Getting Ghosted After Wedding Inquiries? Here’s Why.

In this episode we’ll cover:

• Why couples so often go silent after their initial inquiry
• The hidden gaps in your wedding inquiry process that can drive potential clients away
• How to provide the right information upfront so couples feel confident moving forward
• Why pricing transparency matters and how to share it without turning your site into a menu
• Simple ways to make your follow-ups more valuable so they actually sell for you
• Tools like voice DMs, Voxer, or Loom that make the inquiry stage more personal without eating up your time
• How to shift from pushing couples into a call to showing them you are the right fit before they ever book a consultation

Getting Ghosted After Wedding Inquiries? Here’s Why.

0:00:00 – Heidi Thompson
Are you getting ghosted after getting inquiries? We’re gonna talk about why and exactly what to do about it in this episode.

0:00:09 – Intro
In a world where wedding professionals are struggling to market and grow their businesses, one podcast brings together top experts and actionable strategies to help you build the wedding business of your dreams. This is the Evolve your Wedding Business Podcast. Here is your host, Heidi Thompson.

0:00:40 – Heidi Thompson
Hey there and welcome to the podcast. I’m your host, Heidi Thompson, and I’m here, as always, helping wedding pros make their marketing easier, book more weddings with clients they love and build a business that gives them freedom and flexibility. And one of the biggest complaints I hear from wedding pros is ghosting. Have you ever gotten excited about a new inquiry, only for that couple to disappear the second you reply? You send what you think is a great response. Maybe you follow up once or twice and you get nothing. It’s radio silence. It feels like they’ve ghosted you and I know it’s frustrating and it’s discouraging and if it keeps happening it can make you question everything about your business, from your prices to your packages, to whether you’re even cut out for this. But here’s the thing that most wedding pros don’t realize Ghosting doesn’t actually start after the inquiry. It starts before the inquiry, on your website, on social media and in the way you’re presenting your business. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today, because once you understand why ghosting starts before the inquiry, you’ll see exactly what to fix to get couples excited enough to stick around.

Think about the journey a couple takes before they ever hit. Send on your contact form. They are searching around, they land on your website. Maybe they check out your Instagram, they look around to see if you’re the right fit for them and in those first few seconds they are making snap judgments. They’re asking themselves okay, who is this? Wedding dj, wedding photographer, wedding caterer, whatever you do? Who are they for? Do they understand what I want? Are they going to give me what I’m looking for, and are they any different from the 5, 10, 20 other tabs I’ve got open? And if they can’t answer those questions quickly, they may still fill out your form, but it’s half-hearted, they’re not invested, and that is the kind of inquiry that turns into ghosting. So ghosting doesn’t usually start with your email response. It starts much earlier, when your marketing blends in and couples don’t feel any real reason to choose you.

So let’s talk about the mistakes that set you up for ghosting. There are several that I see wedding pros making that really lead to ghosting before the inquiry even comes in, and the first is generic messaging. I see this so much in our industry. If your website says things like website says things like plan your stress-free dream wedding, you sound like everyone else. Couples cannot tell what makes you different, and so they just lump you in with everybody else. Another mistake is too much about you. Now don’t get me wrong. Couples want to know who you are, but they only really care in the context of how you can help them. If your website reads like a resume, they don’t feel seen and they’re going to move on. Another mistake is no clear filter, no clear way to know this is for me or this isn’t for me.

If your marketing does not make it obvious who you’re for and who you’re not for, anyone can inquire, and when anyone inquires, a lot of them disappear because they were just never that into you in the first place. Another mistake I see is an overwhelming inquiry response. Now, when someone does inquire, if your first response is super overloaded, it has every package, every detail, every price point, multiple links, multi-page PDFs. You’ve already lost them. They were only halfway interested to begin with because you’re probably not standing out, and now, on top of that, they’re feeling overwhelmed.

Here’s the part most wedding pros miss. Standing out for the sake of standing out doesn’t do anything. It’s not about getting attention and getting eyeballs on you. It’s about reducing ghosting, because your website and your marketing then do more of the selling for you when your message is clear. When it shows couples exactly who you are, who you’re for, why you’re different, the right people lean in. They feel like you’re speaking directly to them and by the time they inquire, they’re already emotionally invested. That’s why I teach creating a perfect fit statement. It’s the headline that makes couples say hell yes or hell no within five seconds of landing on your website. If they are a hell yes, they inquire with excitement. If they’re a hell no, they never waste your time. You never hear from them. And here’s the beauty of that when your website filters and pre-qualifies for you, you don’t have to convince people in your inbox. By the time they inquire with you, your website has already done a lot of the selling if you’re doing it right, and that alone cuts down on ghosting dramatically. Think about it If a couple already feels like, oh my God, yes, this is our person before they even hit, send on their inquiry, they’re not going to disappear after you reply. They’re going to keep moving forward. They’re already convinced, they’re already sold. This is exactly what we work on inside of the Stand Out and Get Booked Challenge, which is coming up again on October 20th, just in time for engagement season.

I’ve had participants who thought their ghosting problem was their response, their emails. But when we looked deeper at it, the issue was that their website was too vague. It sounded nice, but it didn’t tell couples who they were or how they were, even different, why you should work with them instead of someone else. So when couples would inquire, they would do so without much excitement and of course, those were the inquiries that ended in ghosting. Once these participants fixed their messaging, once they made it clear from the jump who they serve and why they’re the perfect fit for that person, ghosting practically disappeared. The couples who inquired were already leaning in. Before they hit send, they were already pretty much sold.

So how do you ghost proof your business before the inquiry? First, you need to be clear right away on your website, on your socials. You need to make it so obvious who you are, who you serve and why you’re different. Don’t make couples guess. Don’t make them look for it. Don’t make them dig, because they won’t. They have a bajillion options. They’re not going to work to figure out why they should hire you.

Then you want to pre-qualify before they inquire. Now I’m not saying they have to pass some sort of pre-qualification. Your marketing becomes the pre-qualification, because when you clearly show who you are, you show who you’re not for. Clearly show who you are, you show who you’re not for. You know, making yourself so clearly the go-to person for someone makes you so clearly not the go-to person for someone else, and that is a good thing. That means the wrong people don’t inquire and the right ones come in excited and ready to go.

Then I want you to simplify your first response. Think of your first email with a new lead like a handshake. It’s not there to tell your entire life story or dump all your packages. It’s the beginning of a conversation and its job is to make the couple feel seen and keep the conversation moving. Then you’re going to follow up with value. If you don’t hear back from them, your follow up should be more than hey just checking in. You can share a resource, a testimonial, a helpful tip that reminds them why you’re the right choice.

The truth about ghosting isn’t that your prices are too high. It isn’t that you’re not good enough or that you shouldn’t be doing this. It is very simply that couples are not seeing within the first few seconds of coming across your website why you’re the right choice for them, and if they’re not sold before they inquire. They’re going to disappear. The good news, though, is you can fix this, and when you stand out clearly and you make couples feel that instant yes and that excitement, ghosting becomes the exception and not the rule.

And if you want help doing exactly that, come join me inside the Stand Out and Get Booked Challenge. It’s totally free. It’s happening October 20th through the 24th, and it’s five days where I will walk you step by step through how to stand out so that couples want to book you instead of ghost you. You can go grab your free ticket at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/challenge, and this challenge has everything you need to become the standout to your specific ideal client and just really cut down on the ghosting. I know how soul crushing it is to get ghosted all the time, and I can promise you that when you do this, you put yourself in a much, much better position where you are attracting pretty much exclusively the right people. There might be a few duds here and there you know it happens but you’re not getting the kind of inquiries that just turn into conversations about price or turn into ghosting. So go get your free ticket for the challenge at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/challenge and I will see you there.

Links & Resources:

Get your free ticket to the Stand out & Get Booked Challenge!
The Wedding Business Collective – join for just $1

Want more? To subscribe to the podcast, please use the links below and be sure to leave a review:

Click Here to Subscribe via Apple Podcasts

Click Here to Subscribe via Spotify

And please take 2 minutes to leave me an honest rating and review on Apple Podcasts by clicking here. It will help the show and its ranking immensely! Thank you – I appreciate it!