Last June, Liene Stevens of Splendid Communications kindly allowed me to publish some of the hugely insightful findings of her annual wedding & lifestyle market research. Each year she interviews thousands of engaged and newly-married couples to find out exactly what matters when it comes to their weddings, how much they’re really spending and which factors actually determine how they select their suppliers. The results went down a storm, with many of you commenting that after reading the findings that you had plans to make some serious improvements on certain areas of your businesses.
So, as soon as Liene published the results of her 2012 survey, which can be purchased in full via her website, I was keen to ask if I could share some of the highlights with you again. There is a report available which covers the overall global results, but she’s also carried out country-specific surveys (US, Canada, UK & Australia). Being a wedding blogger based in the UK, I found the answers from the UK responders particularly interesting. Below are some of the findings from that report. The survey was taken by heterosexual and same-sex brides and grooms from the UK who were married in 2012.
Budgets
The majority of couples in the UK are spending between $11,000 – $30,000 (published in USD to keep results consistent with the global findings) which is approximately £7200 – £20,000.
They are mostly paying for the wedding themselves (88%) but for many couples it’s still the parents who foot the majority of the bill.
Supplier hiring decisions
The majority of UK couples find their wedding suppliers via internet searches (65%). Second up is recommendations from either family & friends (42%) or other suppliers (36%) and thirdly from wedding blogs (29%).
53% of UK couples said the personality of their wedding suppliers was ‘very important’. 0% said it didn’t matter at all.
Communication is key! A whopping 50% of UK couples said speediness of email response was a ‘very important’ deciding factor when booking someone. A further 42% said ‘it matters’.
Awards don’t really mean anything when booking clients. Only 1% said that awards were ‘very important’ whereas 38% said they weren’t of any importance at all.
Being up to date with your website and on social media also really matters…
Priorities
The overarching theme here is that couples want to plan a wedding that is reflective of them but they also really care what their friends & family think!
Wedding media
Wedding blogs still rule when it comes to finding inspiration for their weddings. 50% of couples getting marred in UK read wedding blogs every day and 33% dip in weekly.
… and they’re using them to get inspired (86%), to find new ideas (77%), to daydream or procrastinate (44%) and to find wedding planning advice (43%). My opinion is that reason wedding blogs are so popular is that maybe unlike wedding magazines, they don’t feel like they’re being ‘sold to’. They can use them in a way they find useful and helpful and if they find their wedding suppliers on them that’s almost a bit of an unexpected bonus.
Take from these results what you will, but I hope sharing them may help some of you with your plans for your wedding business moving forward. Again, thank you Liene for letting me share just this small snippet of the information packed into the 2012 report. If you’d like to buy the full report, then you can do so right here (and you should – it’s amazing!)
Thoughts everybody?
Really useful info. Thanks for this, Kat! 🙂
awesome!
Great informative post ~ thanks 🙂
Wow there are a lot of people seemingly after that 5% group at the top. I think a reality check is in order.
Interesting results xx
What an excellent piece of research for anyone working in the wedding industry.
I love Liene’s blog, this type of info is so important and very interesting. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
So helpful, thanks Kat! I’ve noticed lately that couples who come to me via a friend’s recommendation are most likely to ask for a discount as they seem to read ‘recommendation’ as ‘mate rates’. Definitely an interesting insight when it comes to our enquiries!
Wow, what a very informative and in-depth look at the UK wedding scene! I really love all of the graphics also, they make all those statistics fun to look at. So helpful!
Fascinating 🙂 Interesting about the awards too!
Very interesting, especially the supplier hiring decisions – thanks!
Thanks for publishing this. I think this type of research is so helpful to us in the wedding industry as it’s easy when starting out to think paid advertising is the best way forward. However I find most of my clients find me by searching on-line and word of mouth. In fact, I only pay to advertise on one listing site nowadays.
Very interesting info, presented in a wonderfully visual way – thanks so much for sharing xx
It’s great to learn that my experience is consistent with the research & confirms how I should proceed in building my business for the future! Thanks for sharing x
Really useful insights again. Cheers 🙂
There’s always much debate about what an “average” wedding actually costs. It makes the budget info interesting reading! Thanks for sharing Kat.
That makes very interesting reading indeed! It’s great to finally have a good insight into the UK wedding market. It shows just how important blogging and social media has become in recent years. Thanks for sharing Kat!
Ooo really interesting! Gets you thinking, I thought I might seem a little over keen as I always reply quickly to emails. But it’s seems I was doing the right thing!
Thanks Kat x
THANK you! Invaluable info, was starting to feel a little lost! x
Great post, beautifully presented – thanks! Interesting stuff…
Oooo, this is an amazing resource and so prettily layed out. Although it does mean that I really need to get my ass in gear and sort/update/make better my website!
Brilliant post – really useful. Thanks.
Interesting reading.
Fun is high on my list of what I want in a couple too.
Happy days
Just stumbled across this, ace information, thanks Kat
Only just stumbled across this and this information is brilliant thank you for sharing. This confirms exactly what i thought from previous research!
Lots of love, Boris and Betty xoxo
Thanks so much for the useful info!! It’s so rare to find!! 🙂 xx
Very interesting stats here. But im glad the word “FUN” was the most popular word to describe their wedding.
Hi, I wondered if Splendid Communications is still active and if you will be showcasing any of 2013 stats? This info is very interesting. C x
Some very interesting stats here and a good read. Opens the eyes as a wedding photographer!
Many thanks for sharing it is always helpful to get someone else’s insights
Really interesting statistics here, especially the importance of speedy of email responses. Thanks for this great post.
Great article about how couples in the UK plan their weddings pick their suppliers. A lot of Great Tips and Very nicely written. I have learned a lot from your article Thank you for sharing with us.I hope it will be helpful for too many people that are searching for this topic.
Love all the information in this– it’s so true! If you aren’t going to hire a planner coordinators are a MUST! They’ve always been so wonderful and helpful in my experience! Great share!
Still a very useful article