If Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, walks into a crowded bar … everyone in the bar is instantly a multimillionaire. On average, that is.
Most of us are aware of the constantly quoted and increasing average wedding cost number. I wonder how many of us really understand what the number means, I didn’t. But in trying to develop a new branding strategy for our current economy I thought I should real
ly see what the average wedding was costing. To the left is a graph projecting per wedding spending over the next few years. The graph informs us that total projected per wedding spending for 2008 is $28,704. I think this is just simple mean average of total US wedding spending divided by the approximately 2.2 million weddings projected. But does the average wedding really cost anything close to $28,700? If you mean do half the wedding cost less and half cost more? No. In fact over 80% cost less!
To the left is another graph which divides the number of weddings into four spending ranges using the same data source. You can see that 50% of the weddings cost less than half the 28K+ “average”. And another 32% cost less than the average. Meaning that 4 out of 5 weddings will cost less than “average”. And only 18% of the weddings will spend more than the $28,704 average.
So why is this important? Because I was trying to find a way to position a wedding professional to appeal to brides with less money to spend than the “average” while retaining a desirable high quality and high value image. What I found is that the vast majority of brides have less money to spend than the average. They are already there! No wonder today’s bride seems difficult to communicate with. And when they do mention a budget they are almost timid. Much of our positioning and branding is overshooting about 80% of the market. I think we need to stop it.
Establishing an average so much higher than what the majority of brides have to spend is amplifying their fears, uncertainties and convincing them that their desires are unattainable. Are we helping to create some of the bridezillas? As an “industry” we have helped setup expectations that fewer than 20% of the brides can comfortably be part of. As wedding professionals we need knock that down. I think this issue is lowering our self esteem, and divorcing ourselves from reality and each other. Both brides and professionals. We need to show the typical bride she belongs, is valued and can expect high value, high quality service.
As a beginning, I suggest a way do this is to share with her what your typical client spends with you. Don’t quote your price, quote your client’s typical purchase. Don’t say what you think, share what your typical client thinks. Let your new prospect see you as a place where she can feel comfortable.
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This makes a lot of sense. Everyone, brides and professionals alike, see these numbers and think they automatically should be nailing it. I think the sources obviously intend to drive up the value for the supply but the truth is most people cannot afford $5000 photographers and other high-price items. Even the average “$2600″ wedding photos rate seems to be not reasonable. Even in the Boston area most clients want simple event photos starting at $300 bottom-of-the-barrel, to about $1000 or $1500. I know a lot of photographers who haven’t even done a single $2000 wedding photo gig. I know only two photographers, personally, who have done wedding photos over $4000 and they usually travel to do them.
“Much of our positioning and branding is overshooting about 80% of the market. I think we need to stop it.”
Humm, I’m kinda with you – but I’m not able to pay my income tax, on top of a rather average cost of living for a family charging rates for photography that would be in line with those wedding costs. SO – either I assume that I can’t make a living as a photographer or I ask brides to pay what I need to live. I’m pretty torn here as the economic reality is pretty true.
Thanks for your clarifying statistics.
It has been a long time since I saw a 28K wedding. For the last 2 1/2 years, the average cost of a wedding here in Northeast Connecticut has been between 10-15K. With todays fuel prices, cost of food, cost of everything going up and up and up, I am seeing the backyard weddings come back. A recent bride of mine bought a discontinued wedding dress, saving 50%, her music was provided by a one man D.J. and her friends and family m.c. all night. It was actually a blast. Cost of this D.J. 200. She had a fake cake made with only the layer she was cutting real. The guest was served sheet cake her family made, cost of fake cake with one real layer, 150. She rented a tent and used love seats and such from her house and friends and family. It was the most comfortable reception I had been at. In the end, this bride spent less the 4000 on her wedding, but it looked like she spent four times that much.
I am seeing very resourceful brides. With the economy the way it is, I believe this average cost of a wedding will be a fond memory of the past. We will have to work twice as hard just to make a living.
[...] May in a blog post titled “Lies, damned lies and statistics”, I pointed this out using recent figures from The Wedding Report. Using The Wedding Report’s [...]
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I am sorry to disagree. Usage of The Wedding Report information as shared in this post is permitted under the Fair Use provision of US Copyright law pursuant to the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. ยง 107.
That noted, in trying to maintain accuracy if there are factual errors in the post I will be glad to correct and amend the post.
Thank you for your excellent post. So many vendors I work with have been struggling with “should I lower my prices” — their main concern is that this hurts their brand image. But, the market doesn’t support the kind of pricing they’ve come to expect (especially here in Sacramento — one of the worst hit by the housing slump, and with that went the home equity checkbook that paid for so many $25K+ weddings).
I’m all for charging what you’re worth, but first you have to consider what the market will bear. It’s not a defeat to lower your prices to match what people can/will pay in my view. But it is crazy to kill a business you enjoy because pride won’t permit you to charge less.
The other thing is … people hear from their peers that “oh, no, I’M not lowering MY prices, not me! ” Problem is, your peers are your competitors, and they don’t have much incentive to tell you the truth.
I loved this eye opening post here. We are the most expensive videographer in our area, and I’d be lying if I told you we weren’t feeling the heat of smaller budgets. Especially since everyone knows videography is last on a lot of brides budgets. With that said, our image and brand has catered to the higher end brides anyway. But in an economy like this where EVERYONE is afraid to spend, I think its a very bad call to discount your valuable service or product no matter how expensive you are. By discounting, you actually go backwards in the progress of your business. When this economy turns around, you will then be getting referrals from people who expect your bottom of the barrel prices. Instead, what we have tried to do is create NEW packages that fit those with smaller budgets. We aren’t discounting, but they do get a quality product for what they can afford, and we aren’t bending over backwards providing a video that demands our higher prices. Hope this helps!