What trends can your wedding venue expect to see in 2025? Our 2025 wedding industry forecast is here to tell you what to expect and how you can prepare to make potential clients see how amazing you really are.

Johnson Jones Group has partnered with The Wedding Report to run an additional survey directly related to marketing in the wedding industry. 

The respondents to this survey were primarily wedding venues, and the results give us a great look at what could be next for the wedding industry.

In this wedding industry update we’ll take a look at what we are hearing from speaking with wedding venue owners as well as what the survey results show, and give some input on what we think this means for the near future of the industry.

First let’s start with what we’re hearing from wedding venues.

What Venue Owners Are Saying

Being directly involved in the daily operations of a wedding venue, owners have some of the best understanding of what is actively happening in the industry.

I’ll discuss the statistics from The Wedding Report marketing survey later in this post, but for now I want to share what we’re hearing directly from wedding venue owners.

Working for a wedding venue marketing agency, I spend a lot of my time on the phone with wedding venue owners from all around the country. 

There are a few things that I hear very consistently no matter what market or price range a venue is in.

“2024 Has Been Difficult”

Some of the most common feedback I hear around the country right now is that it is harder to book events in 2024 than in previous years. 

The Wedding Report predicted less events in 2024 compared to 2023, and we know that there were less events in 2023 than in 2022. So what is causing 2024 to be such a difficult year?

There are a number of reasons that I hear about regularly that have created such a competitive market. Some of these are backed by research while others are based on conversations with venue owners.

Engagement Ring Sales Are Down

Singet, the largest jeweler for engagement rings in the United States, predicted a downturn in engagement ring sales in 2023.

Signet claims that this downturn in engagement ring sales is due to less engagements happening in 2023 as an after effect of the pandemic. They refer to this phenomenon as “The Engagement Gap.

According to Signet, it takes 3.25 years on average for a new relationship to develop to the point of an engagement. They believe the lockdowns in 2020 resulted in less new relationships forming, which then resulted in less engagements in 2023.

The question now is, was there an actual engagement gap, or was this just a way for the jeweler to justify a decline in sales to shareholders?

While this decline in sales could imply a decrease in engagement, there is no direct data to support this claim. There is, however, data showing that bridal jewelry sales were down in 2023 industry wide.

The struggle to book events in 2024 could be related to the downturn in engagement ring sales in 2023.

With couples booking venues 12+ months in advance, it would make sense that a lower year of bridal jewelry sales in 2023 would predict a difficult year for venues and other vendors in 2024.

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More Competition

Nearly every venue owner I talk to in every market reports, from their observations, that there are more venues in their local areas than there were in years past.

This increased competition has made the effects of the engagement gap even more extreme. 

More venues are competing for less events than in recent years. Compared to a year like 2022, the largest year for weddings since 1984, 2024 feels like a very real struggle for many venues. 

Venue owners are also frequently reporting that selling events for the same price points that they used too has been difficult.

“It’s Out Of Our Budget”

If there is one line that I hear from venues more frequently than ever in years past it’s that couples are often responding to proposals with “It’s out of our budget.”

We’ve heard this repeatedly over the past year and now the survey results from the Wedding Report give some additional insight into this problem.

The survey asked venues “What are the top 2-3 wedding and event industry trends you expect to unfold over the next 3 years?” 

The 2 leading responses to this open ended question were that venue owners believe events will have lower guest counts and lower budgets than in years past.

The survey responses suggest that couples are leaning towards smaller events with a better experience for their guests, rather than large events.

So what does this changing industry look like in the future? It’s very possible that we are on the leading edge of the Micro Wedding taking over in the industry. 

Micro Weddings

Micro weddings appear to be here to stay. At least for the near future. 

According to Google Trends, the search term “Micro Wedding Venues” received nearly 0 searches prior to March of 2020. Since July of 2020 this search term has continued to increase in popularity.

This report from Google Trends supports the numerous results in the survey that wedding guest counts are becoming smaller.

I believe there are 2 main contributing factors to guest counts beginning to decrease and the rise in popularity of the Micro Wedding.

First, the United States has always had a very high average cost for a wedding. It is likely that recent economic changes have caused couples to be more budget conscious than in recent years.

Second, micro weddings seem to be more popular due to changing social norms. Prior to the pandemic the social norm was to host a large number of guests.

Due to the restriction during 2020, guest counts became smaller out of necessity, but it appears that those smaller guest counts, and even elopement style weddings, became far more normalized than in years past.

This social acceptance of micro weddings and smaller guest counts is likely contributing to the continued popularity of these types of events.

Lowering budgets and the engagement gap have created a difficult year for many wedding vendors. So what can be done to help drive business during such a tough selling season?

At Johnson Jones Group we partnered with the Wedding Report to answer that question. Let’s take a look at what the survey shows.

Marketing Survey Results

This survey covered a variety of questions related to marketing performance for wedding venues/vendors. 

A majority of the respondents were specifically venues with revenues ranging from Less than $10,000 per month to a very small percentage reporting over $500,000 in average monthly revenues.

These responses give some great insight into the wedding industry. First, let’s take a look at what we learned about marketing spend and the number of leads that venues are receiving.

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How Much Should Wedding Venues Spend on Marketing?

We asked venues what their average monthly marketing budget was specifically for promoting their business.

44.6% of respondents reported a budget of $1,000, or less, per month for their marketing budget. 

Another 32.3% reported investing $1,000-$2,500 per month in marketing and 1.5% invest nothing into marketing.

This leaves only 21.6% of businesses investing more than $2,500 per month into marketing efforts.

How Many Leads Do Wedding Venues Generate?

The number of leads venues are generating seems fairly evenly distributed. See below for the breakdown

• 7.7% – Less than 5 leads per month 
• 7.7% – 5-10 lead per month
• 12.3 % – 11-15 leads per month
• 9.2% – 16-20 leads per month
• 12.3% – 21-30 leads per month
• 12.3% – 31-40 leads per month
• 10.8% – 41-50 leads per month
• 7.7% – 51-75 leads per month
• 7.7% – 76-100 leads per month
• 12.3% – Over 100 leads per month

With only 21.6% of respondents reporting over $2,500 in monthly marketing spend and only 20% of respondents reporting receiving over 75 leads per month, there does appear to be a fairly strong correlation between investment in marketing and how many leads a venue generates.

If you need help understanding how much your wedding business should be investing into marketing, click here to check out a great article from RevLocal.

If you need help spending your budget more effectively to drive more leads, click here to learn more about requesting a marketing plan.

We know how much venues are spending on marketing, but where is that budget going?

How to Advertise for Wedding Venues 

Check out the top results from the survey below showing where wedding venues are putting their marketing dollars. The list below shows the percentage of venues who are investing in each respective channel.

• 60.0% – Owned website (SEO, content, email capture)
• 56.9% – Third-party directory sites (The Knot, Wedding Wire, Zola, etc.)
• 52.3% – Facebook ads
• 44.6% – Instagram ads
• 41.5% – Venue Open Houses
• 38.5% – Pay-per-click advertising (Such as Google or Bing)

Something surprising about these results, is that Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has less competition than social media.

The reason I believe this is somewhat surprising, is because of the results we have repeatedly seen between these platforms. 

Typically we see a lower cost per conversion (lead generated) on social media than on PPC, but that it also takes many more leads to generate a new client from social media leads.

As a result, the cost per acquisition of new clients is lower on PPC than on social media. 

At Johnson Jones Group, we have seen this exact result when running social media vs PPC campaigns for our wedding venue clients, and we have heard the same experience from non-client venues we’ve spoken with.

Based on the general ROI of PPC and the fact that more of the industry is pursuing social media advertising, I would recommend researching and pursuing PPC advertising, if it fits within your venue’s budget and goals.

For a thorough introduction to establishing Google PPC ads, click here.

Unsurprisingly, a large portion of the market is spending part of their budget on the directories.

How Much Should You Spend On The Directories?

This is a question that a lot of vendors will be interested in. We’ve heard a lot of reports in the past 2 years regarding the directories and their pricing and effectiveness. 

First let’s take a look at what directories wedding venues are using.

• 38.5% – The Knot
• 35.4% – Wedding Wire
• 10.8% – Zola
• 21.5% – Other
• 36.9% – None

Of these directories how much are venues spending on them per month?

The Knot

Monthly Spend

• 64% – $0 -$1,000
• 28% – 1,001 – $2,500
• 4% – $2,501 – $5,000
• 4% – $5,000 – $10,000

Monthly Bookings Generated

• 28% – 0
• 68% – 1 – 5
• 4% – 6+

Wedding Wire

Monthly Spend

• 69.6% – $0 – $1,000
• 34.4% – $1,001 – $2,500

Monthly Bookings Generated

• 43.5% – 0
• 56.5% – 1 – 5

Zola

Monthly Spend

• 100% – $0 – $1,000

Monthly Bookings Generated

• 57.1% – 0
• 42.9% – 1 – 5

Other

Monthly Spend

• 92.9% – $0 – $1,000

Monthly Bookings Generated

• 21.4% – 0
• 71.4% – 1 – 5
• 7.1% – 6+

As a majority, venues are spending less than $1,000 per month with the major directories with roughly ⅓ of Wedding Wire and The Know users spending $1,001 to $2,500 per month.

The most surprising finding in this section of the survey, in my opinion, is numerous venues reporting receiving 0 bookings per month from directories even though they are spending advertising dollars on these sites.

What Does This Mean for the Wedding Industry?

There is a lot of information discussed above, but I think the three critical points that we can summarize are 

1. Competition will continue to be difficult
2. Micro Weddings Are Here to Stay
3. There are other productive marketing channels that don’t include the directories

Competition for Wedding Venues

We’ve learned from both the survey, and direct conversations with wedding venue owners that sales have been difficult in 2024. Although as the engagement gap comes to a close, that doesn’t necessarily mean that competition for events will become easier.

With the rise in Micro weddings and elopements, and the reported increase in the number of venues, competition will continue to be tight.

Developing and implementing marketing strategies to continue to grow your bookings will be, possibly, more important than ever.

Are Micro Weddings More Popular?

As we discussed above, yes, micro weddings are becoming more popular and as of the writing of this article, that rise in popularity doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

There may be a very real and viable reason to target micro weddings through organic and paid advertising strategies. 

Google Trends, and the open text responses from the survey both indicate that Micro weddings, or at the very least, smaller than average weddings are here to stay.

Should We Market Our Wedding Venue?

The short answer is yes, but this raises the questions “how and where?”

A majority of the market is on the directories, but the reports of their success are not very promising. 

Many other venues report using paid social media strategy. Although paid social can be, and is effective, we have often seen a better return on ad spend through the search engines than on social media.

If you are interested in learning more about marketing your venue on the search engines then click here to learn more.

2025 Wedding Industry Forecast Takeaways

Ultimately, the survey shows that venues with the highest conversion rates, tend to spend more on marketing and pursue a multi-channel model.

Overall, the wedding industry could begin trending upward again as soon as 2025.

Venues that are trying to wait out the down years that have been 2023 and 2024 may not survive if they don’t make some type of strategy update to compete in today’s market.

Venues that are able to see success this year will hopefully be rewarded in the years to come.

We hope you found this wedding industry update helpful! If you would like to learn more or have questions about marketing your venue, please feel free to reach us at TJ@Johnsonjonesgroup.com.