National Wedding Survey - part 2

Hitched.co.uk, one of the UK's largest wedding planning sites, has once again completed one of their  National Wedding Surveys asking over 2,400 couples who got married in 2022 all about their wedding. 

In the second of five blog posts we investigate the data about engagements & timings of weddings and consider what this might mean for the sales & marketing of a Wedding Celebrant business & our workload. 

The headline result is that yet again, December was confirmed as the busiest month for engagements (19%). Not only does this cover the big engagement days of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, but I should also imagine many engagements take place in that relaxing period in between Christmas and New Year when many couples just chill in the warmth of each other's company. 

Whilst Valentine's Day is a significant day for engagements, February is not overall a big month. Instead, August and September are big months with 11% and 10% of all engagements taking place at this time respectively. I can imagine this is because many marriage proposals take place whilst couples visit romantic holiday destinations. 

If you are a funeral celebrant, you will know that in the 1950s and 1960s, the biggest month for weddings was March. I will leave the explanation of why this was, for another Blog post for another day.

In 2021, July and August were the most popular months for weddings and have been (pre-pandemic) for many years. However, in 2022, we saw a change. The number of weddings taking place in September has now overtaken the number in July. 

Whilst summer weddings are clearly still very popular with June, July and August accounting for 39% of all weddings, autumn weddings are quickly catching up.

In 2022, according to Hitched's National Wedding Survey, 33% of all weddings took place in September, October and November. This might be still an overhang from the pandemic, but I think not. Having had a beautiful autumn wedding myself, I have to say, I love them. It might be that couples are enjoying the cheaper rates of venues in the autumn, or perhaps it's yet another impact from climate change.

The quietest time for weddings is January and February accounting for just 1% and 2% of all weddings respectively. 

How should this data inform our marketing & our workload?

When couples get engaged the first task on their wedding planning journey is to book their venue. When church weddings were more popular, then sometimes booking the church would come first, but with only 20% of couples now having a religious ceremony, capacity in churches is now less of an issue. 

So it is important that if you are wanting to only work as a wedding celebrant in very local venues, you would be advised to spend your January, February & March visiting your local wedding venues, leaving your leaflets with wedding co-ordinators and reminding them about how wonderful and easy having a celebrant-led wedding is. Remember, the wedding co-ordinators who couples will be meeting can be your biggest allies. If a couple fall in love with a venue, you want the wedding co-ordinator to remind the couple about the options and choices they have for their ceremony. 

The best wedding venues do this automatically and talk about personalised celebrant wedding ceremonies on their website. In the worst case scenario, wedding co-ordinator staff know nothing about celebrants or have only experienced "nightmare" high-maintenance & long-winded celebrants and want to avoid them at all costs.

The high turnover of staff in hospitality, including with wedding co-ordinators means that you should not assume that just one visit to your local wedding venue is enough. Just like with building trust and rapport with funeral directors, with some, it may take a long time and many visits to convince them that you are someone they should trust and could work with. 

January through to March is a time when your social media posts should be heavily focused on educating and reinforcing the benefits of celebrant-led weddings. As it is likely that you will not have many or any current weddings at this time, this is the period to use wonderful photos you have held back from previous weddings or you have found online. Make sure your photos are inspirational and will capture the attention of your social media community. 

If you are thinking of becoming a wedding celebrant, and you want to be busy at busy times, then the real aspect you will need to consider is when to take your annual family holiday. If you have school-age children, then realistically, you may have to turn work away because it will clash with your family time. However, if you are not constrained by term-time holidays, then a spring time or winter get-away is ideal. 

Because so many of our weddings are likely to be truncated into the 6 months between May and September, it is really important to be very well organised as you manage the consultation and creative writing process with your couples. My busy wedding season starts in March as I start consulting with my couples 3 months before their ceremony. I then have to be ferociously organised to keep myself and them to schedule. I breathe a huge sigh of relief and enjoy a good rest in November. 

In our next National Wedding Survey blog post we shall look at the data in terms of the cost of weddings and the outlook of recession and what this means for our pricing strategies, marketing and business growth. 
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