You’re probably wondering how to book MORE weddings in your wedding industry business. But not just any kind of weddings or clients. You want to book the *right* clients–the kind of customers who appreciate your work and have the money to back it up. Not only that, you want to know how to get high-end wedding clients because you’re ready to upgrade your customers and grow your business to the next level.
But how do you book better weddings and how do you get high-end wedding clients?
First, we have to talk about why you’re attracting the WRONG people.
There are lots of reasons why you might be attracting the wrong people. I help wedding pros build a profitable business with purpose–and over the last 8 years of coaching wedding industry creatives–I’ve discovered the number one reason why they’re not attracting high-end clients.
Want to know the reason why?
It’s because they’re stuck trying to appeal to everyone.
I’m willing to bet that you’re doing the same.
Hear me out: if you want to book better, high-end wedding clients… you need to pick a lane. But before you do that, we need to have a little heart-to-heart about your scarcity mindset, because *THAT’S* what’s holding you back from booking the high-end clients you want (and deserve!).
WTF is a “scarcity mindset”?
A scarcity mindset is a belief that you will never have enough of something. And in this case, we’re talking about clients and money. When you operate from a scarcity mindset, you believe that you have to take *this* job because you don’t believe there’s enough work for you to say NO.
Yeah, YOU are not willing to say NO.
And instead, you’re saying yes to whoever contacts you because you’re scared that there isn’t enough business out there for you. You deserve to have wedding couples who value the work you do and are willing to pay top dollar for it. In fact, you could be booking them right now— but the problem is, you’re not willing to say no.
If you’re just getting started, you might believe that you *have* to take these less than ideal customers (because that’s how everyone starts, right?! WRONG.)
Or if you’re a few years into your business, you’ve amassed a portfolio of less ideal clients… and now it’s all you can attract (even when you try to *pretty up* their wedding in your galleries by strategically leaving OUT that ugly centerpiece their aunt made).
If you’re operating from scarcity right now, saying YES to people you KNOW you shouldn’t be working with, then your first step to book better, high-end weddings is to start saying no to work that doesn’t serve you.
How do you book better weddings?
The first step is saying no to bad weddings and getting rid of your scarcity mindset. If you want to book better weddings, you need to start saying no to the customers who don’t align with where your business is going. It’s hurting your business, your creativity, and your bank account.
There was *ONE* time in my career where I knew I should say no, but I said yes to a shitty client. I wanted the money (I have expensive taste in handbags) and I paid dearly for it.
That bride almost broke me. But I learned a valuable lesson.
First off, not all money is good money. Just because a check cashes doesn’t mean it’s good… And then second, if I wanted to *NEVER* work with a client like her again, I needed to fix my mindset. You gotta do the same.
Listen— saying no is scary. Waving goodbye to the only kind of clients you’ve ever worked with on a hope and prayer you’ll hook higher-end clients is terrifying (raising your price is pretty damn scary too, but we’ll get to that another time).
But if you’re going to continue to say yes to weddings..
- at less than ideal locations…
- that have a shit ton of headaches and BS…
- with clients who can barely afford the wedding they’re having…
- so they ask their aunt to do the flowers (and btw, they look like shit)
- and they’re begging for discounts like you’re a charity…
Then you’re going to keep attracting those same clients.
Shitty clients are like magnets for more shitty clients.
Round and around we go— in a cycle of less than ideal customers whose weddings in your portfolio attract the same kinds of customers. Over and over again.
Here’s the good news. You can make a change (like I did) and start saying NO to work you don’t want to do anymore.
Stop operating from scarcity, making broke decisions because you don’t believe there is enough for you.
And instead, step into the belief that there are good clients out there. Heck, there are freaking GREAT clients out there— and they’re waiting for you to step up and start talking to them.
How do you get high-end customers?
All right, by now you know that you need to stop with the belief that there are not enough high-end, dope wedding clients out there for you.
So if you want the kinda clients who…
- Get married at venues and locations you’ve always dreamed of working at
- Have a budget that can afford all the trimmings
- Pick up the bar tab (and then some).
- Value your work and expertise because they KNOW they hired the best
- Have weddings that are so dang pretty, magazines are calling *YOU* to feature it
- Are so good they’re actually freaking nice (and they respect your boundaries)
- Make you the talk of the town, tell all their friends aboutcha, and leave five star reviews…
… then you have to start saying no to the old clients, so you can welcome in the good.
But how do we welcome in the good clients?!
It’s simple (but also challenging at the same time – because isn’t that a metaphor for life?!)…
You need to know who you are talking to. Yes, you need to sit down and map out who these high-end, ideal clients are. Things like what they…
- Desire most when it comes to their wedding
- Worry about when it comes to their wedding
- Really want from a wedding pro like you
- Value most when it comes to their wedding experience
Their desires, worries, problems, and values are going to be DIFFERENT from the clients you’re serving right now (and we’ve established that we’re kicking those customers to the curb).
If you’re serious about wanting to upgrade your clients— I’ve got a little something up my sleeve to help.
You need to check out The Client Cocktail. It’s the recipe you’ve been waiting for to attract, sell, and serve more of the *right* people.
Explore More Wedding Industry Resources
- How To Create An Ideal Client Avatar in Four Easy Steps
- How To Get Wedding Clients When You’re Just Starting Out
- How To Find Your Niche In The Wedding Industry: 5 Steps For Niching Down
- Why You’re Not Attracting The Right Clients and How to Fix It
- The Key To Sales: The Know, Like, Trust Factor with Kendra Swalls
- Book More Clients This Engagement Season with This Sales Process
- 5 Secrets To Consistent Sales – Sales Techniques That Work For Creatives
For More Wedding Industry Business Secrets, Follow Me on Instagram
You might see the highlight reel and think ending up here was always my plan all along but you’d be wrong.
Like any good career, there have been lots of pivots and hiccups, and lessons that had to be learned the hard way.
Not seen here? The time…
- I forgot to add chairs to a rental order and ended up footing the $2,000 bill
- A client sat across from me crying that I ruined her wedding because her parents table had a low centerpiece
- I had to borrow $4,000 from Grandma Vera to make payroll, because I didn’t pay attention to my numbers
- About a hundred “dream clients” hired a different planner than me and I felt like an absolute failure
- I cried in my car before a wedding because I was completely and totally overwhelmed with the amount of responsibility on my shoulders (OK, maybe I did this more than once)
- My seasonal launch of The Planner’s Playbook completely bombed and I felt like my entire business was falling apart
…and roughly 700 other moments I’ve chosen to leave off the highlight reel.
So if you’re at the messy, nothing’s-working stage right now? Just know that if you have been to one wedding in your life, you are starting with more experience than I had.
I’m getting ready to embark on an exciting new chapter that I cannot wait to share with you… it’s big, and scary, and I’m sure in another few years I’ll have a lot more lore to share… but in the meantime…
Cheers to all the ups and downs I’ve experienced over the last 19 years!
And a special thanks to the photographers who made a lot of this lore possible: @c10ike @allanzepedaphoto @stevedepino @withincreative @robertandkathleen @thebrandedbosslady 💜🫶🏼😘
I’ve come to realize that many of us want to have a village, but we don’t recognize that we have to be a villager first.
My friend carla @c10ike is one of those rare exceptions and I want to introduce you to her!
When I started my planning business, I had no contacts and no real idea what I was doing. I was so green it makes me laugh to look back on it now!
And somehow, I got lucky enough to be taken under the wing of this incredible woman who showed up for me then when I was a little baby business owner, and has kept showing up ever since in more ways than I could possibly count.
She’s taught me so much over the years, and I don’t mean in the traditional sense of teaching someone something. She simply lived her life, and I paid attention.
She modeled what it means to be a friend.
A sister.
A daughter.
A wife.
A mother.
A business owner.
A boss.
I learned generosity by watching her be generous.
Compassion, connection, leadership… none of it came from advice. All of it came from the way she carries herself and the way she treats the people around her.
She has taught me more than she will ever know by the sheer act of living loudly and joyfully in every corner of her life.
I am so lucky to call her my friend. So lucky to be one of the many, many people she has been a villager for.
Carla thank you for letting me grow up right beside you. I love you. 🤍
DAY ONE // WPI Spring Retreat 💜
This was our first real day together! The theme of this whole retreat was refinement, so we wasted no time getting into it on Day 1!
The women shuttled up to my home, walked through the gate to mimosas and the biggest hugs, and got their welcome totes filled with goodies I curated from female owned businesses that were mostly local!
Then we settled in, did some tapping to manifest all the answers we needed for the week, courtesy of our very own @ashley.peraino (who couldn’t join us this year, but was SO THOUGHTFUL to record a video for us!)
I opened with a talk on complexity, discernment, and self-trust (today’s podcast episode, BTW) simplifying your business and actually trusting yourself to lead what’s left.
From there the room took over. We had three incredible member gives: @c10ike on trusting your creative instincts, @ininkweddings on refining your creative POV, and @welldressedevents on generating real revenue through Google Ads (it’s giving… LEADS 😉).
In between we had small group discussions, hot conversations about where instinct and POV are out of sync, a homemade Caribbean lunch, and an afternoon of poolside snacks and conversation.
This is what the WPI room looks like. A talented group of women who came with one big business question and spent day one getting closer to the answer while having fun and getting their brains stretched!
All these gorgeous moments captured by our retreat photographer + my business bestie @c10ike 💜💜💜
Do it or delete it.
I said this recently to a coaching client, and now it’s sort of become our mantra inside WPI, because almost every business owner I know has a to-do list with 47 things on it (the same 47 things that were on last week’s list, and the week before that).
They don’t get done. They just travel from week to week collecting guilt, and that guilt somehow makes it even harder to get anything done at all.
After years of coaching women through this, you start to realize that most of those tasks don’t actually have dire consequences if they never happen. They just feel important because they’ve been living on your list rent-free for six months.
I want you to look at your to-do list right now and choose.
You do it… meaning you do it right now or at the very least put it on the calendar with a real deadline.
You delegate it… but only if it’s actually worth someone else’s time, not because you’ve been avoiding it and want to make it someone else’s problem.
Or you delete it… and I mean actually delete it, not shuffle it to a “someday” list where it will haunt you until 2027.
The guilt you feel about your undone tasks won’t go away if you magically “get more productive.” Instead I want you to see it for what it is: a list-curation problem.
What’s one thing you’re deleting today?
PS: I can confidently say these @aritzia sweatpants are 10/10
filed under:
+ show Comments
- Hide Comments
add a comment