Dear Engaged Couples

Dear Engaged Couples, Stop NO SHOWING Site Visits! Should Venue Owners Start Charging A No Show Fee?

Dear Engaged Couples, Congratulations on your engagement We know you are so excited to have your wedding story begin and share it with everyone. We know you can’t wait to start trying on dresses and touring wedding venues! We are right there with you, excited for you and wishing you all the best! While you are intoxicated with amore and swept up in romance, the realities of planning will soon take over. Wedding venues get booked up as much as two years in advance! Getting the venue booked is one of the first things a couple will check off the list. After all, you can’t really send out your invitations, book vendors or plan until you know where the wedding will take place. There are an estimated 2.5 million weddings a year in the U.S. and 40% of those couples get engaged over the holiday season. According to MuchNeeded.com about 6 million couples get engaged during Valentines Day each year!! So in the first quarter of each year venues & vendors begin to manage the engagement season BOOM! Imagine how many other couples in your area just got engaged and are trying to book the best wedding venues for the most in demand dates.

Let’s talk a bit about wedding venue owners. I absolutely adore them! I have been working with venue owners for 20 years. I have toured close to 700 wedding venues and each time I tour a new venue I find something unique, something beautiful and so many elements to enjoy! The most important feature of any wedding venue is the venue owner or management team! Venue owners provide the stage for your wedding story. While many are swooning over the romantic side of the wedding industry there is a whole other side most never see; the sweat equity poured into event planning, set up, management and execution! From concept to design there is so much work, HARD WORK involved. Like back breaking, mentally stressful, insane, hard core work. The kind of work that would have most quitting half way through the first day. So let me shout it from the roof tops, GIVE THESE VENUE OWNERS & Management Teams The LOVE AND RESPECT THEY DESERVE!! They work hard to make sure your wedding is a success. So please, don’t ghost our venue owners when you schedule a tour!

Wedding Venue Tours: What is the big deal about a couple scheduling a wedding venue tour only to no show the tour? Below is a list of items a venue owner may do to prepare for a wedding venue tour:

• Have venue cleaned – $50 to $200
• Mow several acres closest to the venue – $500
• Powerwash deck, patio, veranda, pool areas, siding, etc… $300
• Ask a staffer to come in and set up the venue (lights, heat, basic set up) $150
• Get up at 6am to clean a venue from the wedding the night before because the couple insisted on Sunday at 9am being the only time they could tour AND then no show
• Heat the building hours before the guests arrive – $100
• Put livestock away
• Put other pets away
• Put the family and personal guests away
• Clean stalls, yards or pastures
• Stop upkeep or scheduled maintenance – this could cost hundreds
• Shovel roads, drive ways or pathways for tour access during high demand winter months
• Presentation material
• Cut a vacation short or cancel one all together because a couple is eager to tour and sounds serious
• Some venues provide wine, waters and refreshments to enhance the experience – a trip to get these prior to a now show is $$$ lost
• Some venues provide gift bags
• Some venues have to commute to their venue just to open it and meet clients.
• Just like you…some venue owners have families, kids, commitments and busy lives they have to postpone to schedule a tour.

Some of you might say, “Well, that is the job of the venue owner. When a prospective client wants to meet up the venue owner should drop what they are doing and meet the client.” OR “If a prospective customer schedules a tour but doesn’t show up that is just the cost of doing business.” There is truth in both of these statements. But every industry strives to evolve and innovate their business practices. Smart businesses look at all issues big or small that cost a business owner time, money, stress or aggravation and try to find solutions. A venue owner in The Wedding Venue Owners & Manager Community on Facebook recently shared that they had 46 venue tours scheduled over the weekend and only half showed up! The others just ghosted, no call, no text, no show! If this venue owner charged a NO SHOW fee of $50, how many of those couples would have called to cancel 24 hours out so that the venue owner could streamline their weekend and maybe reduce venue tour waste by 50%. Not to mention reducing the aggravation this rude and entirely avoidable issue creates. Doctors offices charge patients who cancel without notice. Restaurants often taken credit card information for certain reservations. I run an event management team and when a client calls in to make a reservation we take credit card information to discourage those who may not be serious. So, why not adopt this practice in the wedding industry?

Engaged couples may actually want to encourage venue owners to adopt this practice. Think about the couple who books a tour and isn’t really serious about that tour. Maybe they booked first and now you have to wait another day or week and risk losing your desired date at the venue you love. Only to have that couple no call no show. The inconvenience and cost are not only experienced by the venue but to you, the serious couple as well.

Couples Who No Show: Planning a wedding might be the biggest investment you have ever made and you may be shocked at the cost and amount of time involved. All the vendors you have to call and the contracts you have to review! You may not have a large group of support around you to help you with this process. This whole situation may be just more that you anticipated. I completely understand. A wedding planner can be your best resource when you are in love with being engaged and not in loved with wedding planning responsibilities. Please understand, the wedding venue owner or management team may oversee 30 to 150 weddings and events each year. Imagine the level of stress, planning, organization, customer service and focus required to be successful in this role. Wasting their time with no show appointments is just rude and unnecessary. Click here to join a wedding venue group for engaged couples, there are lots of planners in this group and other couples to connect with for advice.

Engaged Couples, if a venue owner asked for a credit card to secure your venue tour would that bother you? Venue owners, how much impact does the no show couple have on your business? I would love to hear your feedback and input on this matter that comes up so often in wedding discussions. Thank you all so much for taking your time to check out this blog topic.

Dear Engaged Couples & Venue Owners Thank you for joining in the conversation. Please leave comments! Do you have a topic you would like to discus? Email didi@weddingvenueowners.com