When it seems like everyone’s booked except you.
Event design by Stefanie Miles. Photography by Cameron Clark.
“Engagement season” refers to the period of time each year when the most wedding proposals happen. In the United States, it runs from Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday of November) until Valentine’s Day. For many other locations, it starts just a few weeks later, going from around Christmas to Valentine’s Day.
The most popular days for engagements are currently Christmas day, Valentine’s day, New Year’s Eve, Christmas Eve, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s day – in that order.
Just like most good publicists will start prepping and pitching their clients’ Christmas campaigns in early Summer, wedding pros’ prep for engagement/proposal season should ideally already be underway. However, if you, like almost every wedding business owner, have been juggling a zillion things, the next best time to start is now.
For the month of October, I’m going to be mostly discussing the things you can do get your business ready so that yours can be the company they most love once the ring is on their finger.
In addition to proposal season being just around the corner, we’re also in the midst of a decline in wedding spending.
While some would like to pretend this isn’t happening, it is a FACT that spending is down industry-wide – around the world, not just in North America – in every wedding budget category with the exception of the Ultra Luxury wedding market (budgets of $500,000+ not including the honeymoon).
If you’re feeling like everyone on Instagram is slammed with work except you, please know this is not the case. It is a weird, unpredictable, difficult time for the majority of wedding pros worldwide. Many of your colleagues are stressed, too, whether they show it publicly or not.
It’s a tough time to be an entrepreneur in the bridal industry, but if you’ve made it this far, you can make it further. I know this because when I think back to when I started my company, I’m amazed at how gutsy I was.
I’m not the only one. You were amazingly gutsy, too:
You took a financial risk.
You cold-called industry colleagues you wanted to collaborate with.
You met with potential clients, fully confident in your own talents yet knowing they were also meeting with wedding pros who had been in the industry for years.
You went to networking events where you knew no one and forced yourself to strike up conversations with people who were already entrenched in their friend groups.
You got on a plane and flew to a wedding conference or event industry trade show, again where you knew no one.
You dealt with the mean girls or people who tried to block you from opportunities and created deep friendships with colleagues and “friendors” who happily celebrate your milestones and cheer for your success.
You pitched yourself for press and relished every hit you got, no matter how small.
You put yourself out there daily, not knowing if your marketing or message would resonate with anyone or if they would even care.
Try not to go into engagement season dejected or feeling left behind. No matter how hard this season of business may be, make sure to remind yourself that you can do hard things. You already have.
A previous version of this post was first published March 2017
