Wedding business marketing can be tough-especially if you’re trying to attract magazine-worthy clients. Can I be brutally honest with you? If you haven’t worked with your ideal client avatar yet in your wedding business, it might be because you’re showing up in all the wrong places. Or, you’re talking to someone who doesn’t really exist.
Often, when I ask wedding planners to describe their ideal client to me, they describe the exact same person.
My ideal client is 25-35 years old and a professional. She shops at Nordstrom, her household income is well over six figures, oh yeah – and she also is willing to shell out a bunch of cash for a wedding planner.
Although these facts might be true about your ideal client, this is not enough to market to them effectively and find them in real life. Partly because it’s incredibly vague. And partly because you treat your ideal clients like they are perfect (spoiler alert: they aren’t!).
Before you can even attempt to dive into better wedding business marketing, attempting to book more ideal clients and make sales, you need to do some hard work uncovering who your ideal clients are.
Seriously, don’t skip this step. It seems simple enough, but without it, the rest of this post won’t be nearly as effective!
Okay, ready? I’m going to trust you paused to do the work here, or you’ve invested a chunk of change ($47!) and grabbed my Ideal Client Cocktail so you can genuinely uncover who your ideal client is. I’m biased, but I feel pretty confident in saying that it just might be the best $47 you’ve ever spent.
Finding your ideal client avatar in real life and getting the most out of your wedding business marketing strategy.
Can I tell you a secret? It’s much easier to have your ideal client avatar find you than to find them. Below, I have listed five places where your ideal client is likely looking for your services. You know your ideal client best, so I will leave which area you should focus on up to you.
When it comes to marketing to your ideal client in the wedding industry, you want to show up where they are, but you also want to show up in a way that makes you feel comfortable and lets you (at least somewhat) enjoy the process.
For instance, if you hate Instagram, focus on building your blog content. If networking drains you, focus more on the online marketing channels. As a business coach for wedding pros, I have learned that there is no one right way to do things. You get to decide what a business you love looks like!
Now, let’s jump into the five main places your ideal clients can find you!
1) Google Searches
If I know anything about your ideal client, it’s that they are using Google to find exactly what they need. After all, how did you find me today? I’m guessing it started with a search! Can I be honest with you? I geek out over SEO. I have repeatedly found that focusing on your search engine presence is beneficial in so many ways.
First, you automatically look like a professional when you show up on page 1 of Google. Second, SEO strategies don’t change as frequently as the Instagram algorithm. It’s much easier to stay on page 1 than you think.
If you are a podcast listener, make sure you listen to this episode with Vanessa Hicks. She talks about how the average lifespan of an Instagram post is 48 hours, but the average lifespan of a blog post is 700 days! Doesn’t that sound like a place where you should put your marketing efforts? Blogging is excellent for SEO and one of the ways you can make sure you show up in your ideal client’s Google searches.
A quick tip: When they search for your service, they check reviews! Include your Google Business profile when you ask your couples for reviews.
2) Locations
When they are searching for their wedding venue or destination, their searches revolve around the locations they are interested in. When you are crystal clear about who your ideal client is, you can use that information to target your ideal clients.
Want to rev up your wedding business marketing?
Start blogging about your favorite locations in your city – your favorite wedding venues, places to take wedding day portraits, and your favorite hotel for out-of-town guests to stay! A little SEO tip? Use nicknames of your locations, too (and airport codes – if it’s popular!).
Don’t forget to collaborate and feature other wedding vendors that complement your service! Before you collaborate, make sure your ideal clients are similar and you are crystal clear on who you hope to bring in! Guest blogging can be a great way to increase your exposure, and backlinks to your site are great for SEO (that’s when they link back to your website as a way of cross-promotion!).
3) Recommendations from Family and Friends
Wouldn’t it be nice if you knew the friends and family members of your most ideal clients?
Don’t worry. I know that’s not realistic (for now!). With that in mind, recommendations from family and friends are an incredibly effective way to get more ideal client business once you start. You shouldn’t feel bad about asking current and past clients to send more people your way.
The other point I want to make here is that although marketing is essential, I want you to make sure you’re taking care of the clients you have really, really well.
So often, we face mindset blocks where we just want more and more. We constantly worry that we don’t have enough, so all of our efforts go toward finding new clients (and we’re willing to take everyone and anyone). That’s not the kind of business that I want for you.
Often, there is more opportunity in our current clients than we realize. Treat them well, and you will reap the benefits for years to come.
4) Referrals from Other Wedding Vendors (so get networking!)
Wedding business marketing is all about networking.
Has your ideal client already booked a few of their wedding vendors before they start to look for your service? If so, they are getting recommendations from the wedding vendors they’ve already booked. I have to admit, this works better for wedding vendors who are typically booked further down the line in the wedding planning process than it would for someone like a wedding planner. Often, we are the ones recommending other vendors and not the ones that get recommended ourselves. Not always, though!
Don’t ever underestimate the wedding venues that might send couples your way or the cake designer with a lot of friends (that look a lot like your ideal client!) getting married soon.
When I started my business, I put a lot of effort into making as many connections as possible, and I have seen this investment pay off tenfold. As in-person events start to safely open up again, get involved in your community.
If you are new to the industry, consider interning or volunteering with fellow wedding pros who do the work you would love to do.
5) Instagram
I tell the women in my mastermind all of the time: the eye buys. In the wedding industry, we are incredibly fortunate to have an abundance of beautiful visuals. Put the stunning photos you have (of real weddings or styled shoots) to work on Instagram.
A quick tip: Make sure you use location-based hashtags and geo-tagging the places where you want to work. If your ideal clients are looking for inspiration and information for their wedding, that’s where they will look.
If you don’t have a robust portfolio (yet), you can get away with stock photos in the meantime. I highly recommend you take the networking skills I talked about above and put together a styled shoot (or two) as soon as possible! It is a great way to showcase your real and authentic work, but it’s also a great way to really get to know other vendors in the community. We are all in this together!
Wedding Business Marketing Tips: How To Find More Of Your Ideal Clients
As a quick recap, if you want to book more ideal clients for your wedding business and you’re ready to kick up your wedding business marketing… you need to show up where they are hanging out (in real life and online!). Just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come. If you focus your marketing efforts where your ideal clients are already hanging out, it will be much easier (and more sustainable).
Although I recommend you dive straight into my Client Cocktail for even more actionable advice, here are a few places your ideal client avatar is hanging out right now:
- They use Google to find exactly what they need (and check reviews!)
- When they are searching for their wedding, their searches revolve around the locations they are interested in.
- Your ideal client is asking their friends and family for recommendations.
- Has your ideal client already booked a few of their wedding vendors before they start to look for your service? If so, they get recommendations from the wedding vendors they’ve already booked.
- The eye buys (and we all love a visual platform). Your ideal clients look at Instagram hashtags and geotags to find inspiration and information for their wedding.
Once we know where your ideal clients are looking for you (and exactly what they are looking for!), booking them gets much easier! Cheers to booking a lot more dreamy clients in the future!
Before finding your ideal client, you must know exactly who you are talking to. Grab My Client Cocktail for a breakdown of EXACTLY how to find (+ book) your ideal clients.
Explore More Resources
- How to Start a Wedding Planning Business
- Wedding Industry Marketing Trends in 2024: A Marketing Trend Report For Wedding Pros
- Where Are Your Ideal Clients Hiding? Here’s What You Should Do To Marketing Your Wedding Business
- How To Build Your Portfolio As A Wedding Planner When You’re Just Starting Out
- 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
- Wedding Planner Marketing: How To Attract & Speak Directly to Your Ideal Clients
- How To Focus Your Marketing Platforms And Go All-In On Just ONE
- 9 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your Wedding Planning Business
- 4 Strategies That Will Help You Book MORE Of Your Ideal Clients
For More Wedding Industry Business Secrets, Follow Me on Instagram
no thoughts just boss 💅
photography @c10ike (aka my co-boss)
Nobody is coming to choose you or your business.
I said this to a student last month who had been in the business for years. Her process was dialed in. She had weddings on the books. But the work she was getting didn’t reflect what she was actually capable of, and she’d been waiting for the right client to come along and finally give her the chance to prove it.
That’s not how it works.
If you want to be booked for the work you actually want to do, you have to start showing it. Styled shoots. Venue tour reels. A post that says “manifesting this venue for my next dream couple.”
If you sit around and wait for a dream client to pick you so that you can prove what you’re capable of, you’re going to be waiting around a long time.
On the flip side…
Another client told me how she pivoted out of the $70K weddings she didn’t want by telling two prospective clients their budget was actually going to be $120K.
Both signed.
She didn’t wait for permission. She decided. She chose.
I want you to do the same.
What’s one thing you could post this week that shows the work you want to be hired for — not the work you currently have?
Last month I hosted my mastermind retreat for women in the wedding industry in a very special place: my home!
I got the guts to do this last Spring after reading a book by @oliverburkeman_ called Meditations for Mortals (a book so important I actually gifted it to all the attendees!).
There’s a phrase in the book that became my inspo for this retreat, and it’s called scruffy hospitality.
The gist: don’t wait until your house is perfect to invite people in. If you wait that long, you’ll never invite anyone in.
I knew that having the women I coach 1:1 in my home for a week to talk about business, share meals, drinks, learn, and laugh would be more meaningful than a fancy hotel or conference room.
And that’s because something special happens when we are invited into another persons sacred space. We feel a deeper connection to them and ourselves.
The whole book is structured around the idea that perfectionism is the thing stopping most of us from actually doing the work that matters.
Waiting for the house to be perfect before you have anyone over for dinner is just one flavor of it.
On the podcast, I shared more about the retreat and the story of why I host it here — episode 202 if you’re interested.
It got me thinking about YOU and what you might be delaying in your life or business because it’s not perfect yet.
Many of us are waiting for the business to be perfect, the website to be perfect, the portfolio to be perfect before we invite people in.
But what if you’re meant to invite people in now, when things (and you) are not perfect? What would that change for you, and what opportunities could you receive because of it?
Xo,
C
Photography by @c10ike 💜💜💜
WHAT a week. WHAT a group. WHAT a privilege.
The WPI Spring Retreat 2026 in Barbados is officially in the books and I’m still floating!! Five days of strategy, sun, sisterhood, and entirely too many beautiful conversations with seventeen women who I am wildly, ridiculously lucky to coach.
When you become a coach, nobody tells you that the cup goes both ways.
I poured into them all week, and they poured right back into me.
I learned something from every single one of them. About leadership. About refinement. About what it looks like to build a business and a life on your own terms without flinching.
I am more convinced than ever that this is my purpose. Being a guide for women who are writing their own stories is the work I was made for and I feel SO grateful that I get to do this.
If you’ve been craving a community of women who actually GET what you’re building, come talk to me. WPI is the room I wish I had at every stage of my career, and the door is open.
And if you’re the one building a room for others, please keep building. The women who need you are out there. Make a seat for them.
To my WPI clients: I love you. Thank you for one of the best weeks of my life!
Not pictured: @c10ike, the most amazing friend and our official retreat photographer! 💜💜💜
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