How to Book More Weddings AND Get Your Life Back

How to Book More Weddings AND Get Your Life Back

Heidi Thompson:

Want to book more weddings and get your life back? This one’s for you.

Hey there, welcome to the podcast. I am your host, Heidi Thompson. And I am all about helping wedding pros make their marketing easier. So they can book more of the weddings they actually want with clients they love, and build a business that gives them the life, freedom and flexibility they deserve. And today I want to talk to you about something important, something time sensitive. Because right now, in early February, couples are actively searching for their wedding vendors. They’re getting engaged, they’re Googling, they’re asking for recommendations in Facebook groups, they’re asking ChatGPT for recommendations, they are looking at websites and Instagram profiles, and they’re making decisions fast.

If your marketing isn’t doing its job right now, if you’re not positioned as the obvious choice for your ideal client, they’re booking someone else. And here’s what I need you to understand in this moment. We are in the middle of peak booking season right now.

Really, January through April is where the majority of couples who got engaged over the holidays are researching and choosing vendors. But there’s something else happening that makes this moment even more critical.

Gen Z is here and they are changing how weddings are booked. They have shorter engagement timelines, or at least shorter timelines from the time they inquire to their actual wedding. They’re booking weekday weddings. They’re making decisions outside of our normal calendar.

and Gen Z couples are decisive and well-researched, but they won’t wait. If you’re not visible during their research window, if your marketing doesn’t immediately position you as the right choice, they’re just going to move on to someone else. And those decision windows aren’t so seasonal anymore. Couples are choosing vendors year-round based on what shows up when they search. This means if you’re not strategic about your marketing right now, you’re invisible to couples who are ready to book. Since the end of COVID, I’ve seen a clear pattern in wedding businesses that are able to book all the weddings they want at the prices they want to charge.

And that pattern boils down to being intentional and having a marketing plan not working more hours not working harder not doing more marketing just simply being strategic wedding pros who have relied on couples just finding them or getting referred to them are the ones struggling the most. This group doesn’t have any strategy or plan to attract their ideal clients. So they’re just kind of sitting there waiting for leads. And because there’s no strategy involved, they don’t have any power or control to change how things are going. On the flip side, the wedding pros who have positioned themselves as the go-to person for their ideal clients and made time to create and execute a marketing plan are the ones getting booked out. The pattern here is all about intention. The wedding pros who struggle are winging it, hoping that business falls in their laps. They’re just hoping for bookings. The wedding pros who are killing it are being intentional about what they spend their time on. They make time to create and execute a marketing plan.

And as a result, they aren’t pulled in a million different directions because they know exactly what they need to do. They are proactively taking the steps that ensure their bookings. So let me paint you a picture of what your future could look like. I’ve got my crystal ball here. Because right now, you have a choice.

The path you choose in the next few weeks is going to determine what your year, your entire 2026 booking season looks like. Path A, you don’t change anything. It’s February 2027, a year from now. And you are in the exact same place you are today.

You’re still working too much, you’re still feeling overwhelmed, and you’re still not booking enough of the weddings you actually want. You spent 2026 posting on social media hoping something would finally work.

You were busy. My God, you were so busy, but you didn’t have an actual strategy.

You watched other wedding pros in your area book out their 2026 and 2027 seasons while you struggled to get inquiries. The couples who did reach out to you were price shopping, comparing you to three other vendors and ultimately ghosting you. You’re frustrated, you’re exhausted, and you wonder if you want to keep doing this.

You missed the 2026 booking season because you weren’t ready. And now you’re watching it happen again for 2027.

Or you can choose path B, where it is February 2027.

And you are looking at a calendar. And you’re nearly booked out for your entire season. Not just booked, booked with clients you actually want to work with.

Clients who value what you do and aren’t questioning your prices. You’re working fewer hours than you were a year ago, but you’re making more money.

Kind of feel like you’re cheating. You have systems in place. You know exactly what marketing activities move the needle for you So you not wasting time on things that don work You took a full week off last summer something you haven done in years and you didn’t feel guilty about it because your marketing was working for you even when you were gone.

When someone asks you how business is going, you feel a surge of pride. You’re not just surviving, you’re thriving and you look back at 2026, specifically in February and think, man, thank God I made that decision. I wish I’d done it sooner. Which path do you want to be on? Because here’s the truth. The wedding pros who take action now, who get strategic now during this peak booking window, they are going to have a completely different 2026 than the ones who wait. Let me show you what this actually looks like in real life.

Carolyn Kolb is a floral designer. When we first met, she was still doing flower farming and just starting to try to market to couples, and she had no idea how. She wasn’t getting consistent or quality leads. She was paying for advertising and wasn’t sure that the ROI was worth it, and she was barely paying herself. She was working constantly between farming, designing, trying to market, doing everything herself. And she felt lost and overwhelmed, like she was just throwing things at the wall, hoping something would stick. And then she made a decision. She joined the Wedding Business Collective and got strategic.

She changed her focus to attracting and booking the clients that she really wanted to work with. the clients who valued high-end sustainable floral design and weren’t shopping on price. She told me that after joining the Wedding Business Collective, she felt like she got an MBA in six months. And here’s what changed. Within a few months, she started getting different inquiries. They were a higher quality, a better fit. And this is for a service that starts anywhere between $12,000 to $18,000. She booked a wedding with a $35,000 floral spend.

That’s just $35,000 on the florals. And here’s what’s even better. She only spent two hours per week on marketing to get these results. Not 10, not 15, two, because she knows exactly what works and what doesn’t. She wasn’t wasting her time on strategies that don’t bring in her ideal clients.

and that gave her confidence. That made her proud, like a real business owner that knows what she’s doing, like a real CEO. She had that financial freedom, time freedom, and the emotional transformation of really feeling like you have figured this out. Or take Neil McFarlane, a DJ. When I met Neil, he was a solopreneur who wasn’t getting enough of his ideal clients. He was working every weekend often until 3am doing everything himself He was tired he couldn’t take weekends off and he couldn’t grow beyond trading his time for money But then he got strategic He joined the Wedding Business Collective and created a plan He realized he didn’t want to work every weekend until 3am for the rest of his career. So he started building systems and the business became a multi-person operation. He was able to bring on associate DJs and train them in his unique way of doing things. So his clients got the same great experience no matter who worked their wedding. Now he has the financial freedom of more revenue coming in from multiple DJs working weekends. He has time freedom because he doesn’t have to work every single weekend anymore. And he gets to focus on other areas of the company.

Plus, he gets to teach young DJs, which is something he’s really passionate about. He didn’t just build a bigger business, he built a better life.

And Carolyn and Neil aren’t outliers. Liz, an officiant, was able to raise her prices several times and got her work time down to 30 hours per week max. It was often more like 25. Then she retired earlier than she thought she could and is now living with her husband in Vietnam. Emily, a stationer with two young kids, feels like a true business owner, a true CEO for the first time. She’s no longer flying by the seat of her pants, like we all are sometimes.

She told us that she felt like she took a whole semester of business school and she feels confident and in control. And Christy, a photographer, said the same thing. She finally feels like a legit business owner, like she knows what she’s doing. before she was trying to do all the things without any real intention behind her decisions, like many of us do. Now she has a really good grip on it. She gets to do less and have that feeling of having it all under control. Do you see the pattern? These transformations happen in three ways. First, there’s financial freedom. You’re not just booking more weddings, you’re booking better weddings, clients who value what you do, clients who aren’t just focused on your price because they can see you’re worth it, and you’re making more money while working the same hours, or possibly less, like Liz. You can finally pay yourself properly, maybe even hire help, maybe even build a team if that’s something you’re interested in. Two, you have time freedom.

You’re not working 60-hour weeks anymore. You’re not sacrificing every spare hour of your day.

You can take a vacation without your business falling apart. You can have dinner with your family without checking your phone every three minutes. You can be present for moments that matter in your life. The beach days with your kids before they go off to college.

The weeknight dinners with your partner. Spontaneous weekend trips. You built your business for freedom and you’re finally getting it. But here’s the one that no one talks about. talks about, and it’s how it feels. Imagine meeting up with a friend for coffee and they ask, hey, how’s your business going? And instead of feeling that knot in your stomach, the anxiety that you don’t want to admit, that you feel like everything is scattered or deflecting the question, you can feel that surge of pride and tell them honestly, business is going really well. I’m booked for most of 2026 with amazing clients. You feel confident, legitimate, like you finally figured it out and you are finally the CEO of your business.

You’re not flying by the seat of your pants anymore. You’re not constantly second guessing yourself. You’re not wondering if you’re doing it right. You know what you’re doing. You have a plan and it’s working. That feeling, that I’ve got this, feeling really changes everything.

So why am I telling you this right now? Because this is an important moment. Couples are forming their impressions right now and deciding who feels right for their wedding. If your marketing isn’t clear and confident, you are getting overlooked during this decision window. Now, Gen Z couples are making decisions faster than ever.

They are well They are decisive once they know what they want but they won wait around If you not visible and compelling as like hey I the person for you when they searching they’re going to move on. You’re on the edge of being able to take advantage of this industry shift. And the faster you get strategic, the sooner you take back control. There’s no perfect time to make this shift, but the momentum builds the instant you decide to make a change. And most wedding pros who do make a change say, I wish I had done this sooner. You are so much closer than you think. The next season could look completely different, but only if you take action now. And I’ve got the perfect way for you to do that with Wedding Business CEO Summit happening February 16th through the 20th, right in the middle of peak booking season, right when you need it most. I’m bringing together 40 experts who are going to help you position yourself as the obvious choice for your ideal client, create a marketing strategy that actually works and doesn’t just keep you busy, stop wasting time on marketing that doesn’t move the needle, attract higher quality leads who are ready to book and build a business that gives you those three types of freedoms, the financial freedom the time freedom and that confidence of feeling like you have it all under control.

This is not about working more hours, this isn’t about adding more to an already full plate We going to take things off your plate. In fact, there is an entire session called the Quit It session where we do that. This is about getting strategic so you can work less and get better results. Because if you don’t have time to work on your marketing strategy, to work on being the CEO of your business and being strategic, you are not going to book the weddings that you want. If everything feels like it’s on fire all the time, you are going to drop the ball constantly and feel stressed about that and feel guilty about that. And if you’re working insane hours, you’ll never get to enjoy the freedom and flexibility you wanted when you started this business. None of those things are required to have a successful wedding business. They’re just traps that we get stuck in, and you can get out of them. The wedding pros I told you about, they were where you are right now. Overwhelmed, frustrated, working too hard for not enough return, but they made a decision. They got strategic, and as a result, everything changed.

So here’s your choice. You can keep doing what you’re doing, hoping things will magically get better, hoping the right clients will somehow find you, hoping this year, next year will be different Or you can take action now and get strategic You can put yourself in the position of CEO in your business and make sure that you are attracting the right clients and step into path B that path where a year from now you looking back thinking, oh, thank God I made that decision. So join me and 40 other experts at the Wedding Business CEO Summit.

You can get your free ticket. It is happening from February 16th to the 20th.

and you can do that over at weddingbusinessceosummit.com or you can comment on any of my Instagram posts with the word summit and I’ll send you the link if that’s easier for you. I am Evolve Your Wedding Business over on Instagram because right now, this is your moment. Couples are searching. They’re forming their first impressions. They’re deciding. They’re booking. The question is, are they finding you?

Are they choosing you? Or are they choosing someone else who got strategic when you were spinning your wheels and still hoping things would just sort of work out?

You are so much closer than you think, and this year can look completely different. But you have to decide right now. And I hope you decide to join us for Wedding Business CEO Summit. Again, you can get your free ticket at weddingbusinessceosummit.com, and I’ll see you there.