2025 Wedding Trends: What Every Wedding Pro Needs to Know with Daria & Alina of WedVibes

The wedding industry is shifting in some big ways. From the rise of authenticity to experience-focused celebrations, the 2025 wedding trends are ones you can’t afford to ignore.

In this episode, we’re diving into the key changes happening in the wedding industry and how they impact wedding professionals. What’s driving couples to move away from traditional norms? How can you position your business to thrive in this new landscape?

We’ll cover the wedding trends every wedding pro needs to know, why they matter, and how to use them to attract your dream clients. Whether it’s embracing bold colors, multi-day celebrations, or capturing emotionally rich moments, these insights will help you stay ahead and stand out.

If you’re ready to future-proof your business and get inspired by what’s coming next, this episode is for you!

In this episode we’ll cover:

• The game-changing 2025 wedding trend every pro needs to know for 2025.
• How younger couples are shaking up the industry and what it means for your business.
• Why perfection is out and authenticity is in—and how you can use this shift to stand out.
• The surprising way travel and multi-day celebrations are reshaping weddings.
• A fresh approach to marketing that connects with today’s couples (and why your portfolio alone isn’t enough).
• Tips for creating deeper connections with potential clients through your brand story.
• How to position yourself as the go-to pro for these exciting new trends without burning out.

2025 Wedding Market Trends: What Every Wedding Pro Needs to Know with Daria & Alina of WedVibes

0:00:03 – Heidi
Today I’m joined by Daria and Alina from Wed Vibes. I am so excited to be having this conversation. Alina and I have been going back and forth for a little bit here, and these two and their team have done some really amazing work around 2025 trends, what’s happening in the wedding industry, what we need to be aware of. So we are going to dig into that. But, Daria, Alina, thank you both for being here.

0:00:36 – Daria
Hi Heidi, hi Heidi, and happy to be on this podcast and in your CEO summit.

0:00:44 – Heidi
Yes, I’m so excited to have you guys speaking. It’s going to be fantastic, and I’ll make sure to link to a place where you can get your free ticket, if you’re listening and you haven’t already done that. So, for the two of you, I’m really curious how you went about compiling this information. How did you dig into researching? Okay, what are the 2025 trends going to be that wedding pros need to look out for?

0:01:17 – Alina
I think I need to start.

0:01:18 – Daria
Yeah, I think actually I will tell, I will let you to start because it’s all. All was the Alina’s idea actually to study this research?

0:01:29 – Alina
So I believe that we grew pretty fast as a wedding medium. We became the fastest growing and we created an amazing community of wedding professionals whom we discovered and showcased. Also, we built a big audience of couples mostly brides right who trust our choice, who love our aesthetics, and we understood that not only we want to make an impact and disrupt the industry by changing these conventional weddings and blending art, fashion, digital trends, but also it is like we gain enough influence and power to make a change and we can consolidate both sides opinions, meaning couples, how they process and how they approach the planning and what they want, uh, for their wedding day, and also waiting professionals what are the biggest trends right now?

And to put together in the report that we pretty much initially called wedding industry study so it’s pretty holistic, huh, but then we ended up calling it trends just because it’s easier for people to understand all right, they’re going to talk about the beautiful gown, design and decor. So that is a fundamental report where we covered both sides of this market couples and vendors and, like, put on our expertise, what we see is going on.

And, yeah, break it down into main, let’s say trends and weddings, and then, specifically if you’re a wedding professional, we gave you some hints how to leverage that in your promotion, because knowing about trends and not basically using this knowledge is not what we want, because our mission is to empower wedding professionals to grow. So that is like the main parts of the study.

0:03:18 – Heidi
Like it’s all good and well to know about it, but if you don’t actually do anything, then it doesn’t matter. So, like I said, I’m going to link to this report. I encourage everyone listening to go download it and see the full report, because it is robust and there’s this large audience of couples that you know the WedVibes team were able to talk to and see, ok, directly from them.

What are they looking for? What changes do they see coming up? Because it’s really easy for anyone in the media to be like here’s what the trends are going to be, just because these are things that I like. But I really like that this is data backed, that you actually went and asked these people, which is incredibly important and, alina, in this process, was there anything you saw coming back in that data that surprised you?

0:04:15 – Alina
That’s a great question. What surprised us? We are. I believe we’re in the situation when we kind of have a lot of guessing and hypothesis or we can feel it just because we work in the industry, but when someone else say it out loud, it’s an aha moment, you know, like yes, that’s exactly what’s happening. For example, the biggest trend is authenticity and willingness to express themselves.

So we never, like, we never shaped it this way. Right, we tried to say that you know what, in wet vibes we try to show emotions, to sell, to tell couple stories and like we are kind of love, picture, perfect images, but we don’t want to blend it with a like real stories and real people. But when we talk to couples, when we talk to experts, it kind of became so vivid that it’s pretty much this authenticity trend. So I would say it’s less surprising, more like summarizing, because when you hear the same idea from different people, you consolidate it and put it as a yeah, that’s trend number one. That’s totally happening right now and we need to create a name for it.

0:05:31 – Heidi
Yeah, Tell me more about that. So authenticity is kind of a big word and I get a lot of people can interpret that in different ways. What sorts of things did you find people couples were really valuing? What sorts of authenticity did you find people couples were really valuing? What sorts of authenticity did they want to see?

0:05:49 – Alina
That’s a great way to ask. So basically, again, weddings is a it’s not fashion industry, it’s very conventional. We know how it goes, we know what kind of dress it should be, why there is groom family, like everything goes by the script, right and now, because of gen z is getting married and young millennials overall, let’s say, values are changing. People are more egocentric. You know, people value their mental health and, from this global trend, how we perceive ourselves, how we want to live our life.

It also expresses in the weddings that you don’t want to stick to the cookie cutter. You know approach. You want to express yourself because it’s the biggest, one of the biggest events in your life and you don’t want to duplicate someone else’s wedding. You want to make it about you, your couple, your friends, what you want to showcase and even though it might, you know, be like very rare, something unpopular, you still want to do it the way you want. Or, if it doesn’t feel right, like they say, the couple says we are doing it like our way and we don’t care what other people think.

Also, like the parental influences I mean it is not gone, but it’s not as big as it used to be right. They want to do their own party, not what parents put them into a lot, so like moving away from traditional norms. So if you break it down in like pieces because still we have wedding professionals and it actually affects every profession, if we speak about decor and flowers, first of all, colors becoming more popular, and it can be like the wedding in red color right, and decor can be way more playful and linens can be not only white, it can be green and what kind of color you choose for the wedding. And also it is a fashion forward looks.

It is, in many cases, many looks for the after party and also we will talk about multi-day celebration, so you have several outfits for several events during this long wedding experience, I would say. And also not only brides, uh, fashion forward grooms as well. So they change and again they’re experimenting with colors and like playing with their way they look and they change their looks during the wedding.

It’s also about the makeup and in the makeup, it’s the, actually the. On the contrary, there is no trends. The trend is to look real, to look natural and to highlight your individual beauty over some trends. Interesting. That is good, because, again, if you speak about authenticity and expressing yourself. We don’t stick to I don’t know same style in hair or same style in the makeup. It can be different because everyone is very different. Style in the makeup it can be different because everyone is very different, and the better you understand what makes you beautiful and attractive and what makes you feel confident, that works for you. That’s also kind of the biggest trend. So no trends for makeup.

0:08:58 – Heidi
That’s really interesting, that that’s like the one area, but it makes total sense to what you were saying about authenticity. You know you’re not trying to look like someone else. You’re not trying to look completely different on your wedding day. You’re just trying to look like you know the best version of yourself, but you’re not massively changing your looks in any way, which is great. I think that’s a very positive thing overall.

0:09:24 – Daria
But I would add that whenever we talk about wedding trends specifically, we have to understand they leave. I mean they reflect that what’s happening in the world, right, right, for me it’s like it’s a big shift in the moment, because I’ve been in this industry for so long, for 16 years, and I used to be the wedding planner. I remember specifically when I first started, every couple they were older than me and me, as a millennial, I had to understand, like, the traditions, like like, yeah, all the rules, like Alina said, it’s very conventional industry and right, once again, as a marketing people and like we are colleagues here in this front, Heidi and a few, we have to understand the roots. Right, it’s all coming together because right now we understand that the younger generation is getting married. It’s younger millennials and Gen Z and it’s in general, it’s their trend to be it.

It’s very individualistic, we can even say egocentric generation. It’s really easy for them to uh just with their phone in the living room, in the kitchen, just hold their phone and just record a tiktok or reel and they want to be seen. They want to be seen as a super unique, super interesting people. They have their own style and finally, and it doesn’t matter if their parents paying for the wedding or they do it themselves finally we see this breaking point there.

They try to basically uh, shift it towards, like from the traditional things like, oh, the gown, the wedding gown, should be white. They will shift it to. Okay, how can I do it? How can I blend it with my unique personality, with my background, with my maybe cultural legacy? How can I do it in this unique way so people will see me as a this, such a cool person?

0:11:23 – Heidi
yeah, and even just hearing you say that you know. There is a wedding professional I know well and she does a lot of custom dyeing of either dresses that she is designing or other dresses and she has been getting more and more and more inquiries from people who want to put their own spin on a white dress, but maybe not entirely dye it, but like just their own bits of color that they bring into it yeah, yeah, exactly, it’s all I would say.

0:11:56 – Daria
It’s all started with a painted veils, like because, like they, maybe brides, they weren’t ready to do something. If you go on but whale, it’s just a different thing you can, after the ceremony, you can just take it out yeah and those.

I think, like it kind of started with this and like right now we see, yes, like maybe some small elements and addresses and uh, like a corset or maybe once again, it’s gonna be like a cape and you can take it out, like take it off after, uh, the ceremony or after reception during the party, but it’s still, it’s a, it’s a huge shift. Yeah, yeah, especially like in a groom’s fashion. I think this is this one is my favorite, because it used to be so boring, uh-huh, just a black tuxedo, and right now we see so many beautiful, uh grooms like they I don’t know, they just it’s more theatrical. They play with colors, they play with uh, different like trends, uh textures, and it’s so beautiful.

0:13:01 – Heidi
Just love seeing that I am always happy when I see a groom that has decided to do something different, whether it’s big or small, but it’s like yeah, good for you. Why should you basically have to wear this uniform while the person you’re marrying gets to do whatever they want? Like that’s not cool, you want to have your own spin on it as well. Yep, yep, exactly. So, with this era of authenticity that we’re really in, what do wedding pros need to be thinking about in how they showcase this in their marketing? I know you’ve probably both thought a lot about this.

0:13:42 – Alina
That’s for sure. I mean portfolio, it is always essential. We’re not going to talk a lot about portfolio because, yeah, that’s your professional excellence. Besides that, it’s, of course, personality. It always was big, but now, with, like social media and instagram is a go-to platform where people couples look for vendors, it’s becoming even bigger. So, besides putting the portfolio, it’s really I cannot I like speak like chat.

It’s crucial, so, but it’s really important, essential, to show up yourself, to share your values, what you like in style, who you are, what’s your story, what’s your background, because we always say there is no wedding MBA. I mean, there are some courses who try to be MBA, but officially you cannot graduate from Stanford with wedding. You know major, what’s your major Weddings? It doesn’t work this way. So in most cases wedding professionals, they have some background in different industries and you can also share this background because maybe some other couples who also like lawyers now, for example, they can connect easier. Or if you have a I don’t know dog or a cat.

So these little peculiar details of who you are, they also can help you to be seen by right people, because there is a big desire of wedding professionals to work with right couples, right and how the couple can understand that you’re right vendor if you don’t showcase yourself.

Because, let’s be honest, when we put out only portfolio, in many cases it’s very similar. I mean, Daria and I we work in the wedding media, so we’ve seen hundreds thousands of pictures and instagram profiles and everyone doing a great job. There are a lot of schools where you can nail your skills as a professional right when you can really up level and elevate your portfolio. But what makes you like 100 unique if you show yourself? So your portfolio plus yourself, that’s really, really unique. That’s something that couples can click or not click. That’s also fine.

0:15:57 – Heidi
Yeah, I want to ask you about this, because I know you guys focus a lot on the luxury side and I think there’s this weird tendency of wedding pros to think that when you get more into luxury that means you pull back on the personality, that means that maybe you have a little bit I guess for lack of better words like a cold sort of approach, like it’s just the work, it’s just this fashion forward thing, like there’s no personality involved. Do you see that too?

0:16:35 – Daria
I understand. I understand what you, what do you mean? But I would say it’s no, it’s still a lot about personality. It’s like it’s more about the approach. If you work like you have to and I’m sure you will agree with us Like you have to have this clear’m sure you will agree with us.

You have to have this clear understanding of your target audience and if you, for example, looking for the more, I would say, upscale but still the more adventurous couple, the boho-oriented, moody, yes, you can do this funny reels with trends and memes and you can showcase like this experience and your funny personality. Like, for example, jay and mac, the videographers we love use them as a, using them as examples. Uh, they work in upscale industry, but it’s not like this luxury, luxury like White House event kind of, and they always like post those funny videos. Like, oh, if you love the indie romance movies or chili, you can, you will join. Like, you should join us. Like we are like your perfect videographers.

But if you’re looking for more like those ultra luxury events, maybe you can just dial back on the, the memes and like trends etc. But you still have to showcase your persona. It’s just the people who works in this, let’s say, level um in the industry. They do it, it in terms of giving interviews or educating others, but they still showcase and they showcase their values, their families, their pets. Are you a dog person or a cat person? What’s your cultural background? It all matters. It all matters for couples because they have to see themselves in you.

0:18:28 – Heidi
That is so interesting. That’s such a good point. I’m really glad you brought that up, that you need to do it. But the way you do it is going to be different depending on who you’re serving. Like you said, if you’re like the ultra, ultra luxury, it’s going to be different than if you’re in just more of an upscale kind of market, and I thank you for giving examples. I think that’s going to be really helpful to those listening. So authenticity is clearly huge. I know you said that’s like the number one thing. What is another trend that came up when you were doing this research?

0:19:06 – Daria
I think the one Alina already mentioned. It’s one of my favorites, I would say, let’s say, experience-oriented weddings. And once again, we’re all going to discuss the roots why it’s happening. Because of the pandemic and because of, yes, the new generation is coming to this industry. Because of yes, the new generation is coming to this industry. They would prefer much more to spend money, not only, for example, the huge flower installation in the middle of the ballroom. They can spend the same amount of money on a three-day event in Italy and, for example, they’re from California and it’s going to be an adventure itself.

Right To fly out I don’t know 40, 50 guests out to Italy to try all of this amazing food, to do boat rides, etc. It’s becoming more about memory-making events, like playing games we love this trend about pickleball or golf or whatever and they would rather just spend the quality time with their loved ones, because they don’t have a lot of chances, they don’t have much time to do that, and the wedding is a perfect thing because, in general, there’s only one event in your life. There are two worlds combined, both sides combined, your relatives, your friends, your colleagues, et cetera, the people who will maybe skip your birthday but they will come to your wedding for sure.

Right, that’s a good point. Yep, so this is one of my favorites. Alina, do you want something to add something?

0:20:58 – Alina
I think that, yeah, you’ve mentioned traveling, because people love travel. Now, right, it’s kind of a big global trend. So that’s why, when we speak about experience, it’s kind all right, let’s go on vacation, and it’s not only for upscale, luxury, luxury weddings. It’s pretty much you can go with friends traveling and you just add this wedding situation for the mood, and sometimes during these trips you even skip the wedding give because guests invest into their like plane tickets. You know kind of so of upscale weddings, they cover everything. But even for, like the smaller, intimate wedding, traveling because it’s experience itself, it’s also. It was big, but it’s becoming even bigger.

0:21:46 – Heidi
I think you’re right, I think both of you are right about like it has always been a thing. It’s always been a larger cultural focus on experiences, especially, you know, in our generation and the generations that are younger than us. But, daria, you made that really good point about COVID. Really made people value in person, face to face-to-face time together in a way that I don’t think anything else could have.

0:22:17 – Daria
That’s true and I think it’s going to stick with us for a while. I mean, covid has happened and it’s already been like five years since it started. Oh my God Right, but it’s still with us, it’s still like within us, it’s still, and it’s still like within us, it’s still, and I know for from experience that still so many people they haven’t seen their parents or relatives because they just didn’t have time, etc. And like today, yes, weddings are the perfect excuse, I would say, to do that, to actually gather all of these people from all around the world, or like from all around the country, for your event.

And you don’t want to, because usually, if we think about weddings, it’s an event and the bride and groom, like the couple, they will be the separate, it’s like a separate event. So the guests will mingle, they’re going to talk to each other, but other but the couple, they usually isolated because they have to do the photo shoot, etc. And right now they would rather skip this. Like more, like official approach, and we see that they will spend more money on events, like, and they will think clearly, thinking like how can we spend more time with guests? Should, should we play games? Should we do something else. Should we maybe do like the buffet style event instead of just sitting down? Then yeah, so they just want to connect.

0:23:43 – Heidi
I can definitely see, and I have seen, you know on like Instagram, things that have really caught my eye and things that I’ve seen really take off, are unique ways of doing this, and I feel like, even though we know it’s a thing, not enough people are showcasing this, Not enough people are talking about it, are putting forward like inspiration pieces.

I saw the coolest wedding recently and all this couple wanted to do at their reception was have drinks, play Mario Kart and like play other games with their guests and it was just this very chill kind of thing. But that’s who they are like. That perfectly fits them, and it stopped me in my scroll because that’s not the kind of thing we see, even though couples are clearly looking for ways to facilitate more connection and do it their way at their wedding.

So I think it’s definitely something for the person listening to think about. I’m curious have you seen I mean, I know you see a ton of stuff on a daily basis in your business, but have you seen ways that people have like showcased this that has been interesting or that has really kind of inspired ideas for couples?

0:25:15 – Daria
I would say we’ve seen so many of them, like the one wedding that comes to mind specifically. We included it in our PDF in our research. It’s a Burning Man wedding. Oh, so cool, right, KT Merry, she was a photographer there and they just spent like several days. If they’re guests, such a cool fashion, like right, such a cool like I don’t know the whole outfits uh, they had those crazy. How could you cover, do I say, like statues or whatever that you use on Burning Man? Yeah, yeah, and it was completely authentic, different and it’s just, it stands out, it stands out and I don’t know there are like so many.

It feels also in terms of experience. It feels like it’s more theatrical approach right now. It feels like it’s more theatrical approach right now. We’ve seen couples doing like Shakespeare plays and all the guests. They would play the role from out of the Shakespeare poems and it’s going to become the whole thing. We’ve seen some Halloween parties, even parties like in a I don’t know in a pool, and they just, like everyone, will spend the whole day in a, in a pool, just, you know, hanging out and drinking, and this is amazing that’s so cool.

0:26:38 – Heidi
Yeah, and it really brings in that like facilitating connection and let’s just have fun with that. Like let’s play, let’s be fancy, let’s be shakespearean, let’s hang out by the pool, let’s have a burning man style event, let’s do basically whatever the hell we want which is really exciting. Yeah, yay to that. Yeah, seriously. So we have authenticity, we have incorporating travel, really focusing on experiences. What other big things did you see come up in the data, Alina?

0:27:18 – Alina
I think that it actually also linked to the two previous one and in connected it’s like imperfect is a new perfect, right? Again, because if you think about the pressure everyone has with a wedding day, because you spend months in preparation, you spend thousands of dollars into everything, so you want it to be perfect, right especially. You used to want it to be perfect, but it never. It never is. Every time something goes off script. It can be rain, I mean, you can like. How many brides actually have this? You know? Wine or some drink spilled on the gown a lot, and 10 years ago, this situation they can ruin the entire day. Now they’re embraced and it is, of course, connected with tiktok, growth and the way tiktok showcase like life and people and it shouldn’t be picture perfect. You can enjoy so pretty much.

It’s like in, instead of doing everything perfect and being excited or like feeling good that everything that goes exactly as we planned, people start prioritizing their joy and emotions. You know, some emotionally rich celebrations, some spontaneous situations, especially allowing kids and pets, you know, do their thing. And, yeah, what we allow to do during the wedding days both couple and the guests it’s different. You can just live your day, enjoy it and, don’t you know, sit straight, sit still and pretend that it’s I don’t know, it’s a very like royal level event. No, it’s fun, it’s cool and um. So, speaking of experience, right, experience, experience is to make people become emotional, be emotional. So, again, you cannot do perfect. If you play pickleball, someone fall down, for example, right. So if you incorporate a lot of experiences, there is like you cannot, you know, plan it perfectly. Something can always happen and you celebrate this moment when someone falls down or something.

0:29:35 – Heidi
Yeah, and I think, too, people are more at a point, just because life is the way it is and we document everything, that when you see wedding photos and you see that situation, like oh, someone fell over, play an interception, like those are going to be the photos that you pull out in 10 years, and you laugh about with your partner, with your friends, like oh, my God, remember when this thing happened. It’s those things that bond you and that’s so beautiful, like the imperfect is the new perfect.

0:30:10 – Alina
I love that way of looking at it exactly, and speaking of wedding professionals, especially photographers and videographers, this emotional storytelling, it’s big, to your point, heidi, that something stood out that actually was like, filled with emotions. And also, when we speak about what to capture besides this nose-to-nose killer shot when the couple is kissing, of course it must have, let’s have it. But beside that, people, kids, pets, uh, some, you know heartfelt interactions, grandparents, it all something that you want to capture because that will create the memory.

0:30:53 – Heidi
Yeah, I think that’s really interesting that you saw that come up and that is such a huge shift from even just like 10 years ago of, like you said, wanting that perfection and wanting to portray it a certain way. That’s, that’s 180.

0:31:13 – Daria
Yeah, definitely, and I mean I just love that couples right now, they just understand the I don’t know the uniqueness once again of the situation and plus the virality component, once again, like circling back to the idea that more couples they want to be seen right now, they want to be published, they want the world to see, like, basically, the fruit of their labor let’s call it that because they spend so much money, they spend so much time and energy.

And right now, like we’ve seen so many weddings that became viral just because there was a fun component to it, like the dog just running to the ceremony and ruining the decorator, or I remember this viral um video. Uh, then the bride she do, like in the middle of the ceremony she just realized that she’s supposed to have this like let’s call it like the trail, become like the bigger piece of her dress and she was like, okay, can we stop this for a moment and can someone just bring me this like it’s like an extra secured situation, like the trail and it’s gonna be. I mean, it looks beautiful. And she was like, oh, I forgot it because someone recorded it, like the videographer, and they posted it. I love that they actually allow like the videographers, photographers, planners to post it and they have fun with it and they become viral.

Media outlets like ours publish them. I see sometimes they even been interviewed for, like different channels, media channels like I don’t know, good Morning America or something like this right, and they just they love it and they love that. This is the reason why they become known to the world.

0:33:04 – Heidi
That is so funny. I actually just saw something similar the other day and I shared it because I was instantly like oh my God, this is amazing. These people were having a wedding on this big, vast plot of land and there was a farm next door and all of these adorable cows were like hey, what’s going on? And came and like gathered around and just like quietly watched the wedding. And the photographer ran with it and was like no, we’re taking photos with these cows now, these cows are part of this and everybody looked thrilled yeah, of course I mean because, like this is the what will once again separate your event from others.

0:33:43 – Daria
This is something to remember, right, yeah?

0:33:47 – Heidi
With all of the trends that you’ve seen. How would you break it down into recommendations of things that wedding pros should be either thinking about when it comes to their marketing changing? What are a couple of steps and I know we’ll definitely link to the full trend report, because you’ve got a lot. We could sit here and talk about it for hours, but what are a couple of steps that you would like to see wedding pros take as a result of this information?

0:34:26 – Daria
Alina, do you want to start? I was promising you can start. Alina, do you want to start? I was promising you can start, I can start.

Okay, the steps for wedding professionals. First of all, it’s what Alina already mentioned and once again cannot stress it enough put yourself out there, make the world know your personality. You can start as easily as posting just one thing about yourself, like one the story, I don’t know. Five fun facts about yourself. Post it on your Instagram. Pin it, because sometimes and we do all the consultations for the wedding professionals every day, and I cannot tell you how many times we opened Instagram and we didn’t even see the person behind the brand Like okay, you’re doing the great job, but how would I know if we are the personality match?

0:35:23 – Heidi
Yeah, that’s a really good point and I think we overlook it, because I don’t know if maybe we just think people don’t care or maybe we feel like we don’t want to talk about ourselves, but it is incredibly important, I think, more so now than ever it feels like.

0:35:40 – Daria
Maybe it’s, I don’t know. Maybe the trend before was more like a portfolio oriented, like, yeah, you’re supposed to polish your skills, you’re supposed to polish your skills, you’re supposed to be great at this and maybe your clients don’t need to know your personality, maybe you’re going to overwhelm them, but no, no, no, it’s not the point right now. Social media just drastically changed in the last several years Tiktok, like, came into the play, and if all of those raw, authentic videos, uh, that people love today and uh, it changed the instagram approach as well, like we have to. We have to put ourselves out there for people because, like, there are like so many great services out there, so many great talents out there, so many great talents out there, but it’s going to be the final, let’s say, reason why this couple will choose you or not.

0:36:40 – Heidi
Yeah, and I think all three of us could probably think of purchasing decisions we have made because we in some way felt like we understood or knew the person behind the brand and we were like, oh, I like this person, I want to hire this person for something or buy a product from this person. It makes a shocking difference and it’s really hard to see that when it’s your own business, but I think if you just think about your own consumer behavior and like you know, you get an. I got an ad the other day for this bag company, this handbag company, and I was like, oh my God, I love this person. They’re so fun and it just made me instantly more interested in their products because I could actually understand who they were on a human level and I think that’s very, very easy to discount.

0:37:38 – Alina
That’s exactly right, because now it’s human to human connection. Even the huge companies, they show the team, which was never a case. You didn’t know who produced Coca-Cola? No, you didn’t care. Now, if you look into social media, sometimes they post this is my team, this is marketing, this is like people who work in our plant. You know it’s all human to human.

That’s a really good point and, yeah, that is why we’re always encouraged to show up yourself and build it on personality. And the Instagram is big and we know that there are like all kinds of wedding professionals. Some of them love Instagram, others they say no, social media is overwhelming. But I mean, I think it’s important to, let’s say, make it clear for yourself if you do weddings, you’d better love it and better take advantage and figure out how it works, or figure out what kind of content is the most powerful for you, given your personality, what kind of things you love more.

But there are so many ways to you know, to connect with couples besides posting portfolio, posting about yourself. You can always share some tips and value, because there are no like couples. They’re not experts in weddings. Right, it happens one in a lifetime. Then you forget and move to the you know baby food. So if you educate couples, even with some generic stuff, just because you’re doing it for 10 years, it doesn’t mean it’s generic and common sense for them. They’re doing it for the first time in their life. Also, you can share some tips for professionals, especially if you’re at some you know already point when you educate others.

And what also we encourage, speaking of this imperfect and more perfect is. Play with your portfolio. Besides these killer shots, pause this emotionally rich and storytelling pictures or videos. And, yeah, and of course, because instagram is so big, help people to make a fast impression about you, because always step into the couple’s shoes, into the bride’s shoes, into the groom’s shoes.

They are in this hard process of putting together their wedding and they have to make so many decisions that they hate to make, because people hate making decisions, right, even to choose, like in the restaurant menu. It’s kind of hard job. So our job as a wedding professionals to make their life easier, starting from helping them to make decisions that I’m a great professional. So if you think about that, instead of pushing your services and willing to be selected, if you want to think like, all right, how I can help them to choose me because I’m a great fit, what kind of content you need to put out there you know about you, what kind of story you want to tell them about you to make this process easier for them. Does it make sense?

0:40:41 – Heidi
Yeah, I love that and I really like that shift onto helping them make a good decision, because I think a lot of people, when you’re in your own business, I mean we all have to talk about ourselves but sometimes it can feel like I don’t want to, like, you know, push, I’m so great. Hey, everybody, look at me, I’m this amazing person. You should come work with me. But if you think about it from a perspective of you know if someone if you’re a photographer and someone was asking you know if someone if you’re a photographer and someone was asking you like what should I look for in a photographer, that information is incredibly helpful. And, of course, you can make sure that the things you’re talking about are things that you do or that you excel at. But it is that educational side where you’re helping people, regardless of whether they decide to book you or not.

0:41:35 – Daria
Yeah.

0:41:38 – Alina
So don’t hide, because usually we’re seeing that these couples they look into our Instagram I don’t know. They look in each highlight in website and they will make a decision that I’m a great professional. It doesn’t work this way. We have to put it in their face, you know, instead of making it a quest to find out that I’m a good professional. No, they don’t want, they don’t even know what is good photography. Let’s be honest yeah, they’re not photographers. They’re like lawyers, marketing people.

So it’s your job to say, yes, I’m good, because this is my publications, this is who I am, this is my values, this is that amazing couples that I already worked with and that is a kind word for them, meaning like testimonials. Right, this is the venues where I work. This is the locations where I work. You know, do all this job to make them, in one minute, create this desire to maybe dive in or like to set up a call and meet you in Zoom. So it’s about, like our effort to make it easy absolutely.

0:42:42 – Heidi
You can’t make people work and then expect them to give you money for them that’s right.

0:42:48 – Daria
Work and give them money right.

0:42:50 – Heidi
Right, we have to meet them halfway, or yeah, and I think too, if you think about how inundated they are and overwhelmed they are and they’re seeing so much, if you can just kind of like grab them by the hand and be like here’s what you need to know, that’s helpful and that’s another point that basically you have to stop with, like those cookie cutter proposals, price lists.

0:43:15 – Daria
It doesn’t work this way anymore. The couples, once again, they want to be seen, they want to understand that you are the passionate professional and you know what you’re talking about and you can listen, listen, you can hear them. I, I love that. Uh, we recently watched this interview with jose via and, uh, there was a point he made, like, uh, that the bride, the, she chose him because she understood he’s not gonna be a diva during the wedding. He, she interviewed like other photographers and she was like okay, I love your personality because I want to be the only diva, like in the wedding, and I just love this point you made.

And, once again, if you listen to your couples, like during the I don’t know, maybe you’re required to fill out the questionnaire, maybe you do those one-on-one calls, like interview calls. You have to listen, you have to ask as many questions as possible, if it’s possible, if their Instagram profiles are open, do your job, do the investigation job. Do you think? I don’t know?

Read the story about the proposal, create a profile, meaning like, understand who they are on, like, judging on what they post on instagram and what can you offer? What can you highlight? Like oh guys, I see that you travel a lot and like you want to have your wedding in italy in, uh like coma. I actually have like so many ideas like of the photos. I don’t know the poses we can do there, all the locations we can just walk around and it’s going to be beautiful and sunset. You should give them ideas instead of just saying, oh, this is my price and here’s the link how to book me.

0:45:02 – Heidi
That’s so much more instantly enticing too, like oh, I want to work with you. You’re already thinking about how we can do this together and what’s going to be great. Everybody else is just asking me for money.

0:45:15 – Daria
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

0:45:18 – Heidi
Well, thank you both so much for being here. This has been a fantastic conversation. I have so many notes in front of me. Right now I’m going to make sure I link to the trend report, and Daria and Alina are speaking about being chased by luxury clients at Wedding Business CEO Summit. So be sure to get your free ticket for that at WeddingBusinessCEOSummit.com. But aside from going to the trend report, daria, alina, where should people go if they want to learn more from you, if they want to learn more about wed vibes? How would you like them to connect?

0:45:56 – Alina
Go check out our website and it’s Wedvibes.media I believe also heidi you will post the link to it will do. It’s a great source of information for both couples and professionals and we have a dedicated section for professionals where you can look into and we have, like, amazing live sessions where we talk about marketing and share all kinds of tricks and tips and strategies that we know that they’re proven and they work, and those live sessions also on our website so you can check it out and become part of our tribe I will link to all of those things.

0:46:36 – Heidi
Thank you both so much for being here.

0:46:38 – Alina
I really appreciate it thank you for such a great discussion and great questions.

About Daria & Alina

Founded in 2015 by Daria, an established wedding planner, Wed Vibes began as a European boutique online magazine. A pivotal moment came in 2019 when she moved to the U.S. and met Alina, a marketing expert of 15 years, who promoted world known brands such as Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Kit Kat.

Today, they have 165,000 followers worldwide, with a significant 20% from the U.S. Wed Vibes Community has over 600 members and features tens of thousands wedding professionals globally. We’re collaborating with prestigious brands like Ritz Carlton and Tiffany & Co. and have expanded to a team of 20 employees.

When they’re not brand-building or writing blog posts for their clients, they can be found working on their travel blog, road-tripping with their cat, Sheba, or hiking in a national park.

Website: www.wedvibes.media
Instagram: @wed_vibes

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Links & Resources:

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The Wedding Business Collective

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