It’s been a long time since my last post. As many of you would know, that’s because I’ve been busy tying the knot with my beautiful wife (as per my last post). So what better way to reacquaint myself than with a rant against the very industry that has utterly consumed my life for the past 6 months. Let’s get straight to the punch – the wedding industry is evil. Pure evil! Profiteering off love and raw emotion is almost as despicable as profiteering off war/death. In my journey, I dealt with two types of operators – short-term profiteers (the overwhelming majority) and event partners. And there’s a clear marketing lesson in this story about how an overemphasis on short-term gains can cost a business in the longer-term. Let’s take a look at how the two types of parties operated…
Short term profiteers
As the name suggests, short term profiteers are all about the cash baby! Or more to the point, extracting the absolute maximum number of dollars out of the transaction. A broad range of tactics and tricks are employed by the profiteers in an attempt to increase the total volume of dollars from you:
- Emotional bribery: This tactic was used on my wife numerous times and really pissed me off. After expressing pricing concerns, she’d often be told that money should never be a barrier for a wedding. Easy to say when you’re not paying for it… One prospective dress supplier even told her to ignore the budget she was working towards and just get what she wanted. “Don’t worry about what your husband says; it’s your day after all”. Funny… I thought marriage was supposed to represent a union. Needless to say she was quickly removed from the supplier list.
- Bait and switch: One of the oldest and most devious tricks in the book. Various suppliers roped us in with promises of free services (such as alterations or delivery), only to conveniently forget about those verbal agreements when it came time to settle the bill. Often for the sake of little more than a hundred dollars. Tell me… is it really worth pissing your customer off in the most royals of manners for the sake of a hundred bucks?
- Failure to provide any additional service: Our boutique hotelier was well aware that we were staying at their venue as part of our wedding celebration. Yet despite the fact that we were spending well in excess of $250 per night, they refused us permission to take photos in their picturesque lobby area, as we had not utilised their wedding facilities. Nor would they honour a specific request to scatter rose petals on the bed. Way to ruin the romance!
In summary, short-term profiteers are pricks.
Event partners
To blatantly discard all wedding suppliers as dishonest would be a disservice to the rare diamonds in the rough we found (such as our wedding caterer or wedding band), who understood that premium pricing should in fact be accompanied by premium service. These were the providers who at least gave the impression that they actually cared about our wedding, rather than simply fattening their wallet. They followed a few simple principles of good business:
- Being responsive to our enquiries and communicating effectively
- Honouring minor requests without attempting to jack up the price
- Being open about their pricing structure
- Customising and personalising their service where necessary
- Understanding that good service is good marketing!
So who wins in the end?
Sure… the short-term profiteer might have got an extra $100 out of me via their bait and switch tactics. But they are the real losers in the end. I was amongst the first in my friendship circle to tie the knot. I have five close friends getting married in the next 9 months. Guess what they’re doing now…? Planning their wedding. And who do you think they’re turning to for advice and referrals. Me.
Naturally, I’m more than happy to give them a list of suppliers who I insist they avoid. At all costs! Conversely, I have have been a passionate advocate for those few businesses who treated us well. For our caterer, that has already translated into a new customer to the tune of $20,000. And guess how we found out about our caterer… via a referral.
So congratulations Mr short-term profiteer. You weasled a few extra dollars out of me. But you’ve cost yourself thousands of dollars in new business. And whilst I haven’t named and shamed you, others will in the future via social media. You’re living on borrowed time buddy.
Power to the people!
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
your back!!!
I couldn’t agree more – nothing irritates more than a supplier who only has eyes on immediate gratification, particularly when it comes to something important.
I once had a prospective supplier who took forever to get back to me say “You know if you get a better price elsewhere let me know, cos I should be able to beat it”
I ended up hanging up thinking: no, how about givinge me your best price.
Good help is so hard to find!
I knew I should keep you on my RSS.
James,
Congratulations on your wedding and it is good to hear that you did have some good service providers for your day.
Being in the industry I can understand your position. As a photographer I would want my clients to recommend their friends and family and come back later when they start having kids. We work hard to give quality with value. We might not have massive bank balances but we can sleep at night and our clients do recommend us with 50% of our booking coming through that network. It is a brave soul to disregard a customer when it comes to the local market.
James, nice post and congrats on the wedding – you will be paying for it the rest of your life ? Just jokes!
I always have a moral problem when I write posts like that. Often, as you know, it makes great content but should we give the offending business an opportunity to re-deem itself (by sending them the post first)? I always feel like, even though we have the power of WOM, a little sooky for posting something like that without first raising it with them (I post it anyway!).
I always send them the link but I have written 3-4 posts like yours, and named and shamed, and have not had any contact with the offending businesses as a result of the post.
They either don’t give a shit, are too busy or just don’t monitor what is being said about them – maybe all 3!
So I am curious why you don’t name and shame?
Your experience is by no means unique to the wedding industry. In this Internet age where social networks and blogging have given everyone a voice…which can be heard by millions…such poor customer service makes no sense at all.
Very well said Duthie!
Totally with you on the bait and switch. We were almost locked in with a reception venue who said their complete package was $75 per head, and when were pretty much at the signing the papers stage she slipped in ‘Oh, and of course there’s the $10,000′ venue hire fee’. Our jaws dropped, it was just so sneaky. Grr
regular 2 tier cake for gathering: 40-60 dollars. once you mention "wedding" they want 700 dollars… wtf!? the industry is evil for sure.
So glad to hear that your wedding band looked after you, this is exactly how I work as a wedding entertainment agency, and it upsets me when I hear people get taken advantage of and/or are not really looked after on their special day. Cheers for a great read!