USA “DIY” Bridal Highlights

Here we wanted to share some numbers in regards wedding industry:

• The number of weddings in 2008 (2,190,363) has grown to 2,215,714, in 2009, but the amount of spending, has declined from $21,814 per wedding to $20,398 in the same time period.
• 25% are planning a wedding on a budget of less than $10,000
• 25% have wedding budgets over $25,001
• 38% reporting in the range of $10,001 to $20,000
• On average, flowers are 4.6% of a wedding cost.
• The modern bride and groom pay for the wedding about 30 percent of the time.
• 68% of couples have lowered their wedding budgets by an average of $1,000 in 2009.
• The May – October season accounts for 60% of weddings.
• The average age of a bride in the US is 25.3, and the average age of a groom is 26

source: The Wedding Report

The Wedding Planning

The bride typically drives the wedding planning.  She insists on a customized and personal experience with vendors. 90% of brides complete the planning themselves and do not hire a professional planner. They approach wedding planning like a business transaction and will solicit competitive bids from several vendors and have high expectations for the vendors that they choose to work with.

Wedding Flowers are typically purchased 2 – 5 months before the wedding. The time frame is usually earlier in the planning process when a florist is hired and a contractual agreement is involved.

Brides are doing much of their wedding planning while they are at work. The busiest days and times of the week for wedding sites are during the week and during the day. While at work, planning over the Internet is more frequently used rather than phone calls because it is easier to discreetly browse the web.

Wedding planning is done over a long time period. Brides have months to make their decision, not minutes. They’re not likely to need to view a site on their mobile phone. They typically wait until they get home or to the office.

The instant nature of digital communications has led to a certain level of impatience. If the bride emails a vendor, she expects a quick answer. They are looking for personalized responses, and not an automated response that is not customized to her.

Couples that are getting married are generally in their 20s and are very savvy digital content consumers. The brides especially are heavy users of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace; so for wedding planning they use sited focused on this market.  They also use bridal magazines to generate ideas for their weddings.

If you need help in planning your wedding, please don’t hesitate to contact us, we will be more than happy to help you with that!

source: American Bridal’s 2008 wedding survey (http://forever-weddings.blogspot.com/2008/04/2008-wedding-statistics.html)