Why Planning a Small Wedding for wedding planners, is Different
Small weddings are wonderful; you have time to get to know your couples better, have time to create something really unique and personal for them and you get to facilitate a really beautiful day-of experience because there is not the typical chaos surrounding a larger affair.
However, not all small weddings are created equally.
The fact of the matter is that not every couple planning an intimate wedding ends up doing what they would do if they had a larger wedding, or spending the same amount of money on it, in fact, most of them don’t.
Many couples begin thinking that maybe they don’t need to spend quite so much planning time on their wedding or on a wedding planner because it is a smaller and therefore simpler wedding.
They may get to thinking that they surely don’t need to invest as much money on their small wedding as they would do on a larger one with more guests.
And they begin to wonder if, since it is so small, if they really need all the bells and whistles and if that money would be better off spent elsewhere …
When the wedding gets smaller, the expectations around the wedding day experience generally changes and couples are more likely to end up wanting something simpler, that costs less and is easier to plan. It is simply a clear value proposition - since they are not putting as much into it, they don’t expect as much out of it.
What that means to a wedding planner is that the way you approach small weddings, is rarely ever the same way you approach larger ones. Those dream couples with huge budgets and low guest counts are few and far between, and more commonly, you are going to have couples who are looking to spend less on their smaller wedding and are looking for value above full service. So, how do you navigate booking smaller weddings when they either can’t afford your service or when you are not making as much per wedding, but your couples are wanting just as much of your time?
Well, that is exactly the reason why in 2015 we added special elopement offerings to our company, to serve those small weddings with the abbreviated services they wanted, without taking up the precious spots on our calendar that we needed for larger weddings. By creating a special offering tailored for small guest counts we were able to create the value the couples were looking for around their small wedding experience. It also allowed us the ability to re-think our service offering and to streamline our process to the point where we could accept dozens of elopements without it affecting our calendar, in fact it added a lot of revenue and we ended up finding a niche we didn’t know was missing.
If you are trying to fit your small weddings or elopements into the same mold as your larger weddings, I encourage you to really look into your planning process and determine if there is the opportunity for you to create an additional offering in your company geared toward small weddings. Elopements are not just a trend, there are here to stay and you want to be sure your company is well positioned to work with these couples without losing any money or spots on your calendar. Want to learn more about how we did this? We host a free Masterclass and even have a course, The Elopement Formula, created just to teach planners how to add elopements and small wedding offerings successfully and profitably to your company and would love for you to join us! Sign up for the waitlist HERE.