Honest advice for wedding suppliers on how to stand out (from a bride’s point of view)

In the beautiful autumn month of October, 2024, I married my best friend and life partner, Jack, surrounded by our closest friends and family. It was a day filled with love and laughter, and one I’ll always cherish. Careful planning and amazing coordinators at the church and reception venue ensured everything ran smoothly. My husband and I had spent countless hours organising our wedding, and it was incredibly special to see it all come to life. I must admit though, as beautiful as my wedding day was, I found organising it to be quite challenging, and often overwhelming. The never-ending to-do list felt like a burden, leaving what felt like very little spare time to do anything else.

Now that over a year has passed since my wedding, I’ve been reflecting on the planning process—what worked and what made things more difficult than they needed to be. Is there anything I can learn from the experience and could share to help make it more enjoyable for others?

As I reflect on the months of searching for suppliers and making endless decisions, I’ve realised that the challenge wasn’t just finding suppliers in my area; it was the time-consuming effort of hunting for the perfect fit. Now, you may already be able to tell, but I should say - I am quite a perfectionist. I don’t want to settle for something less than ideal if I think ideal can be found. This mindset likely made choosing suppliers take far longer than it would had I not felt the need to be 99% certain with every decision. Thankfully, every supplier that I (or should I say we?) did choose was fantastic, and so I am glad that I didn't stop until I found them.

Still, I wonder if fewer hours searching for suppliers would have made wedding planning more enjoyable. Could it have been more worthwhile to save myself from the pressure and additional time spent, so that I could have gotten more enjoyment from the process?

This experience of finding suppliers for my own wedding has inspired me to share some suggestions for suppliers in the wedding industry. I'd like to help wedding suppliers (whether they be bridal boutiques, hair and makeup artists, or photographers) to attract more clients, and in the process, make it smoother for others planning their special day.

My husband and I began casually thinking about our wedding (its style, scale, and location) shortly after getting engaged. However we only started actively searching for suppliers several months later, beginning with the venue. This ended up being a little under a year and a half before our wedding day took place. Once we'd finally booked the church and venue, we had about a year left to plan.

When searching for a wedding venue, we didn’t have anywhere specific in mind, so we relied heavily on the internet for options. Since our wedding was to take place several hours drive from where we were living, we needed a good level of confidence in each venue before spending time and money to visit them.

We spent several months searching for a venue that would live up to the picture we had in our minds. I spent a lot of time Googling variations of “wedding venue North Yorkshire,” searching Google Maps, and scrolling through Instagram suggestions. Thankfully, we only needed to view a few venues because we fell in love with the second one we visited.

While the time we invested into our search was well worth it, the process could have been much easier. With better online resources that clearly presented all the options specific to our needs, searching for the perfect wedding venue wouldn't have been such a chore.

The experience of finding other suppliers, including photographers, videographers, florists, hair and makeup artists, and bridal shops, was very similar. 

Living in London, you’d think finding bridal shops would be easy. However, it took me a long time to find stores I actually wanted to visit. I relied heavily on Google Maps searches to identify shops that were accessible via tube lines. A simple Google search often wasn’t enough, and I'd have to continuously adapt my searches to find results that were more relevant. I also struggled to find wedding suppliers (especially bridal dress stores) where I wasn't disheartened by websites that were outdated. To me, outdated websites instantly felt like red flags. They gave the impression that the store and its dresses might also be outdated. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t need a dress from the latest season, but I didn't want a wedding dress that looked like it was designed 10 years ago. And trust me-some of those websites looked like they may have been! I realise that an outdated website doesn't necessarily mean outdated stock, but with little else to go off, and having to pay a fee for every appointment, I wasn't willing to take that chance.

So, why am I sharing all this? I promise it’s not to have a rant! It’s to highlight the challenges couples face when searching for suppliers. I want to offer suggestions for wedding suppliers to attract more customers, because customers are out there looking for them, but can't find them!

Consumers shouldn’t have to settle because they struggle to find what they’re looking for. There are so many amazing businesses out there searching for leads and customers, and I want to share some suggestions for wedding suppliers to attract more clients by improving visibility. So, as a supplier, what can you do to make your business easier to find and showcase the value of your services?

As I eluded to above, a your website is one of the first interactions that any potential customer will have with your business. So it will benefit both you and your customers to make it a true reflection of your business, winning you new customers and enabling customers to actually find what they're looking for.

As a service-based business, your website is where customers will go to learn about who you are, what services you offer and to what standard. It's here that you really need to sell yourself, showing your style and personality, and supporting your claims with evidence. 

As well as containing content that is curated to show off your services and encourages visitors to get in touch, you also need to make sure your website is designed to be found in online searches. By this, I mean SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimisation. You need to assess whether your website provides the Google algorithms with enough information to convince them that your website is worth ranking highly. By this, I mean well-written, honest content that introduces your business and demonstrates your skill, and strategic design that seamlessly leads visitors through your site.

Does it perform well in terms if loading speed and navigation, so that Google knows visitors will be happy to continue looking around?

If you can't answer these questions with a comfortable 'yes', then perhaps it's time for a website audit.

Take a good look at your website, and try to view it with fresh eyes. Could your images be clearer? Could you provide more information about who you are and what you do? Have you shown how you've helped previous customers, and included reviews to evidence how happy they have been with your services? Does your website load within 2 or 3 seconds (don't forget to clear your cache before testing this) or is slowness letting your site down?

Addressing questions such as these could enable you to dramatically improve your websites success of attracting customers. Get seen by more people on Google search engine, so that you can get more clicks onto your site. Encourage more visitors to look around and learn about your wedding business. Provide enough evidence that you are the right fit for them, and they'll reach out for an appointment or a call.

Your website is critical to your business’s success. Keeping it updated can make a huge difference in helping you stand out.

Website improvements don’t have to feel overwhelming. A little time, research an open mind can go a long way. Whether you’re looking to modernise your existing site, or make it easier for customers to find you with more developed SEO, small changes can have a big impact.

If you're unsure where to start, here are a couple of ways you can kick off your website development:

And, of course, if you’re ready to take your website to the next level but want a professional touch, I’d love to help you create a site that truly reflects your business. I specialise in building user-friendly, visually appealing websites designed to attract and engage customers.

Be sure to visit regularly for more wedding supplier website tips, guides, and web design inspiration to boost your business. Or, feel free to reach out to me if you'd like to chat about how we can work together to build the website your business deserves.