When Do Couples Book Their Small Weddings?
For a traditional wedding, the average booking window for couples is 9-12 months out. This is pretty standard and has been an average amount of time for the almost two decades that I have been planning events. However, elopements are far different. They not only vary by couple, but by guest count and by type of small wedding too. Which makes the booking window very broad for small weddings, in fact we have had couples book with us anywhere from one week out to 2 years!
So, let’s talk about how you can prepare for that in your wedding business and how each of those factors affect a couples decision.
Let’s begin by examining how you can get a better idea of when your couples are going to want to book your services. There are a few big factors that usually determine your couples booking window and those are; how many guests are attending the wedding, how much they are spending on their wedding and what type of wedding experience they are planning.
While all of these factors have an affect on a couple’s decision, the guest count is arguably the biggest indicator of a couple’s potential booking window. If a couples is planning on eloping with just the two of them, they are going to have the greatest flexibility in booking. It is solely up to the two of them to decide, sometimes on a whim, that they are ready to tie the knot and it may not require much planning at all.
This could include a couple deciding that they want to do an adventure elopement in 3 months with an incredible photographer or travel to their dream destination for an elopement/honeymoon in 6 months or decide a week beforehand that they want to go to Vegas and tie the knot. When just the couple is eloping they don’t have to take into account anyone else’s schedule and can either decide to be very intentional in planning or to do something in the spur of the moment.
If you primarily offer services for the couple-only, you are going to have the shortest booking window and you can expect to have couples calling you anywhere from 1 - 6 months on average.
However, if a couple is inviting 25 of their friends and family to Italy or Hawaii for a week-long destination micro-wedding, you are going to usually have a much longer lead time for these couples. They will have to give everyone time to make their travel arrangements and will generally need to make more of an effort with the planning, so they will want to have time to do that.
So, if you offer larger small wedding packages or your typical small wedding has a higher guest count, you will end up having a longer lead time and I would say you could expect to be in the 6-12 month range for bookings.
The second factor is budget. If a couples small wedding is a big investment, than they are obviously going to want or need a longer lead time. If they are doing something more cost-effective, they usually will not need as much time to make their booking decisions and are more likely to have a short booking window.
If your wedding services are on the higher end of average, you will most likely have couples choosing to book you with more of a lead time than if you have a service offering that is a great value. So, it is good to keep in mind that the way your services are priced, does have an affect on your booking times.
Finally the third factor is the type of wedding experience a couple is planning. If a couple is planning on doing a Pop Up wedding and has a limited number of dates to choose from, then that dictates their booking window as to when those dates are open. If a couple is planning a destination elopement wedding and wants to have a week long celebration with family and friends, they are going to need a longer booking window in order to get everything done in time.
The type of small wedding services you offer will be a big factor in determining when couples book you. If you have a package that is easy for couples to book with a short lead time, then they are going to do that. If you only offer custom services that require time to coordinate or are a larger investment, than you will attract couples that have longer lead times.
Ok, now you should have a better idea whether or not your wedding services fall into the shorter or longer time frame for bookings. This is key if you want to understand your numbers and if you are on track for the year with your bookings - if you don’t know the window in which couples can or will be booking you, then how can you be sure you are going to get the number of bookings you need?
If you are just starting out with creating your small wedding offerings, this is such great information to know because you are going to want to keep this in mind and make sure that the offer you are creating is going to align with the booking window that you are going to want to be getting.
Oh, and does this mean that there is no real average time frame that elopement wedding couples book? Not necessarily. While there can be a very broad window for couples booking smaller weddings, the average time frame is actually closer to 3 -9 months out across the board.
I am curious, are you seeing these lead times in your biz or something else entirely? I would love to hear from you! Drop me a DM at @morganmchilds or join us in the Elopement Wedding Pro Community and we can do a deep dive.
xx MMC
PS Want to email me? Love to hear from you.
Photo Credit: Ashley Goodwin Photography