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A Wedding Business Podcast - Tips and tricks to, grow and sustain a amazingly successful wedding business in a way that's is fun and gives you tons of freedom.
Welcome everyone to the Wedding Pro Academy Podcast. I'm Nicole, your host. I'm an expert in the wedding industry and I've personally built two 6 figure businesses from the ground up. I am obsessed with building businesses that make lots of money but do so in a way that also create luxurious amounts of freedom. So if you're looking to build, grow, or scale a wedding business in a way that doesn't burn you out, and you'd love some guidance from someone who has done just that, this podcast is for you.
Nicole:Each week I'll cover strategies, tips, tricks that will give you your dream wedding business too. So much for tuning in today. Let's dive in. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 45. Today we are going to talk about how much wedding pros really make.
Nicole:I think this is something that you'll find super interesting and maybe will give you a little bit of understanding of whether or not it's worth diving full on into the wedding industry if you want to put all of your effort into building this wedding business or if you want to switch course and also give you an idea of what's possible. Because really the whole reason you want to start this business to begin with is of course because it's fun like everybody who gets into weddings loves their job. Well most of us do right but it would be awesome if it also makes a lot of money. So let's get into some numbers and let me explain to you what my experience has been in the wedding industry how much I've seen different vendors making and what's possible. Then we'll compare this to what Google is saying people are making so that you can get a grasp on whether or not this is something you should do and if you're already doing it what your potential might be.
Nicole:I think this is really the problem it's that when we decide we want to start a wedding business we don't really have any idea what people are making in the wedding industry we don't know if it's profitable we don't know if it's profitable realistically like what do photographers actually make right and we also don't know what to charge and it's it's not like when you get a regular job like for example as a teacher where you know what your salary is going to be when you get hired at that job right? You know you're going to make $42,000 a year You know all you have to do is show up every day and do a good job and then you will continue to make that set amount every year with the possibility of getting a raise and potentially earning up to $75,000 a year if you stay in this field. Now when you start your own business, it doesn't work like that. You have no idea how much you're going to make, how much to charge, how much potential you have of making. And it will vary greatly depending on you, your drive, your connections, the work you do, your networking, your marketing skills, your sales abilities, how well you are able to connect with your client, the bride and groom.
Nicole:Right? There's so many variables and that is scary because you're not going in knowing that you're going make a set $42,000 a year. You can make $5,000 or you can make $100,000 Having an idea of what the potential is, is going to be super helpful to you. Plus, knowing what other people are making and where you can expect to be at when you're getting into building a wedding business. So you don't really know how much you can make and how much potential is there or even what to start charging.
Nicole:It kind of feels like you are going to jump off a cliff into a big ocean and you're just going all in and hoping for the best. What most newer wedding business owners do is they just look at what everybody else is doing and they copy. Right? That's so common and something that I've done that pretty much everybody else has done when they first started their business. You're looking at the other wedding planner and copying how they write out their packages, copying their prices, copying their marketing.
Nicole:Maybe you're not meaning to, but that is sort of a basis of what you're working off of. You want to see what everyone else is doing and you want to set your value off of somebody else's value because they're already established. You do this because you have this belief that well I can charge what everyone else is charging as long as I'm offering the same thing. And then you have this other thought that, okay they've got to be making $50,000 right? So I'll make about that much.
Nicole:But really you don't know. You have no idea. And you aren't really seeing the work, the time, the value, the effort that other wedding planner put in to come up with that pricing. And your work, your time, your effort, your value hasn't reached that same potential of that wedding planner, so it's very unlikely that you'll be able to charge what he's charging at the start. The other actual problem is that because you're so focused on what everyone else is doing, you're not focused at all on your uniqueness, your specialness.
Nicole:What makes you different, more valuable, extraordinary. What makes you special. And you're trying to copy other vendors to fit in which of course you would, that makes total sense, but it's not what's going to make you stand out and it's not what's going to let you become more profitable. So all of this is mixed in: you have absolutely no idea what to charge, what people that are doing wedding planning in your area or wedding photography or whatever are actually making and what your client, the bride and groom, are willing to pay for your services. So today we want to cover all of that stuff.
Nicole:We want to talk about what wedding planners, wedding photographers, hair and makeup artists, officiants, what they're actually making and what the potential is for those fields and what the expenses are and what things you need to be looking out for. So that if you're going all in on one of these, you have an idea, a ground to stand on. You know where you fit in and what your potential is. So first let's talk numbers. So I looked at Google and I asked Google, what is the average amount that businesses in the wedding industry are making?
Nicole:And these are the numbers that Google gave me. Wedding planners on average are making $47,000 a year. Wedding photographers on average are making $104,000 a year. Wedding designers $85,000 a year. Wedding florists $37,000 a year, wedding hair and makeup artists $52,000 a year, and officiants this one surprised me $85,000 a year on average.
Nicole:But they added in that this is a wedding officiant that works frequently. And I'm gonna go into that because I know many of these officiants that are grinding, like they are working their asses off. That's why they're making $85,000 a year. But you want to weigh all of this around the lifestyle that you want to create and then make sure it's worth it. Let's dig a little deeper into those numbers and I'll give you some of my real life experience.
Nicole:All of this, of course, is based on the wedding industry in Hawaii. We have a really big wedding industry here because a lot of people want to fly to Hawaii to get married. We have a lot of people in the wedding industry and I can give you some real numbers about what we're charging here. And it may vary from your state, but I'm guessing it's probably pretty close, especially if you're in a place that is known for weddings. Maybe some place like New York, LA, Texas even, places that people want to go to to get married that have a big wedding industry, you're probably similar to the numbers that I'm giving here.
Nicole:Okay, so for wedding planners, what do most wedding planners charge for day of through full planning? What's the span of what wedding planners are charging? It varies so greatly, and I've seen the spectrum of costs here because there are so many different types of wedding planners. There are wedding planners that just do basic day of planning. There are wedding planners that are a little more established that do month of partial full coordination, and then there are luxury wedding planners who do five day events for people that are doing full Indian or Persian weddings or bigger events like that.
Nicole:In Hawaii at least, most wedding planners will charge around $2,500 for a day of or a month of and up to, I would say, 10,000, $12,000 for full planning. Whereas a luxury wedding planner would charge more. They might even charge a percentage. I've seen a lot of wedding planners charge a 10% or 15% percentage of the total cost of the wedding. A lot of times that makes sense because the more vendors they have, the more money they're spending, the more work a wedding planner needs to put into it, right?
Nicole:So that kind of keeps it simple but you have to really get behind that pricing if that's what you're going to do. But when I was just getting started, know, I was charging $500 a wedding and I see some newer wedding planners charging you know $1,800 $800 something like that. You want to do something that you feel comfortable with but this just gives you an idea of where to start. Wedding photographers they're on average, I would say, like the ones that do weddings all the time are charging $2,000 to $4,000 a wedding for a four-six hour package and then up to $10,000 a wedding for the more established wedding photographers are doing eight ten hour packages. Wedding designers Google tells me they're making $85,000 a year and I wasn't really even sure what a wedding designer means.
Nicole:Is that someone that just comes in and designs the wedding? We have not very many of those in Hawaii because that would then fall on the wedding planner and the wedding florist. But I do know that there are other companies like linen companies, wedding linen companies and rental companies that make huge profit and they do this by having minimums. So a wedding linen company who does specialty linen, they might charge $50 for a linen rental, but that would include the linen being pressed and installed They have a team that sets everything up, but what they do to make money because, you know, making $50 per table linen and they have a staff and they have a warehouse and all of that they're not really going to make money that way if they're just charging for two table cloths. So what they do is they have a minimum, and they'll make it so that brides need to spend a minimum of $2,500 to use them.
Nicole:So then their total rental cost will go up. What happens is brides and grooms will rent other stuff from them. Stuff they weren't planning on renting, but because they really want those linens, they're also going to rent chargers and napkins and a dance floor or whatever else to hit that $2,500 minimum. And then that covers the company being able to stay in business. Right now they have a $2,500 minimum per wedding so then they have an idea of how many weddings they need to book during that year to stay in business and they have enough money to cover their expenses, which would be high because now they have a warehouse, they have a driver, they probably have a truck, they have a team, and on top of that they usually also charge setup and delivery and breakdown fees.
Nicole:So those are added things that they can include. But that just gives you a little bit of an idea of what you could charge if you were thinking about starting a rental company, a linen company, something that you just go in, you drop it off, you pick it up and that's all you do. You just have a bunch of stuff that you rent out specifically for weddings. Okay, what about wedding florists? Well Google tells me they make $37,000 a year on average.
Nicole:My guess in Hawaii they're probably making a little bit more than that. I'll just give you a general idea of what wedding florists here are charging. Generally bouquets, bridal bouquets, are about $350 Bridesmaids bouquets can be as low as $85 but probably closer to $200 and now keep in mind you probably need like six of those. Alter pieces like for an arch or an altar those are big giant flower pieces that are made and then attached onto a wooden arch. They're usually about $350 a piece.
Nicole:You usually need three of them. Then there are additional setup fees so to set up and install the arch would be an additional $300 to $500 Boutineers are usually about $30 Table centerpieces are usually $150 to $450 Those all add up, but then the expenses that florists have are also high. They have storage needs. They need a place to store all these flowers. It needs to be cold.
Nicole:They need to have refrigeration. They need a truck. They need delivery. They need gas. They need a staff that's going to help them do the installs.
Nicole:And those things add up. What about makeup artists? How much do they make? Google says $52,000 a year on average and in Hawaii what I've seen is most artists will charge around $250 to $350 per service and they bring everything with them. All the makeup, the lashes, they give out touch up kits.
Nicole:A little cute powder lipstick mascara kit that the bride can have for later to use halfway through the wedding night. Not all wedding planners do this, but a lot of them do. It's a really sweet Most wedding planners that are successful, the ones that I've seen, they are usually not working alone. They have a team that's working under them and they pay the girls under them. They would be the lead hair and makeup artist and then they would have their assistant hair and makeup artist that work under them.
Nicole:So sometimes if they're doing a big wedding with say like 10 girls that they need to do at once, they'll bring on two assistants so that they can all work together and get them done in a timely manner. Other add on fees that I've seen her makeup artists tack on, which are totally feasible, are extra charges for parking. Hotel parking. It costs money, charge the bride for it. Extra costs for early mornings.
Nicole:A lot of brides want to get married in the morning. That means hair and makeup sometimes has to start at 04:30AM. So hair and makeup artists will charge an extra $50 to do an early morning and brides are more than willing to pay for that. Hair and makeup artists will also charge for trials that's another thing you can add on. What about officiants?
Nicole:Okay, this is the one that Google says makes $85,000 a year on average but that means that they work frequently. So I have seen most officiants here in Hawaii charging on average $250 to $450 per wedding. That seems low but their job is simple because they just come in, they do the wedding and they leave. They don't have any other time commitment to the couple. Most successful wedding officiants are doing multiple weddings in a day sometimes four or five weddings in a day and they're usually doing the same wedding ceremony over and over again so the officiants that I use they usually have spent some time coming up with this really perfect sweet ceremony but then they give that same ceremony over and over and over again.
Nicole:It's kind of stuck in their brain and it's something that they can execute very efficiently. Which makes it easy, right, for them to do four weddings. Not easy, but you know, if you're doing the same ceremony over and over it's definitely easier than if you're doing something custom. So that's how they're able to scale. The last thing I kind of wanted to cover was there's this added bonus of tips.
Nicole:So I don't see that really mentioned very frequently but most wedding vendors do also get tipped by the bride and groom I've noticed that in 2025 it's much less than in previous years. I think people are not feeling so comfortable spending money this year but there is the opportunity of making more money through tips and in the past I have gotten anywhere from $100 to $1,000 in tips per wedding. Okay, so now that we know all of this let's work backwards. We have an idea of the potential profitability of your business and how much you can charge per service. And what we want to do is take how much you feel comfortable charging per service times how many services you think you could do per year.
Nicole:So for example, a wedding photographer she might charge $2,500 a service. That would be a good price to start at, something that a newer photographer could charge and feel comfortable with, and then she might aim to do 20 weddings a year at that price. That would be $50,000 a year. You can have an idea of how much money you'll make about $50,000 a year if I can book 20 weddings. Now, in addition to that, you might think about the idea that you could also and you probably will also be doing some side gigs like family photo shoots, graduations, engagement shoots, things like that.
Nicole:Maybe that will add up to another 10,000 or $15,000 So now you're at $65,000 Is that a number that you can get behind that would make it worth it? And now the other part to consider is the overhead. What are the expenses? For a photographer that might just be gas, cameras, computers, editing software, taxes. So let's just take a percentage off of that, right?
Nicole:15%. And then look at that number. So you want to have just a general idea of how much you can potentially make and shoot for that. Having that is going to make you feel a lot safer when you're doing this so that you don't feel like you're just going all in on something that may or may not work. This obviously has the potential of working and this is something that feels feasible to you.
Nicole:It's going to feel a lot better going into it. Okay, so now that we have an idea of what the average amounts are that most wedding businesses are making in The US and about how much people are charging for the individual services plus we have a little bit of an idea of what expenses are going to be involved in all of this. We have a good place to start right? So now let's talk about how to set your prices because I know a lot of people struggle with this especially when you're first starting out and you have no idea how to set your pricing well this should help you out. So first of all I want you to think about the value that you're bringing the value should outweigh the cost and you should just feel this in your bones and be able to confidently talk about this value and know in your heart that what you are providing the services the help the experience that you're providing for the bride and groom outweighs the cost and how you figure that out is by breaking down what the value actually is so for example I know that as a wedding planner I'm going to charge let's just say $5,000 for a wedding package now I really really want to get rooted to this this amount of money and this value so what does $5,000 amount of value look like?
Nicole:What does the value that I'm bringing to this couple does it exceed $5,000 and why? So let's break that down let's say for that specific package that I'm spending about sixty hours on average on that wedding only and my hourly fee one that I feel confident about is $40 an hour and so if I'm spending sixty hours and it's $40 an hour that's about $2,400 right? Plus I'm also saving the couple about a thousand dollars off vendor fees because of my connections I'm getting them a deal with the photographer, a deal with the hair and makeup artist, a percentage that they save just from working with me. I've saved them that much money plus I'm also 100 ensuring that their day is perfect! How much is that worth?
Nicole:To me that's worth $2,000 easy! Plus I'm making the months leading up to their wedding day super easy, simple, stress free, enjoyable! I'm handling every single detail leading up to that day and every single detail on their wedding day which allows them to fully be in the moment fully enjoy every second of their wedding day. Now what's that worth? To me I am 1000% worth that $5,000 Additionally, I'm also handling all of the vendors that they hired and making sure that they get the most out of their packages with their photographer, with their officiant, with their florist.
Nicole:I'm making sure that I get my couple the best possible experience with their musicians. So, if they booked a two hour package with the musician when is that music playing? How do they make the most out of the package they booked with each of the vendors? That is also worth money. I want to list out in my head all of the ways that what I am providing exceeds the cost that I'm charging.
Nicole:You probably want to write this down too because this is how you're going to market this is how you're going to sell your services. Now when you believe that the value that you're bringing exceeds what they're getting, your energy will match the cost, the sale. Right? So now when I talk about my package or my services, my people the brides and grooms are going to feel that it's extremely valuable. They're going to feel it because I believe it and because I have this conviction around my pricing they're going to want to work with me.
Nicole:Who wants to work with someone who isn't sure of what they're doing? They want to work with someone who is super confident and super convicted in what they're bringing to the table. They trust that you'll be able to go above and beyond for them. That is how you want to set your pricing. A couple of other things to consider is that there are different ways to run a wedding business and different ways to make money in a wedding business so you can you might start off running your business one way and then shift into another direction for example a lot of newer wedding businesses will just try to take all the weddings and charge a small amount of money because they can book more.
Nicole:You do this for experience and you might take on 50 weddings in a year charging $100 a wedding or something on the low end but what this does is lead to burnout so eventually you want to try to charge more or create a way to add in extra fees or add ons so that you can bring your profit margin up without spending more energy. Also, there are ways to make money outside of the actual service you're offering and I think newer wedding businesses don't realize this upfront you think you're only offering a six hour wedding photography package. Well what else can you add on to that to bring the total cost up? For example, let's look at wedding hair and makeup artists. I mentioned this earlier but they are also charging for early wedding fees so when they have to arrive early they're charging for parking they're charging to bring on extra staff when there is a bigger wedding party they might also be adding in options like a spa upgrade I've seen hair and makeup artists add this on where they do like a face mask kind of super spa experience.
Nicole:It costs a little bit more, doesn't take them very much more time, and it makes them more money brings their bottom line up, right? Or an officiant they might be adding in extras like a sand ceremony. A lot of couples want that. Well, what if they provided all of the stuff for it? The vases and the sand and they can add this on for a certain cost and the officiant provided that.
Nicole:That would be an add on. Or a wedding planner who partners up with a photographer and sells a wedding package that includes photography. That brings them both business and makes them both money. Think about how you can upcharge or add things on for example rehearsal fees, hair and makeup trials, engagement shoots or maybe an upgrade on hours or time for additional money And this is how you can bring your bottom line up. And what I would suggest to everyone who's just kind of getting started at this is you want to keep things super simple at first.
Nicole:It's gonna be hard to do that. You're going to want to try all the things you're going to want to have like 10 different packages but that complicates everything and doesn't get you really grounded to what your offer is so scale back 10 packages is too many three packages is more than enough the simpler the better the more rooted you are to your packages and to the value that you can bring with each of those packages the easier it's going to be for you to sell them. Make these three packages the best of the best and then just add upgrades. Once you've got these basic packages down and you've really perfected them so they're absolutely perfect for your couples and they provide immense value and you know that they're exactly what your brides and grooms want plus more and they're simple but they're like they they just fill up your bride and groom they're like everything that the couple wants and more then you know that you're in a place where you can start scaling and from that place only once you're there you're bringing in steady income with your very small simple packages then you can hire in a team and at that point you'll be able to create manuals around these packages.
Nicole:So what exactly do you do? You could probably write it out could teach it to somebody else and then they can execute for you. That's how you scale your business. So let's recap all of this. We went over how much generally speaking wedding pros make, how much wedding officiants, wedding planners, wedding photographers, wedding hair and makeup artists how much they make on average and how much they could charge for their services plus what general expenses they're going to run into and how you would determine your pricing if you were just getting started.
Nicole:You don't just want to jump in and copy what other people are doing you want to try to get a feel for what other people are doing and then base your pricing off of the value that you bring. You always want to over deliver the value should be bigger than the cost the cost to the couple right? So that's how you're going to create your pricing. Then once you've actually set up pricing and you have you should also work on having a general idea of what you would expect to bring in based on these numbers so that you have a place to aim for right you have a goal that is very realistic and that feels comfortable and safe. That's how you're going to figure out how much money you can make in this business and figure out how to scale.
Nicole:You don't want to scale until you've really grounded into the basics. You're really over delivering on just a few simple things and you're doing those things really really well. Once you've got that in and you're making a steady amount of income and you're feeling very confident in what your offer is, then you can scale, hire people, create a manual and teach people how to do what you're doing to sort of make more money. So I hope you guys found this episode helpful it was a lot of information and I I'm just giving you a general idea of what goes on from my viewpoint being a wedding pro here in Hawaii for over a decade now I have a really really good idea of what people are making, what their potential is, how people are making more money, and what they're doing to scale and what is possible. There's a lot of little tricks to this, so understanding at least the basics of where to start and where you could possibly be going and what your potential is will give you a really good idea of what's possible for you and if all of this effort that you're putting into building your wedding business is worth it.
Nicole:And I'm telling you right now it 100% is. It's such a fun business. It's such a great community. It's a really really cool way to grow and expand as an entrepreneur and to step into your potential and I want that for all of you guys so if you need help getting there definitely check out theweddingproacademy.com get on my newsletter I give you lots of little quick tips on how to grow your wedding business how to make more money in the wedding industry and I'd love to help you get there. Okay guys have a great weekend I will see you next week.
Nicole:Bye for now!