Wednesday, May 25, 2005
The Business of Weddings
Come June, I will descend into sweltering monsoon heat somewhere in India, where the air is so sticky you can slice it open with a butter knife. I will make my way through a teeming throng of travelers at an overcrowded airport, and the musty swank of stale sweat will leave me dizzy and annoyed with the world. If you were there, at that airport, sipping on cool lassi and swinging your sandals, you might notice, despite my anglo-trained need for personal space and my constant grimaces at smells afoul, a skip in my step, and a lightness in my being. You might notice a wiggle in my brow, and a song on my lips.
That’s because I’m getting married.
Weddings in India can sometimes be the eastern equivalents of Donald Trump—overdone, overexposed, ostentatious, and very, very rich. Depending on which community you belong to, weddings can last from a couple of hours, including lunch, to a full five days with elephants, fireworks, and more traditions than anyone can count. In some communities, weddings herald the arrival of a new young couple—a debutante ball, if you will, and for the parents, it is the event that sets their social status within the local populous. The more opulent affairs have drop-in visits from ministers and film stars who end up eating the limelight, leaving the poor couple, awkwardly placed on red throne-like chairs to watch the guests mingle, drink and make merry.
Now, while my wedding in India is going to skim the less opulent side of the continuum, it is still an event that will see very few of my friends from the US attending. For one thing, it’s a long-ass trip to make; for another, temperatures in Gujarat (where the wedding will take place) will hit the 120s—hot enough that if a dog chases a cat, both of them will walk.
I was discussing this with a friend, and the topic moved onto the subject on weddings in the US. He was complaining about the high cost of weddings, and was at a loss as to how he could get his fiancee the wedding she wanted without going broke. She wanted a nice wedding in New York city, with around 50 guests, including children.
I’m a sucker for marketing experiments, and I used the opportunity to test out a hypothesis: that the enormous expense that comes with weddings is sometimes unjustified, and inflated because of clever marketers, not specifically for value. Seth Godin talks about this value inflation in his blog All Marketer’s Are Liars. I wanted to prove that a wedding could be had for a third the cost of the average American wedding, but seem like it cost double. I was curious to see how much of my insight into the way services and resources are marketed would help in “working the system.”
A budget wedding in New York. This, we found, is easier said than done.
I DO. UM, HOW MUCH IS IT, ANYWAY?
We in America love weddings. 2.4 million couples get married every year in the United States, and spend close to $72 billion on wedding-related purchases. According to a survey conducted last fall by Bridal Guide, an average engagement lasts 16 months, and $22,000 is the average cost of a wedding. There are over 12,000 Web sites dedicated to the planning of weddings and acquisition of resources. The average amount spent on a wedding dress is $800. One store, called David’s Bridal, accounts for 20% of all bridal gown sales in the US, and that number keeps growing.
Years ago, when I was trying to make my mark in the marketing arena, I was tossed a project by my then boss, saying, “Here, see what you can do with it.” A small, niche retailer called Williams-Sonoma wanted to take their modest wedding registry business online. The idea was that since their stores didn’t exist everywhere invitations were sent, online access to the registry would increase the overall purchase probability from within individual registries. During that particular gig, I remember interviewing hundreds of engaged couples, and thinking—good grief, I’d never spend money on that! Now, almost a decade later, I was faced with all the same issues—location, flowers, guest list, food, favors, clothes, decorations, transport, music, and the list goes on.
While I did my research for Williams-Sonoma, it occurred to me that the main reason people who couldn’t even come close to affording it would spend as much as they did on their wedding is because, frankly, they think that it’s their right. Across all demographic spectrums, a consistent answer was, “Hey, it’s my wedding. Why shouldn’t I have it the way I want it?” For the most part, any sense of budgetary constraint just flew out the window. It was a marketer’s wet dream. I started to brainstorm about ways in which to exploit that momentary lapse in reason—for example, when a particular model of dinnerware was going to be discontinued, rather than put the last pieces on sale, I suggested writing couples who had that model listed in their registries, with a message that said something like, “So, we want you to know that this item is going to be discontinued. If any of your plates or bowls have broken or chipped, now would be a good time to stock up on your WEDDING SET.” The response rates were unlike anything we’d ever seen.
Across the country, Web sites like TheKnot.com and magazines like Martha Stewart Weddings started to take note of merchandising, registry and planning opportunities. Now, wedding planners used the Internet to consolidate their services and provide digital workflow. Now, gift giving became easy with the advent of the online registry. And now, planning tools flooded the market; what used to be a simple spreadsheet and a few notebooks became complicated computer programs and pre-indexed journals. As is the irony of capitalism, the means to an end were being sold for pretty exorbitant prices. Anyone with a scenic view started marketing their locations as possibilities for weddings. In northern California, the dotcom industry’s interest in wines threw open the gates for winery-weddings. In the South, old plantation homes became hotbeds for vows.
And it is in this evolving nuptial ecosystem that I decided to help my friend have a small, inexpensive wedding in the most expensive city in the world.
IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING.
Goal:
- Get married, outdoor location in Manhattan, with live music
- Have flowers, and plenty of green. Private location, with no disturbances.
- Indoor reception with cocktail hour, and then followed by a four-course meal.
- Have two photographers, one for more formal shots, one to capture a photo-journalistic effect. Get all negatives, images and prints in albums from photographers within 3 weeks.
- Have live musicians playing soft classical music throughout the wedding.
- Have a story-teller officiant who could “perform” a bit.
- Have a layered, exquistely decorated wedding cake, and gift baskets for every attending couple.
- 40 adults, 6 kids.
- Spend wedding night in a penthouse suite at the Mandarin Oriental, New York.
Time: 6 weeks
Budget: $6,000 (no, really.)
LOCATION
A really nice New York outdoor location costs $4000 just for access to the place for 4 hours. When you add in costs for decorations, flowers, and seating, you end up spending around $6,000. I wanted to find a place that was quintessentially New York, was unusual and classy, easy to find, and relatively inexpensive. So, I used one of the city’s best kept secrets—we chose Central Park. Specifically, the Conservatory Garden at 105th & 5th. Unlike other parts of the park, it is Central Park’s only formal garden. It took its name from the huge glass conservatory that stood in its spot, until 1934. The Conservatory Garden is actually made up of three different kinds of landscaping that provide beautiful flora year around—Italian, French and English. Six acres of crabapple trees, yew and spirea hedges, germander, chrysanthemums, thousands of daffodils, and over 30,000 tulips in the spring create an urban oasis like nothing else. You get a permit for it by visiting a nice lady, Norma Soto, at the Conservancy offices on 6th Ave. The best part is that they don’t let you put up any decorations; your guests revel in a natural experience that’s policy-based, not you being cheap.
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Event permit - $300. Photo permit - $75. Making friends with the guard Claire so that she protects your location, and doesn’t allow anyone else in: Priceless.
PHOTOGRAPHY
A decent Manhattan photographer will cost, inclusive of around 200 pictures (no negatives, no CDs) around $5,000. Having two photographers will cost around $8,000. Our goal was to find two photographers, one for more formal-type shots and the other for a more photo-journalistic effect for under $1,000. We also wanted to convince them to give us all negatives, images on CD, and 200 select prints in a bound album for that price.
The thing about photographers is that their’s is a cash-flow business. No matter how good they are, photographers who work for themselves, doing weddings, have lulls in their workflow. My goal was to find and incent a couple of those photographers to work for my friend’s wedding, with the promise of capturing something unique and beautiful for their portfolio. Of course, that doesn’t work when you go a photographer; it only works when they come to you.
I placed an ad on Craig’s List, under “creative gigs,” asking for a photographer for the wedding. I described the couple, the location, and talked about only wanting people who could work within their budget. I also listed the criteria of wanting all negatives and images. Within six hours, we had gotten over 120 responses, complete with links to Web-based portfolios. Now, all we had to do was choose.
Finally, I found one amazing photographer who had her own agenda: she wanted an outdoor wedding to submit to TheKnot’s Real Weddings. She was willing to work for a subsidized rate if we allowed her the rights to publish the wedding pictures on the site. I also found another less experienced photographer with an incredible journalistic style.
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2,300 photographs on 9 CDs: $640. Four hundred photographs in two beautiful albums: $300. Compliments like, “Those are the best wedding pictures we’ve ever seen...”: Priceless.
RECEPTION
Restaurants in Manhattan spend way too much time competing with each other. The mistake that most couples make is going for the popular places that are listed on registries like The Knot. The key is to find an accommodating restaurant, offer them the chance to attract forty new clients with their food, and negotiate something that doesn’t affect their daily business. Incremental business is always welcome at these smaller restaurants. Their average margins are in the low single digits, and cash-flow is king.
I ended up picking Ada, a beautiful, intimate restaurant with two levels in Manhattan that served fusion Indian cuisine. It was one of the best decisions I ever made—they gave us their upstairs bar and lounge for a cocktail hour, created a signature drink for the wedding, threw in beer and wine, and a menu of 4 different hor’deurves. They closed off the entire restaurant for the party, and allowed us to decorate in any way we wanted. They printed individual menus with a four course meal (3 choices on each course) and allowed us to bring our own champagne. We accoomplished all this using timing: since the restaurant is fully staffed on Saturdays, we opted for an early dinner/late lunch, starting at 4:00PM, ending at 7:30PM, just enough time for them to open doors for their regular customers at 8:00PM.
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Cocktails, hor’deurves, menus, four-course meal, champagne, wine, beer for 44 guests: $1,900. Paper for menus: $40. Having the entire restaurant to ourselves: Priceless.
DECORATIONS AND THEME
I also ended up themeing the wedding. We had a spring theme; The bride was in a beautiful springy yellow dress, and my friend’s tie has yellow flowers. The gardens were lush green with yellow and colorful spring flowers in bloom. The wedding cake was covered in handcrafted matching spring sugar flowers in dozens of colors, and the decor matched with spring flowers on the tables. Everything came together, including spring insects on placecards, menus, and goody bags.
Using principles of software outsourcing: While in India, I picked up several gifts for the guests, and we painstakingly created hand-made individual goody-bags for each couple and child. They included a pashmina shawl, a set of gold coasters that came in a green silk bag with embroidery, a journal, a handmade candle with real dried spring flowers embedded in it, and some themed decorative items. Shopping with the dollar in India, I ended with an effective 95% discount on all the items, and since ethnic decorations are now in vogue, the event ended up being trendy, not inexpensive. I bought bags and stamps from The Paper Source, and wrapped them individually.
Twenty five goody-bags with all the gifts: $420. Insect stamps and gold ink: $40. Hearing people vow to have a wedding like this one: Priceless.
THE WEDDING CHAMBER
I wanted my friend and his new bride to stay someplace special in Manhattan for their wedding night, and it doesn’t get more special than the Mandarin Oriental. I booked the lowest rate I could find on the Internet—their Web site has specials all the time, and on the day before the wedding, called to speak to the working manager. I told her that it was their wedding night, and anything that she could do to make it special would be amazing. I explained how they were coming all the way from San Francisco and India, and how special this day would be for them. I told her to check with the San Francisco Mandarin Oriental where my friend was a frequent guest. I also used the special voice I reserve for my clients, the one that my fiancee calls my “get-anything tone”, although it is debatable as to whether that had any real effect.
Sure enough, when they checked in after the wedding, she had upgraded them to a top-floor corner suite, one that usually came with a daily rate of $2,500. She had a custom-made chocolate cake waiting for them, with two dozen yellow roses (I had mentioned the theme to her) and a $200 bottle of champagne.
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Internet rate for standard room, upgraded to a 1300 sq. ft. corner suite: $425. Breakfast in bed: $110. Finding a hotel manager who was a hopeless romantic: Priceless.
OTHER STUFF
These were some of the other expenditures:
- Musicians: Craigslist came through again—$300 for a string duo for the entire wedding.
- Officiant: $300, courtesy of the Celebrant Institute
- Layered, decorated wedding cake: $300 (Cupcake Cafe)
- Dress: $325, discounted from $840 (Bloomingdale’s sale)
- Shirt and Tie: $194 (Banana Republic)
- First-class round-trip plane tickets to New York: $10 (using my friend’s United miles)
- Marriage license: $30
- Cabs: $140
- Hair and Makeup: $250
- Flowers: $150 (small stores have the same flowers as big name designers. Duls sat with one and he made her an amazing deal.)
- Wedding rings: $150 (white gold)
Total cost of wedding: $6089.00
I Thought This was a Marketing Blog
How does all this relate to marketing? Well, weddings have always been cultural phenomena. They foster a Christmas-like camaraderie even between the bitterest of foes. With the advent of the Internet, finding resources, planners and information has become easier.
But I’m not sure product and service companies are making the best use of this amazing informational medium to provide relevant information to couples that are searching for specific solutions to their weddings. New couples spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on essential household items, and according to surveys, would spend a lot more if their weddings didn’t cost so damn much. This is where a smart retailer with a relevant brand can make a huge niche play.
I’m just talking here, but let’s look at an example. What if Pottery Barn went into the wedding planning business? I’m serious. What if they used their clout to build a massive nationwide network of wedding planning resources and hired planners to help put together the most economical, but stellar weddings? The caveat is that in order to avail yourself of the service and discounts that they bring in, it was linked to a “home starter” package of furniture and accessories that you had to buy from the store.
The average wedding costs $22,000, right? Let’s say that the Pottery Barn Wedding Plan allowed a similar wedding to be had for $17,000. Is it possible that parents paying for weddings would find value in taking $5000 of the planned wedding expenditure and applying that to helping their son or daughter get a start to their new home? Perhaps the savings could be applied to “completing” their registry—that is, purchasing all unused items. Perhaps the package is $22,000, but includes $5,000 of furniture.
The point is, there’s something called “share-of-wedding-wallet”. And I think the next big thing in weddings is the company that can crack the code on getting a bigger chunk of it for themselves.