Time was that most brides booked their wedding professionals a year or more out.  That seems to be slipping; couples are waiting longer and longer to book.  This may just lead to an untapped marketing opportunity for savvy vendors.

How nice it is to look at your book and see weddings slotted in for the next 12 months or more. So easy to plan cash flow, so easy to manage your staffing, ah yes so easy. The problem is that our lovely brides aren’t cooperating anymore.  Whether it is a lack of funds or a fear of an uncertain future, today’s brides are waiting until much closer to their date to book a lot of their services.

For the savvy wedding professional, this might be an interesting opportunity.

In the earliest planning stages, a bride has a nearly limitless number of choices. It has been proven in study after study that too many choices can lead to a kind of paralysis causing them to pick nothing. Too many boxes of cereal on a store shelf and the customer is more likely to walk away empty handed. Too many options for centerpieces and she may well dither around and put off calling the florist.

Part of closing a sale has to do with critical timing. You have to be the one they are with when they decide to make a decision. The closer they are to their date the closer you are to that critical timing. What’s more, if they are leaving a very short window you are now in a position to limit their choices. Fewer choices makes choosing for them easier and making the sale easier for you.

Now the question becomes how to position yourself for this market change.

First up, get your business in order to handle this new market.  Know what products you can get on the fly, and know the current market price off the top of your head. Line up a source of staff that you can have on call or on a moment’s notice.  Get together a list of what you can and cannot offer on short notice. Think about this in terms of not only resources available but time invested.  If for instance you are a floral designer, don’t agree to do really complicated designs on the fly, fill your list with arrangement you could make in your sleep or hand off to one of the less experienced members of your team. If you are a bridal salon, have a range of off the rack gowns that are easy to alter. Cake designers can leave the labor heavy hand made decorations out in favor of fresh fruit and flowers. You are creating almost a “pret a porter” list instead of a “couture” list.

Next it is critical that you get the word out. Of course you will create a page on your website and mention it in your ad copy. More important still is to get the word out to the other vendors in your local market. Let them know that you are putting together a special service for last minute events. As more and more couples put off their planning to the last minute, you will become a valuable resource for the wedding planners in your market. If they know that without a shadow of a doubt you have put the people and resources in place to pull them out of a time crunch they will be your undying fan.

It will be hectic and scary at first as you watch weekends approach with no bookings or start committing to taking one more wedding for an already full weekend, but in the long run you will have built a new market for yourself that is likely to only get bigger as we move into the future.