Wedding bookings - What can one expect?

[Shockey]

The more you charge the longer out people book.
The more expensive the wedding the further out they book.
Generally..........

6 months plus for most of them and maybe 20% are over 1 year.

[PhotoMatte]

I book anywhere from 18 months to 18 days but my average is around 8 months before the wedding.
I don't put an availability calendar on my sites anymore for two reasons:

If I don't have as many bookings as I'd like it looks like I'm not that busy, and people like to hire photographers that are in demand. If you see a photographer's stuff online that you really like, then go to their calendar page and see only a scattering of bookings, that may scare you away.

Also, if I put up a calendar page and someone sees that I'm already booked for their date, they won't even contact me (whereas, if I didn't have a calendar page, they'd have to contact me and I could not only tell them I was booked, but I could then give them a great referral to other pros in my area/market).

[memoriesoftomorrow]

Originally Posted by umphotography

Hows google ads working for you. I know they have a suggested price point then you can go above or below that point. Is it helping with your placement and bookings ??

CPC is roughly about the same as with Facebook at the moment... about $2 per click or thereabouts. Whilst I'm doing very well SEO wise for the different venues a combination of "city" + "wedding" + "photography" etc I'm only on page 5 of Google for the different combinations. Goggle places entries virtually fill the first page. Google Ads is the only way at the moment of making page 1.

Oddly enough when I stopped using Google Ads for a brief period that ranking dropped 2-3 pages. Then when I started it again up it jumped back up. I can see the logic there as when the ads are running I am getting visitors for search strings that I wouldn't get otherwise.

I haven't really tried upping above the auto bids since my budget is way below what it could be as far as Google is concerned. I.e. raising my bid will see me get less clicks since I use all my budget every day anyway. I can't justify spending more than I currently am when I look at the prospective returns.

I only use Google Ads for these types of search strings which seem to do reasonably well as I am getting my targeted demographic clicking though (although I may not be at their price point). Still that is 6-8 potential clients every day on average.

With Facebook I used targeted demographics based on relationship status and city/town. That works reasonably well. I found increasing my budget again only offered marginal gains so have set myself an annual spend. I vary it slightly during the year e.g. increase the daily spend after Valentines etc.

As I don't run a blog the stats for the website seem to be pretty good as I'm on target for 18,000-20,000 unique visitors this year (a fair few from POTN mind). To be honest though I don't care how many or how few visitors I get if I can get fully booked each year.

With bookings both are helping. Probably 50/50 at the moment. It seems to be working fairly well as I have set myself a limit of 35 weddings per season so I can do some personal projects. I have 26 booked for this season already which has only just started so I'm hoping I'll max out. As 8 are referrals the rest are from the web in one way or another.

Keywords being used in Google Ads seems to help a lot. With Facebook ads some pictures do well and others don't. Having a call to action in the Facebook ads seems to make a big difference. The other real bonus is brand recognition. If someone gets engaged and then sees your ads a few hundred times by the time they are looking for a photographer your name is already imprinted to a degree.

Interestingly enough since I incorporated the prices into my menu on my website I am getting less enquiries but the ones I do get are better quality ones. I.e. I know from the off that I am within their budget range.

More than anything though I think word of mouth is the key to long term success. You don't need to spend on advertising if your clients do the selling for you.

[images by Paul]

Over the years, for me, bookings have changed with the economy. At least I think it's the economy. In years past, it was pretty common to book 12-14 months out. Peak season was always late summer and through the fall. Peak season hasn't changed but now I find that clients are waiting a little later for some reason. This coming fall weddings were booked in the beginning of the year. Now 6-9 months is more the average for lead time. I have 14 booked for next year but the busiest booking time for me has always been in the fall during bridal show season. I expect that I'll fill in for next year over the winter. History for me has always been about 10% referrals.

[SMP_Homer]

I basically label it as 3 seasons...
Pre-Summer
Summer
Post-Summer

Summer books fast... I'm 85% booked for Summer 2012 (aka April 15 - Sept 15)
1 booking between Jan 1 and April 15
2 bookings after Sept 15

and already have 4 bookings for Summer 2013 (aka Summer 2013 has more bookings than 2012's non-summer period)

Most of the Summer stuff gets booked 10-14 months ahead
the rest is within 6-8 months, and have had a few within 1 month (once a 4-day booking)

[PMCphotography]

I do about 25 weddings per year...I've never had a booth at a bridal fair or advertised in a bridal magazine. I used google ads for a few months but got no real traction from it. I'm listed in one online wedding portal, and besides a facebook page no other advertising. I rely (almost) solely on word of mouth and referrals. I'm busiest just after the peak of summer (Feb-May). I regularly get bookings 18 months-2 years in advance, but I'd say the median time is 12-14 months in advance. It varies a bit though.

My bookings are down this year compared to the last 2, but from all my colleagues I hear exactly the same thing, so it's not just me which is good.

[memoriesoftomorrow]

Originally Posted by PhotoMatte

I don't put an availability calendar on my sites anymore for two reasons:

If I don't have as many bookings as I'd like it looks like I'm not that busy, and people like to hire photographers that are in demand. If you see a photographer's stuff online that you really like, then go to their calendar page and see only a scattering of bookings, that may scare you away.

Also, if I put up a calendar page and someone sees that I'm already booked for their date, they won't even contact me (whereas, if I didn't have a calendar page, they'd have to contact me and I could not only tell them I was booked, but I could then give them a great referral to other pros in my area/market).

I can see a reason for not putting one up if there are not many bookings. But it does seem to have the opposite effect when one has quite a few listed. It is a way of establishing the fact you have a reputation without actually having to do anything i.e. people see you are busy and come to the conclusion there must be a reason for it.

Oddly enough I have had quite a few people still contact me despite my already being booked for their date. "I saw it said you were booked, but called on the off chance you weren't". From what I have been told there are a few photographers who "lie" on their availability pages in order to look more busy than they are.

As for not being contacted so not being able to pass referrals on... I don't know any other wedding photographers here and don't refer to any as a result.

[PeaceFire]

I can't really say my average, to be honest. I've been booked as far out as 24 months and as close as 2 weeks. And then everything in between. So, I guess "average" would be about 12 months, but that's deceiving because I get very few right around 12 months.

Next year is slow for me so far, mostly because I just switched markets by moving to a completely different state. And I've been working on building my portrait business there and haven't really started with weddings yet. The weddings I do have on the books for next year are mostly destination weddings and a few weddings back where I used to live that booked while I was still there.