Should You Go After Luxury Weddings? Here’s My Honest Answer

Transcript: Should You Go After Luxury Weddings? Here’s My Honest Answer

Heidi Thompson:

Should you go after luxury wedding clients? I think my answer might surprise you.

I am Heidi Thompson, and I help wedding professionals book more clients that they love working with and make their marketing easier.

And today I want to talk about something I’ve been kind of sitting on for a while. There is this narrative going around that the luxury market is where you want to be. That’s the goal. I hear it constantly from wedding pros at every stage, in every niche, every type of business. And not only is it that they want to go luxury, I hear that it’s a solution. You know, if you’re not making enough money, if you’re exhausted and you feel like you’re working too hard for what you’re getting paid, go luxury.

Move up market. Raise your prices. Get better clients. And I get why that sounds good.

But I think it’s one of the most misleading things we tell each other in this industry. And I think it’s leading a lot of people to make decisions that will make their situation worse, not better. So we’re getting into it today. And here’s what I keep noticing when wedding pros talk about wanting to go luxury and book luxury clients.

The way they describe it sounds exactly like someone talking about a job promotion. You know, you hear people say things like, I’ve been doing this for 10 years, I’ve paid my dues, I should be doing higher end work by now, or I started at the lower end to build my portfolio, now it’s time to move up. Or you might just hear, I want to attract a better caliber of client. And if that sounds familiar, maybe you’ve said one of these things. I’m not judging. That thinking makes total sense when you’re an employee. You work hard, you prove yourself, you get promoted, you make more. That’s how jobs work. That is not how business works. In a job, you move up within an existing structure The company has already built the entire infrastructure the client base the reputation for whatever level you being promoted into you are stepping into something that is already there When you decide to go after luxury wedding clients as a business owner, there is no existing structure to step into. You have to build it from scratch. Going luxury is not a promotion. It’s building a completely different business.

Let me give you a real world example. Think about Marriott, massive hotel company. They have budget brands, they have mid-range hotels, and some of the most luxurious hotels in the world. But they didn’t just decide one day, okay, this courtyard has been around for a long time. It’s time to turn it into a Ritz-Carlton. They don’t say, we’ve been doing mid-range for a while, time to go luxury. They don’t slap a new logo on a building and just like raise the nightly rate.

Ritz-Carlton is a separate brand. It is its own thing with completely distinct operations because the Ritz-Carlton and a courtyard by Marriott have almost nothing in common other than it being a place that you stay. The customers are different. The staff training is different. The amenities, the experience, the supply chain, the price point, the marketing, all of it is different. These are not the same business at two different price points. They’re two fundamentally different businesses that just happen to be owned by the same parent company. Now, think about what that means for you. If you are serving more budget or mid-market couples, and you want to serve luxury couples, you can’t just upgrade your existing business, you’re building a new one.

And the business you’ve already built, the referral network, the vendor relationships, the portfolio, the systems, the brand. Some of it transfers, but most of it doesn’t because it was built for a completely different customer. I want you to walk through what actually changes when you move into luxury because I think a lot of people have a really incomplete picture of this. So first, the customer changes. It’s not just their budget. I think a lot of people think the customer is their budget. But it’s not just the budget that changes. Their expectations, their communication style, their priorities, their decision-making process, how they found you, what they consider an acceptable response time, how involved they expect you to be, all of that is different. And of course, your referral network changes.

The vendors, venues, and other professionals who send new business those relationships need to be rebuilt for a new market So the venue that sends you leads right now probably is not connected to the couples you trying to reach at the luxury level And the demands on your time change This is the part I’ve seen catch people most off guard. There is this assumption that high-end clients are easier. They’re just more reasonable and logical and more trusting and more hands-off because they’re willing to pay more. Yeah, that’s not always true. We’re still dealing with humans and high-end clients often demand more, whether that’s more access, more communication, more customization, more from every part of your process, which means more from you.

So if you are burned out right now, and you think moving into the luxury market is going to give you your life back, you may be walking into something that’s even more demanding. And then we have to talk about the cool kids club. This is driving a lot of this conversation around luxury, even if people don’t say it out loud. There is a prestige element to luxury work.

The galleries, the editorial features, the incredibly stunning social posts with flowers that cost more than some people’s cars. There’s a version of luxury in the wedding industry that looks incredibly glamorous and sexy from the outside. And it’s natural to want that. But I want you to be honest with yourself on why you’re thinking about going after luxury clients. Is it because you thought through the business you want to build and the life you want to have and luxury actually fits into that?

Or is it because it looks impressive and you want to be impressive? Like it feels like the thing you’re supposed to be doing by now.

The thing you’re supposed to want by now. and you feel a little bit left behind and not good enough.

I’ve known a lot of people who do really love doing high-end luxury work.

And I’ve also known a lot of people who have walked away from it, who said the demands weren’t worth it. It’s not what they wanted. It’s not the business and life that they wanted. You know, they said they were really sold on the glamour and prestige of it and didn’t account for what that level of service actually would require of them every single day. You’re allowed to build a business that works for you, that funds the life that you actually want, that has you working with clients you actually enjoy working with.

And for some people, that is the luxury market if it’s genuinely a right fit.

But for a lot of people, it isn’t. and they just trying to feel like they at the cool kids table They trying to feel like they belong They want to be part of this prestigious beautiful luxurious thing that they see And there nothing wrong with that I just want you to be real with yourself. And one more thing while we’re here. I’ve heard a lot of talk about the middle market’s gone. It’s over. People are so dramatic. The middle market is not dying. I hear this a lot, I want to push back on it. Because it’s not dying, it’s just changing. What’s happening is that it’s getting more specific. Couples in that budget range have more options now than they have ever had. They’re being more discerning, they’re researching differently, and they know what they want. That’s actually good news if you serve this market because it means the I’m a wedding planner, I will plan the wedding of your dreams, here are my prices approach doesn’t work anymore. And honestly, it never really worked. What works is being the clear choice for a very specific kind of couple that you want to attract. Think about bakeries. They are a super old business model. Not that long ago, you went to your local baker in town, and they made everything.

Now, at least in my neighborhood, I can walk to a dedicated bagel shop. I can walk to a French bakery. I can walk to a donut shop that is like your more classic donuts. I can walk to a donut shop that makes actually two different donut shops that make like crazy flavors and they are both distinctly different from one another. I can walk to a place that makes their own bread and they specialize in their sandwiches. The market didn’t shrink. It didn’t go away. It matured. It’s specialized. And that is exactly what is happening in the wedding industry right now. And the wedding pros who understand that and lean into the specific thing that they are wanting to be known for are thriving, regardless of price point. The answer to a tough or a maturing middle market is not to abandon it for luxury. It’s to stop being a generalist within it.

Okay, I’ve told you what the problem is here. Now I want to give you something actually useful. If your business is struggling, and you’ve been thinking luxury is going to be your saving grace, it’s going to be the answer, I want you to ask yourself, is the problem that you’re serving the wrong market? Or is the problem that your right people can’t tell that you’re the right choice for them? So you’re not getting the inquiries and bookings you need. Those are two very different problems. If it’s the second one, And in my experience, it usually is. The solution is positioning, not a pivot of the entire business.

It’s getting clear on who your ideal clients are, what they actually care about, what they’re actually thinking, what problem they’re trying to solve when they hire someone like you, and making sure that your marketing speaks directly to that. that work is not as glamorous as a rebrand, but it’s what actually gets you bookings. And it works at any price point. And if you’re thinking about this and you genuinely do want to attract luxury wedding clients and build that business and you’ve thought it through clearly, my advice would be build it as a separate thing. Give it time. It needs its own brand, its own portfolio, its own network. Don’t try to gradually shift your existing business upmarket. That is a slow and painful way to do it and it’s probably not going to work. Start the new thing on the side while your current business runs.

And if you’re newer and you want to get into luxury eventually, the fastest path isn’t through your portfolio and building up to this point, not to say you don’t need experience, you do, but you get it through proximity, working alongside people who are already doing this work. Assist at those weddings, get in those rooms. That is how you learn what this sort of luxury work actually requires, and how you build the relationships that will eventually send you business So here the takeaway Booking luxury wedding clients is not a reward for time served It not a job promotion It a conscious choice to build a completely different business with a different customer, different demands, a different structure, and a different version of your day-to-day life.

It might be the exact right choice for you. Or it might be the worst choice you could ever make. But make that decision with clear eyes. Not because everyone in the industry says it’s time for you to move to luxury.

Not because you feel like you should be there by now. Not because you feel insecure or have imposter syndrome. and not because you feel like you’ve earned it, but because you’ve actually thought through what you want. And this luxury business is the real answer.

All right, if this hit close to home, I would love to hear from you on Instagram. I am @EvolveYourWeddingBusiness over there. Tell me what you’re thinking. And if you need to get clearer on your ideal client, and believe me, most of us do, I would say 95% of the wedding industry really needs to do this work.

You can grab your copy of Clone Your Best Clients for just $9.

It’ll help you get really clear on who you’re for and what to say in order to reach them and bring them to you at any price point. And you can grab your copy at evolveyourweddingbusiness.com/clone.

See you next week.