I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that your entire business changes when you start marketing to your ideal client. Seriously, as a wedding planner for 13 years and a business coach for wedding planners for over 10 years, I have seen the transformation over and over again. Wedding planners come to me feeling burnt out, wondering why all of their hard work and perseverance isn’t bringing them the couples that they really, really, want. And I know you’re here for wedding planner marketing tips–so let’s get going.
I’m glad you found your way here because now we have a chance to do things differently.
Do you want to know why most businesses fail? I believe it’s because they don’t know who they are talking to. Before you can start marketing to your ideal client, you first need to understand exactly who they are. I’m talking more than where they shop and what their household income is. Instead, you need to focus on who they are, what they value, and which of their problems you are uniquely qualified to solve.
If you are ready to start booking more magazine-worthy weddings and start booking more ideal clients as a wedding planner, you need to know your ideal client as well as you know your best friend. If you are not there yet, you need The Client Cocktail.
Now, I’m going to assume you’ve done that and you know exactly who you want to attract. I have to be honest with you guys, when it comes to speaking to your ideal client, a lot of wedding planners are doing it all wrong.
I’m so tired of the Instagram captions that go on and on about the fact that hundreds and hundreds of hours go into planning every wedding.
I’ve got bad news if that’s you: your ideal client does not care.
You speak directly to your ideal client when you stop talking about your services and start talking about the transformation you provide your ideal clients.
When you are marketing to your ideal client, you need to stop focusing on your enormous bullet point list of services. We already KNOW that wedding planners work miracles, but that’s not really what your ideal client is hiring you for.
After all, we know our couples don’t know half the fires we put out as wedding planners on a regular basis. Instead of putting the emphasis on you and what you are doing, focus on the transformation you provide your clients.
And that’s how you up the game with marketing your services as a wedding planner.
When you are marketing to your ideal client, ask yourself: What is life like for your couple after you serve them as their wedding planner?
I want you to really paint a picture here. You are not just selling your full-service wedding packages. Instead, you are selling the moment they’ve been dreaming about. You are taking away their anxiety and giving them the chance to be excited throughout the planning process.
After all, a wedding is more than just one day; it’s a moment of their lives marking the next chapter. One they get to celebrate with all of their family and friends.
As much as possible, bring them to the moment when all of the work you do together culminates. That moment is what you need to be selling first in order to call in your dream clients (the ones that will absolutely not be questioning your worth). What’s the most important thing to them?
Everyone’s ideal client is a little different, but most won’t care if you’re the premier wedding planner in your city, that you’ve been featured on The Knot five times, or that laundry list of services you provide. Your ideal client has a problem. They are looking for the one who can solve it for them.
When you speak directly to the transformation they are looking for in your wedding planner marketing, they will automatically assume you are the solution.
Storytelling in your marketing is one of the most effective ways to speak directly to your ideal clients in your marketing.
Once you’ve started painting a picture of what working with you really looks like (and the transformation you give to your wedding planning couples), you can start to infuse storytelling to make your marketing even more effective at attracting your ideal clients.
You’ve likely told stories in your marketing before. But now, it’s time to be intentional about telling stories that walk your ideal clients through exactly what they can expect when working with you. That transformation you are selling, what does it look like in real life? If you’re a podcast listener, make sure to listen to episode #70 where I talk more about how to level up your storytelling. Telling your customers stories is only one of the four types of stories I recommend sharing.
What life looks like for your customers after they hire you is one of the most effective stories you can tell when marketing to your ideal clients.
When crafting your customer stories, think back to when we talked about the transformation your ideal customer wants. What real-life customers have already achieved that? And if you don’t have real-life examples yet, don’t be discouraged. There are other ways to infuse storytelling in your marketing.
In addition to sharing real wedding stories, talk about what the problem feels like and what symptoms your ideal client experiences. Are they up late at night, riddled with anxiety that they might make a mistake? Have they rented so much wedding decor that they can’t see straight, and they are just crossing their fingers that it’s all going to look good together on their wedding day? Maybe they have demanding jobs and work long hours, so they find communicating with vendors next to impossible.
You get where I’m going here, right? Focus on YOUR ideal clients’ problems. You need to know exactly who you are talking to here. When you are clear on the problem you solve, your customers will feel seen and will trust you.
Here are a few more prompts to start marketing to your ideal clients using the power of story:
- What testimonials can you share–and what’s the story behind them?
- What was life like for your customers BEFORE they came to you?
- What’s life been like for them after they’ve worked with you?
As a business coach for wedding pros AND wedding planners, I’m here to tell you marketing to your ideal clients doesn’t have to be so hard.
I know that the marketing industry has made you feel like you need to be everywhere and do everything. I know they have made you feel as if you don’t have the kind of clients you want, it’s because you’re not doing enough. As a marketer myself, I feel like I need to apologize on behalf of my industry AND acknowledge that I fall victim to the lies myself from time to time.
I love to get down to the brass tax, and here it is: marketing to your ideal clients doesn’t have to be so hard. In fact, here’s a quick recap of how to speak directly to them:
- First, know who you are talking to. You need to know them as well as you know your best friend. If you are not there yet, the Client Cocktail will be the best money you’ve ever spent.
- When marketing to your ideal client, ditch the laundry list of services you provide (and every single thing that’s included). Instead, focus on the transformation you provide. What problem do you solve for your customers? What do they really, really, want?
- Use storytelling to market your business even more effectively. Humans connect through stories and they are the fast track to getting your ideal clients to know-like-trust you.
Ready to finally stop booking shitty clients and start calling in magazine-worthy weddings? Grab The Client Cocktail and start taking matters into your own hands.
Explore More Wedding Industry Resources
- How to Start a Wedding Planning Business
- The 2026 Growth Strategy for Wedding Pros Nobody Its Talking About
- State of the Wedding Industry: What I’m Seeing Behind the Scenes of (And The The Old Rules That Don’t Work Anymore)
- How to Know if Your Wedding Planner Marketing Strategy is Working
- 7 Wedding Planner Canva Templates You Need Right Now
- 2025 Website Trends for Wedding Pros: Jen from Tonic’s Hit List & Shit List
- Enji Marketing Software: A Review
- Day of Coordination: The Pros and Cons as a Wedding Planner
- How To Create An Ideal Client Avatar in Four Easy Steps
- Why You’re Not Attracting The Right Clients and How to Fix It
- How To Become A Wedding Planner With No Experience
- The Marketing Strategy For Wedding Pros That’s Algorithm Proof
- 4 Strategies That Will Help You Book MORE Of Your Ideal Clients
- How to Know if Your Wedding Planner Marketing Strategy is Working
- 8 Things You Can Do When Feeling Stuck in Your Wedding Business
- Five Ways To Bring Some New Girl Energy To Your Wedding Business
- How To Get Wedding Clients When You’re Just Starting Out
- How To Build Your Portfolio As A Wedding Planner When You’re Just Starting Out
For More Wedding Industry Business Secrets, Follow Me on Instagram
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
Syd from @ininkweddings spent $$$$ on a rebrand... and a year later, her gut told her to do it again.
She listened, and that’s how Messy Luxury™ was born.
The Behind the Brand series is BACK on the podcast, and this episode is one of my favorites yet. I’m excited to introduce you to Sydney Meyer (AKA ya girl, SYD) – a talented, vibrant, and dynamic wedding designer / planner based in Austin but serving clients worldwide.
I’ve been coaching Syd inside WPI since 2022, so I’ve had a front row seat to her evolution.
I’ve gotten to watch her build an iconic brand from the inside out, and it’s been one of the great joys of my coaching career. I’m so excited for you to hear her journey and some of the interesting twists and turns she’s encountered because boy, are they RELATABLE.
In this episode, we get into:
- What inspired her to start In Ink
- Why her first rebrand still didn’t feel right and how she knew
- The rock-bottom moment that forced her to build a business for HER, not everyone else
- How she trademarked Messy Luxury and turned it into the most recognizable design philosophy in Austin
If your business doesn’t feel like you anymore or if you’ve been searching for your unique creative POV, you’re going to LOVE this week’s episode!
Drop MESSY LUXURY in the comments and I’ll send you a link to listen!
A special shout out to all the photographers whose images reflect Syd and her great work: @alicialeighphoto @anastasiastratephotography @fallonstovallphoto @lightasgold @natalienicolephoto @haleyfolkman.photo @c10ike
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