023 was a fantastic year as far as the wedding business is concerned. "We do see a lot of queries coming in for 2024. Auspicious dates are in high demand," he added.

"Our wedding business saw a growth of 8% in 2022 and an impressive 27% in 2023," said Hardip Marwah, General Manager, Andaz, adding that we expect a substantial rise of 40% for the wedding segment in 2024, surpassing its performance in 2023.

JW Marriott General Manager Sharad Datta said there was significant growth in the wedding business at the hotel in 2023 compared to both 2022 and 2019. "The segment has seen an increase, and revenue and average daily rate (ADR) have grown by stupendous amounts, highlighting the hotel's strong performance and recovery in the wedding business post-Covid," he noted.

With robust demand, the hotel saw an increase of around 45% in ADR. "Looking ahead to 2024, JW Marriott maintains an optimistic outlook for the wedding business, anticipating continued growth. Our strategic goals include leveraging the auspicious dates to ensure this segment drives robust revenue and achieves double-digit growth over 2023," Datta said.

"The wedding business in 2023 witnessed a significant growth compared to both 2022 and 2019. We are pleased to share that the business in 2023 surpassed our figures from 2022 and 2019 by an impressive 15%," said Vineet Mishra, Cluster General Manager, Pullman and Novotel.

"We anticipate 2024 to be another robust year for weddings. We forecast a remarkable 20% growth in bookings for the wedding segment in 2024 compared to 2023," Mishra added.

According to industry experts, the wedding segment has seen a surge in luxury spending and demand for unique celebrations. Personalisation has become a major trend with couples incorporating the elements and experiences that reflect their unique personalities and preferences. Also, theme-based weddings that incorporate cultural elements, from traditional ceremonies and attire to decor, have gained a lot of popularity.

"Environmental sustainability is a very noteworthy trend with many opting for eco-friendly options such as minimising single-use plastics, farm-to-fork menus and using sustainable decor elements. Intimate weddings continue to be popular post-pandemic with smaller gatherings and more focused events," said Taj Palace's Seth.

As the revenue rises from the wedding segment, the hotels are also looking to enhance their marketing spend on it. Their plans include focussing on various initiatives like lifestyle shoots, immersive familiarisation programmes and targeted social media campaigns.

JW Marriott's Datta observed that the hotel is planning to increase its marketing spend for the wedding section. "In 2024, we aim to allocate 10–12% of our entire marketing budget to the wedding section, emphasising our commitment to capturing a substantial share of the wedding market," he said.

While 20% of the marketing budget of Pullman and Novotel was assigned to the wedding segment in 2023, Mishra said that an additional 5% allocation will be made in 2024 to further capitalise on the positive trend.

Marwah of Andaz said that we have successfully established ourselves as market leaders in the wedding segment. "Allocating approximately 10-12% of our annual budget towards wedding campaigns allows us to maintain this position, with annual revisions aligned with market forecasts and trends," he noted.

Hotels expect wedding business to flourish in 2024, plan to enhance marketing spend

English News

  • Entertainment
  • Science and Tech
  • Education Today

Fitnessandbeyond

Rakul Preet Singh, Jackky Bhagnani plan Sikh, Sindhi wedding ceremonies

After 3:30 p.m., the couple will hold traditional pheras at ITC Grand South Goa, blending tradition with modernity and infusing personal touches into the rituals.

Rakul Preet Singh, Jackky Bhagnani plan Sikh, Sindhi wedding ceremonies

Mumbai: Bollywood couple Rakul Preet Singh and Jackky Bhagnani, who are set to tie the nuptial knot on Wednesday, will have two wedding ceremonies. The first will be a Sikh ceremony of Anand Karaj, and the second will be Sindhi style ceremony, reflecting both Rakul and Jackky’s cultures.

The couple will have the traditional pheras after 3:30 p.m. at ITC Grand South Goa. The wedding ceremony is said to be a fusion of tradition and modernity, and the two will incorporate personal elements into the rituals.

After exchanging the vows, the couple will reportedly host a grand after-party for all the guests present at the venue.

Earlier, on Wednesday, Rakul had her ‘Chuddha’ ceremony.

The couple began their wedding festivities with mehendi and sangeet ceremonies. During the sangeet ceremony, Bollywood star Varun Dhawan, who is the couple’s close friend, performed to ‘Husn Hai Suhana’ from ‘Coolie No 1’, which is produced by Jackky’s father, Vashu Bhagnani.

Apart from Varun, Shilpa Shetty, Raj Kundra, other family members also performed at the sangeet.

The couple has planned the wedding festivities to be eco-friendly following which no physical invites have reportedly been sent. All the wedding invites have been sent out digitally to the guests.

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  • Jackky Bhagnani
  • Rakul Preet Singh

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Watch: Rakul Preet Singh’s viral bridal walk stuns viewers

Watch: Rakul Preet Singh’s viral bridal walk stuns viewers

From Rakul’s floral lehenga to Jackky Bhagnani’s embroidered sherwani, check out their wedding looks

From Rakul’s floral lehenga to Jackky Bhagnani’s embroidered sherwani, check out their wedding looks

Rakul Preet Singh, Jackky Bhagnani tie the knot in intimate Sikh wedding ceremony

Rakul Preet Singh, Jackky Bhagnani tie the knot in intimate Sikh wedding ceremony

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IMAGES

  1. Free Wedding Planner Business Plan Template

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  2. Free Wedding Planner Business Plan + What It'll Reveal About Your Biz

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  3. Free Wedding Planner Business Plan + What It'll Reveal About Your Biz

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  4. Free Wedding Planner Business Plan Template

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  5. 13+ Wedding Photography Business Plan Templates

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  6. Wedding Venue Business Plan Template

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VIDEO

  1. Wedding Plan The Series- SailomNuea/SunnyPak

  2. How I planned for My Wedding

  3. THE WEDDING PLAN

  4. Wedding Plan Series Ep3 Eng Sub

  5. Want to start your wedding planning business in India? Must Watch (#weddingguide)

COMMENTS

  1. Wedding Planning Business Plan Template (2024)

    Written by Dave Lavinsky Wedding Planning Business Plan You've come to the right place to create your Wedding Planning business plan. We have helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans and many have used them to start or grow their Wedding Planning businesses.

  2. Wedding Venue Business Plan Template (2024)

    Written by Dave Lavinsky Wedding Venue Business Plan You've come to the right place to create your wedding venue business plan. We have helped over 10,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans and many have used them to start or grow their wedding venues.

  3. Wedding Planner Business Plan Template [Updated 2024]

    Your wedding planning business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes. Sources of Funding for Wedding Planning Businesses With regard to funding, the main sources of funding for a wedding planning business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans, and angel investors.

  4. How to Start a Wedding Planning Business

    Step 1: Choose the type of wedding business you want to start and a name Before you can do much else, you need to decide what kind of services you want your wedding planning business to...

  5. Wedding Venue Business Plan Template [Updated 2024]

    Your business plan should include 10 key sections as follows: Executive Summary Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan. The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader.

  6. How to Start a Wedding Venue in 6 Easy Steps

    1. Assess your current finances A thorough understanding of your current financial health, and your predicted expenses, should guide all major decisions when you start a wedding venue. A few...

  7. How Do I Write A Wedding Planner Business Plan?

    like a pro All the training and support you need to design, coordinate, and plan high-end weddings Let's Go! Goal Setting & Business Planning How Do I Write A Wedding Planner Business Plan? May 24, 2022 is honeybook the right fit for your biz? 8 free af ways to market your biz Now Trending: I'm candice!

  8. How to Start a Wedding Planning Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

    1. Get the necessary training 2. Draft a solid business plan 3. Define your wedding planning services 4. Take care of legal documents 5. Understand your finances 6. Create your own wedding planning brand 7. Find trusted vendors 8. Create wedding concepts 9. Promote your wedding planning business

  9. How to Start a Wedding Planning Business

    1. Choose the Name for Your Wedding Planning Business The first step to starting a wedding planning business is to choose your business' name. This is a very important choice since your company name is your brand and will last for the lifetime of your business. Ideally you choose a name that is meaningful and memorable.

  10. Free Wedding Venue Business Plan PDF [2024 Template + Sample Plan]

    1. Outline the basics about your wedding venue's location, proximity, and offerings As a wedding venue, location is everything. Your goal is simple: Understand what will compel people to hold their special day at your special place, and what makes your location a good site logistically.

  11. Wedding Consultant Business Plan Example

    Executive Summary TLC Wedding Consultants is a full service company that provides complete consulting services for weddings, holy unions and anniversaries. Our consultants are experienced and dedicated professionals with many years of event planning experience. TLC is unique in that we give our clients our undivided attention.

  12. How To Write A Wedding Planner Business Plan + Template

    A wedding planner business plan is a formal written document that describes your company's business strategy and its feasibility. It documents the reasons you will be successful, your areas of competitive advantage, and it includes information about your team members. Your business plan is a key document that will convince investors and ...

  13. How to Start a Wedding Planning Business

    Step 1: Know What Kind Of Wedding Planning Business You Want to Build Before you do anything, knowing what kind of wedding planning business you want is the first step. I've got an easy exercise for you to figure this out, too. We call it vision casting.

  14. How to Build Your Wedding Coordinator Business Plan

    6. Business to Action Plan. With a business plan, your wedding planning business can schedule action items, future steps, and forthcoming activities to show you where you need to focus and expand. Create an outline, fleshing it out as you learn about wedding planning and ask the right questions.

  15. Wedding Venue Business Plan Template: A How-To Guide (2024)

    Wedding Venue Business Plan Are you thinking of starting a wedding venue services We have prepared a solid wedding venue business plan sample that guides you on every stage of your business plan writing Download Template Create a Business Plan

  16. How to Write a Wedding Planner Business Plan in 9 Steps

    Business Plan Basics. Wedding planning can be a lucrative industry. The bridal industry has a market size of $70.7 billion. Nearly 2.5 million couples got married in 2022, and the average bride and groom spent $29,195 on their wedding, according to Wedding Report. For a successful wedding planner business, having a detailed business plan is ...

  17. How to Start a Wedding Venue Business: 11 Must-Know Tips

    Collection If you're thinking about starting a wedding venue business, the most important first step is taking off those rose-colored glasses. Running a wedding venue company is more than a labor of love, and far more challenging than you may think. It takes grit, honesty, and resources — not unlike the institution of marriage itself.

  18. Wedding Planning Business Plan [Free Template

    Download Template Create a Business Plan If you are into creating memorable experiences, then planning a picture-perfect wedding for someone would be blissful and rewarding. Anyone can start a new business, but you need a detailed business plan when it comes to raising funding, applying for loans, and scaling it like a pro!

  19. Wedding Planning Business Plan [Sample Template]

    The budget for liability insurance, permits and license will cost - $3,500. Business incorporating fees in the United States of America will cost - $750. The cost for accounting software, event planning apps, CRM software and Payroll Software - $3,000. Other start-up expenses including stationery - $1000.

  20. How to Create a Wedding Venue Business Plan

    Collection Weddings are the cure for weekends full of empty hotel rooms, and they can turn a farm or turn-of-the-century farmhouse into a money-making event destination. In order to grab a piece of the wedding business for your hotel or event space, you're going to need a business plan.

  21. Free Wedding Venue Business Plan Example

    Target Market The primary market for Wedding Venue Bliss is engaged couples seeking a unique and adaptable location for their wedding ceremony and reception. The secondary market includes event planners, corporate clients, and families organizing special events and celebrations. Competitors & Differentiation Current Alternatives

  22. Create The Perfect Wedding Venue Business Plan

    A wedding venue business plan is a document that examines your wedding venue business in the present and provides an overview of goals for the future. The business plan lays out short and long-term goals, strategies to reach these goals, and financial forecasts. Who Needs a Wedding Venue Business Plan?

  23. Wedding Planning Business Plan

    If you are wondering how to write an effective business plan then here we are providing you the business plan of a wedding planning business startup named 'Kelly Weddings'. Executive Summary 2.1 The Business. Kelly Weddings will be a bonded, insured and licensed wedding planning business, located in the Manhattan borough of the New York City.

  24. Zola wants to bring the wedding industry into the 21st century

    Welcome back to Found, where we get the stories behind the startups. This week Becca and Dom are joined by Shan-Lyn Ma, the co-founder and CEO of Zola, an online platform for wedding planning and ...

  25. HENRY Financial Planner Shares How She Manages Her Own Money

    Georgia Lord, a HENRY and financial planner, earns a salary of $125,000 but doesn't feel wealthy. Lord's financial goals include early retirement, travel, a wedding, and a larger NYC apartment ...

  26. Hotels expect wedding business to flourish in 2024, plan to ...

    The wedding business of the hotels in 2023 not only grew over 2022 but was also better than the pre-Covid year of 2019, prompting them to increase their marketing budget for the wedding segment in ...

  27. PA Wedding Inspiration

    This is the last call to advertise your business to couples planning wedding..." PA Wedding Inspiration | Heather Dombrowski on Instagram: "You read that right! This is the last call to advertise your business to couples planning weddings in 2025 through our trusted publication.

  28. PDF Free-Version-of-Growthinks-Wedding-Venue-Business-Plan-Template

    Sample from Growthink's Ultimate Wedding Venue Business Plan Template: The following industry statistics bode well for [Company Name]. According to the recent report entitled, "Weddings in the U.S." by the Wedding Professionals Association, the industry's annual revenue is approximately $71 billion, with an estimated gross profit of 4.9%.

  29. Rakul Preet Singh, Jackky Bhagnani plan Sikh, Sindhi wedding ceremonies

    Rakul Preet Singh, Jackky Bhagnani plan Sikh, Sindhi wedding ceremonies. After 3:30 p.m., the couple will hold traditional pheras at ITC Grand South Goa, blending tradition with modernity and infusing personal touches into the rituals.