The Sales Conversation Starts Before the Sales Conversation
Guest Blog by Julianne Smith, owner of Garter Girl Creative
Engaged couples have always had questions about how much weddings cost. What’s changed is how much they expect to learn on their own before they ever inquire with a wedding vendor. Today’s couples don’t need to contact you to start figuring out what things cost, what they can afford or what their budget might get them. They can research all of that before you even know they exist. They’re Googling. They’re searching Pinterest. They’re scrolling social media. They’re skimming articles. And increasingly, they’re asking AI. By the time they fill out your inquiry form, they may have already spent months learning, comparing, budgeting and forming opinions about what things should cost. Which means the sales conversation is starting long before you ever get the inquiry.
So if all of the incredibly helpful information you’ve learned from years of doing weddings is still sitting inside your head, you’ve got a problem. And, if you’re not using your content to answer the questions that today’s couples are asking, you’ve got an even bigger problem.
You might know exactly why one floral proposal is $8,000 and another is $25,000, why one wedding dress is $499 and another is $50,000. You might know what actually drives the cost of photography, planning, invitations, entertainment, rentals or design. But if you haven’t put that knowledge into your online content, the couple researching doesn’t just miss out on your expertise. They may miss you entirely. Because you can’t show up with the answer if you haven’t put the answer somewhere it can be found. And if your expertise isn’t part of what they find when they search Google, Pinterest, social media or ask AI, someone else’s expertise will be.
Your expertise can’t build trust if nobody can find it. And right now, trust matters more than ever.
You Have to be Part of the Search
It’s not enough to have the answer(s). (And I’ll get to what to post about in a minute.) You have to put your answers, that which makes you the expert that you are, somewhere it can be found. Because when couples have questions about wedding costs, budgets and pricing, they’re going online to find answers. What they find is shaping their expectations, their budgets and even which vendors they consider hiring. If you want your business to be part of that research, your expertise needs to exist outside of your head. It needs to be on your website. In blog posts. On Pinterest. In social content. In the places where people are searching, discovering and learning.
Because Google, Pinterest, social platforms and AI can’t surface an incredibly helpful conversation you had with a client last Tuesday where you walked them through why things cost what they cost and what they can expect. They can only work with what you’ve actually put out into the world. Before your content can build trust, educate a potential client or bring someone closer to an inquiry, it first has to exist. You have to give your expertise a chance to be found.
Inspiration is Everywhere. Education Isn’t.
So now that we know why it’s important to put your expertise out there, the next question is: What should you actually be putting out there? When most wedding businesses think about content, they think about inspiration. The beautiful tablescape. The incredible flowers. The invitation suite. The dress. The perfectly styled details. And yes, inspiration matters. Your creativity is a huge part of what sets you apart. But inspiration is everywhere.
Couples can find endless amounts of it on Pinterest and social media. And now, if they can’t find exactly what they’re imagining, they can ask AI to create it for them. Inspiration isn’t the problem. The moment a couple sees all of that beautiful inspiration, another question isn’t far behind:
How much is this going to cost?
And maybe more importantly: How am I going to pay for all of this?
That information is much harder to find. It can be outdated, overly generic, completely unrealistic or simply not applicable to the kind of wedding they’re planning. And that creates a huge opportunity for wedding professionals. You already know the answers to so many of the questions couples are asking about money. So instead of only showing them what’s possible, help them understand what it takes to make it possible. That’s where price education comes in. And there the trust really starts to build.
Don’t Just List the Price. Teach the Price.
When I say price education, I don’t necessarily mean putting all of your prices on your website. There’s always a lot of conversation in the wedding industry about pricing transparency. Put your prices on your website. Don’t put your prices on your website. Give a starting price. Give a range. Show your packages. Make them inquire first. Get them on a discovery call.
But I think we’re spending way too much time debating whether or not to publish the number and not nearly enough time thinking about whether couples actually understand the number. Because listing the price and teaching the price are two very different things.
“Full service wedding planning starts at $15,000” tells me what you charge.
“What actually affects the cost of full service wedding planning?” helps me understand what I’m buying.
The first is pricing information. The second is pricing education. And you can do both. You can do one. You can list every price you have or none of them.mMy point isn’t that you should or shouldn’t publish your prices. My point is: Don’t stop at the price. Teach the price.
Give Them Something Better Than a Number
Think about how a couple approaches wedding planning. They might know they want beautiful flowers, but have absolutely no idea what makes one floral proposal $8,000 and another $25,000. They might know they need invitations, but have no idea how printing method, paper, quantity, assembly and postage affect the final cost. They might see two photographers whose work they love and wonder why one charges $5,000 and the other charges $10,000. They don’t know what they don’t know. And simply giving them the number doesn’t necessarily solve that. This is where your expertise becomes incredibly valuable. Instead of only telling couples what something costs, teach them what affects the cost.
What makes the price go up? What makes it go down? What do couples commonly underestimate? What choices have the biggest impact on the budget? What are they actually paying for that they might not see? Why can two seemingly similar proposals have dramatically different price tags? What should they know before deciding how much to budget for your particular service? That is the information couples are looking for. And that is the information you know.
You’re Probably Already Teaching the Price
The good news is you probably don’t need to sit down and magically become a “content creator” or an “influencer” to do this. You’re already teaching this stuff all the time. You’re explaining it on sales calls. You’re answering it in emails. You’re walking clients through it when they get a proposal. You’re correcting misconceptions. You’re explaining why something they saw on Pinterest won’t work with their guest count or their budget. You’re helping clients understand where to spend, where to save and what will actually make a difference. That’s your content. The problem is that you’re probably teaching it one person at a time.
You have a twenty minute conversation with a potential client, give them an incredibly helpful explanation and then hang up the phone. Poof. Your brilliant explanation is gone. Until next Tuesday when you explain the exact same thing to someone else. Instead, put it somewhere searchable. Turn that explanation into a blog post. Answer the question on your website. Then, create Pinterest pins that lead to your answers. Talk about it on social media. Use it in your email marketing. You don’t need to constantly come up with more things to say. You just need to start publishing the helpful things you’re already saying.
Education Isn’t About Justifying Your Price
And this is where I want to make an important distinction. Teaching the price does not mean defending the price. You don’t need to convince someone that you’re “worth it.” You don’t need to write a dissertation explaining why your business deserves to charge what it charges. And you definitely don’t need to apologize for the number.
Price education is about helping someone understand the decisions, variables, expertise and value behind the investment so they can make a more informed decision. There’s a difference between saying:
“Here are 17 reasons why I’m worth $15,000.”
And: “Here are the decisions that have the biggest impact on your wedding photography budget.”
One is about you. The other helps them. Helpful builds trust. And in this age of AI and fake everything, trust is your most valuable asset. Trust brings the inquiry to your door. Trust sets you apart. Trust books the client.
Better Education Can Lead to Better Inquiries
This is the part I think wedding businesses often miss. The goal of marketing isn’t just to get more people to fill out your inquiry form. It’s to help more of the right people get there. If someone has already learned from you before they inquire, they’re not necessarily arriving cold. They may already understand what affects your pricing. They may already have more realistic expectations. They may already understand some of the value behind what you do. They may already trust your perspective because you’ve been helping them long before you asked them to hire you.
That makes your content part of the sales process. Not because every blog post needs to scream BOOK ME. But because good marketing helps someone get closer to making a decision. Sometimes the best thing your marketing can do isn’t convince someone to hire you. It’s to help them understand enough to decide whether they should.
Put Your Expertise to Work
So yes, show the beautiful wedding. Show the flowers. Show the tablescape. Show the invitation suite. Show the packed dance floor and the gorgeous photographs. Inspiration matters. Of course it matters. But don’t let your marketing stop at showing couples what you can make. Teach them what you know. Answer the questions they’re already asking. Talk about the money. Explain what affects the budget. Help them understand what it actually takes to create all of that inspiration they’re saving. Then put those answers somewhere they can be found.
Your expertise can’t build trust sitting inside your head. And it can’t help you get found if you never put it online. You don’t have to become a full time content creator or influencer. You don’t have to publish every price. You don’t have to give away everything you know. You just need to give your expertise a chance to enter the conversation. Because the sales conversation is already happening. The question is whether your business is part of it.
Want Your Content to Work Harder?
You probably already have more than enough expertise to create marketing that brings more and better inquiries into your wedding business.
You don’t need more random content ideas. You need to know how to turn what you already know into marketing that helps the right couples find you, trust you and ultimately inquire with you. That’s exactly what I teach in my free wedding business marketing workshop. I’ll show you how to make your marketing clearer, more efficient and more effective, without becoming a full time marketer instead of doing the work you actually love.
Join my free wedding business marketing workshop at juliannesmith.com/workshop.
