State of The Wedding Industry Q4 2010

Calling all wedding service professionals....
You have been invited to participate in the State of The Wedding Industry Study Q4 2010.

The purpose of this study is to capture, from you (the vendor perspective), how much brides and grooms are spending in the first half of the year, what trends you are seeing, some basic business demographic and activity information, and what methods you use to get new customers. The information compiled within this study is a great way to monitor the pulse of the entire wedding industry as a whole.

Summary results of this study will be available on theweddingreport.com in late January 2011.

To participate in this survey, visit this link


Thank you to all of the professional wedding vendors who take part of this very important (and extremely interesting) study!

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The Average Cost For A Wedding in 2009 Drops By 10.2%

According to a recent survey compiled by The Wedding Report, couples are spending 10% less for their weddings in 2009, compared to 2008.

It was definitely the year of the "budget bride". Guest lists were slashed, favors were nixed, reception menus were slimmed down and DIY wedding projects were all the rage. The effect?

On average, the typical cost for a wedding in 2009 fell to $19,581 compared to $21,814 the previous year.

What are you doing to shave some dollars off of your wedding budget?

Relevant: Average cost of a wedding dj

Wedding Statistic: Estimated Number of Saturday Weddings

This week's wedding statistic comes from The Wedding Report. The graph estimates the number of Saturday weddings for 2010 compared to the number of Saturday weddings in 2009. With more and more brides looking for discounts to cut their wedding budgets, there are estimated to be 10% less Saturday wedding events come 2010, due to the higher cost to have a wedding on this day of the week. It seems Friday weddings are beginning to show momentum as becoming a more popular alternative.

+35 Social Media Statistics That Will Blow Your Mind

If I had two words of advice to help a wedding professional become more successful in the wedding industry, it would be: network more. The more you reach out, participate and engage your fellow bridal industry pros, the more opportunities for business will ultimately arise. Think of it this way: It's hard for someone to recommend you when no one knows who you are! Social networking sites such at Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are 3 of the easiest ways to begin building professional relationships with others in the wedding industry and provide an outlet for building your brand and knowledge authority. Whether you like it or not, today's brides are online and eager to reach out and utilize these methods of communication, so if you're still "on the fence" about becoming active in an online social networking environment, check out the 37 social media stats below, and you just might change your mind:

If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia

1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media

By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network

Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web

Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama

Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet(4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.

Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)

comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network

2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction

1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum

% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%

The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females

Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama

80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?

Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…

The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube

Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English

There are over 200,000,000 Blogs

54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily

Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth

If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour

Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0

25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content

34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands

People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them

78% of consumers trust peer recommendations

Only 14% trust advertisements

Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI

90% of people that can TiVo ads do

Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009

25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone

According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available

24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.

In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media

More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second

Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

(source: Socialnomics Blog)

Together we can advance the wedding industry.

Wedding Stat: Brides Spending Less On Shoes

The latest wedding industry statistics issued by The Wedding Report shows that brides are spending less for wedding shoes in 2009. The average cost spent declined to an average of $83 compare to an average of $94 in 2008.

Relevant: Average cost of a wedding photographer

The Average Cost Of A Wedding Drops 14% In 2nd Quarter 2009

The latest wedding industry statistics issued by The Wedding Report confirms that couples are continuing to cut back on their budgets when it comes to their bridal celebrations, but certain areas are starting to see an surprising increase in demand . Here are some highlights:

*The average cost of a wedding drops another 14% from $19,212 in Q1/2009 to $16,546 in Q2/2009.

*Items that saw the largest decrease in demand; items related to the gay honeymoon and day-of-coordination, with decreases as much as 54%.

*Items that saw the largest decrease in spending; jewelry, reception and ceremony accessories, with decreases as much as 52%.

*Items that saw the largest increase in spending; transportation rentals and decorations, with increases as much as 68%.

*Items that saw the largest increase in demand; Combined services (ceremony and reception) including music and services related to the reception, with increases as much as 180%.

Relevant: Average cost of a wedding cake

**Results are based on 909 survey samples of both couples and wedding vendors across the US

13 Interesting Wedding Statistics For 2009

We thought our readers may find these 2009 wedding statistics interesting. Enjoy!

2,190,363 couples were wedded in the U.S. in 2008.

The world's longest-married living couple, Zelmyra & Herbert Fisher of North Carolina, were, at press time, preparing to celebrate their 85th anniversary.

$707,051,028 worth of wedding cake and fondant frosting (more than 16 tons) was consumed last year in the U.S.

The average American wedding costs $28,704.

In frugal Mississippi the average drops to $18,562.

In spendthrift New Jersey that jumps to $36,113.

Behemoth David's Bridal claims roughly 30% of the wedding-gown market, with dresses that start at $99. These discounts continue to bring down the average cost of a wedding dress.

Steel tycon Lakshmi Mittal spent an estimated $60 million on a five-day French wedding for his daughter, Vanisha, which included a 1,000 person engagement party at Versailles.

The discount chain Filene's Basement has held its Running of the Brides event at dozens of stores each year since 1947.

At one store, shoppers cleared the racks of 3,000 marked-down dresses in a record 37 seconds.

In 1960, an American bride was typically 20 years old and a groom was 23. Today, they're 27 and 29, respectively.

Six countries currently allow same-sex marriage: Belgium, Canada, Holland, Norway, South Africa, and Spain.

December is the most popular month to pop the question, accounting for one in five engagements.

Thanks for the guys over at FastCompany for sharing this data.

More Brides Considering Cutting Budget DueTo Economy

This latest wedding stat, courtesy of TheWeddingReport.com, shows the percentage of brides that are actively cutting costs for their wedding due to the recent economic downturn in 2009.

Only 33% of brides surveyed claimed they are not cutting their overall wedding budget at all, while 18% of brides stating they will cut between 10-20 percent.

If you had to cut something from your wedding, due to budget constraints, what would it be?

Also, if you're looking for some wedding budget tips and advice, head on over here and see the latest cost-cutting wedding ideas submitted by BrideTide.com members!

Wedding Stat of the Week: How Far Brides Travel To Purchase Bridal Shower Invitaitons

We love sharing these cool little wedding statistics with all of our readers.

Courtesy of The Wedding Report