Historically wedding venue owners rarely venture off their islands to share knowledge and develop working relationships with one another. For many years there has been little to no communication between most wedding venue owners. This led the way for big wedding websites to come along and charge wedding venue owners to access leads, wedding knowledge and exposure through SEO. Big wedding websites used those fees to build their own SEO, so powerfully that now it seems almost impossible to overcome their domination. If our wedding venue owners work together, they can change the way the wedding industry works, quickly and for a fraction of what they are investing in those big sites. When you invest in your own business and your local wedding community the cost to you is always drastically less and the return on investment is far better. Shouldn’t you be in the drivers seat moving your business in a direction that works for you, instead of being crammed in a crowded train driven by corporate greed for someone else’s best interest? It’s time to start a Wedding Revolution, Wedding Venue Owners Are Leading The Way. After all…weddings occur at your venues, not at the big wedding website headquarters! The first wedding investment/contract signed is usually with the wedding venue. YOU HAVE SO MUCH POWER TOGETHER, once venue owners work together for change, a wedding revolution will happen!
The current wedding industry system led by big wedding websites and review platforms is rendering wedding contracts virtually useless! In theory a wedding contract is supposed to protect your wedding venue from liability and risk. But in reality, due to the corrupt, flawed and biased review system, contracts offer very little protection for wedding venue owners. Why? When a wedding venue attempts to enforce the terms of their contracts, they often become victimized by angry clients threatening to destroy the wedding venue reputation online via review platforms. The review platforms have become weaponized. Review extortion is happening so often that wedding venue owners fear of retaliation is as common as Pampas grass and string lights. Clients are damaging wedding venue property, violating contract terms and making financial demands of the venue with common threats like, “If you don’t return our money”, “If you don’t allow us to violate/change our contract terms” “If you try to make me pay for the damage to your venue caused during my wedding”, “I will ruin your online reputation”. Not only do the clients head right over to the review platforms to post a scathing, often false or embellished bad review, they enlist friends and family to place group bad reviews. Often these group reviews are just copying and pasting the original post comments to drastically damage the review average and hurt the business owner. One venue owner shared that he had over 20 bad reviews posted from one event! According to the venue owner the dispute started when he found damage in the private dressing suite of the bride. When the owner informed the couple he would be keeping a portion of the damage deposit to cover the damage, the couple did what all venue owners fear will happen when they enforce their contracts, smear campaigns and bad review retaliation. You would assume that the review platforms would remove these abusive, extortion, bullying tactics but reviews are not easy to get removed for a variety of reasons.
Even when a review is removed, it may have been published for hours and sometimes for weeks before it was removed. Many review systems do not screen reviews before they are published. One venue owner recently had a disgusting personal attack published on one of the big wedding websites making vulgar claims about the venue owners personal life. That review was published for about 8 hours before it was removed. The reviewer succeeded in publishing a damaging fake review that could have been seen (possibly screen shot & shared) by hundreds or thousands of people! So, even though it was removed, the fake review damaged this venue in ways that can’t be proven in court. According to this venue owner, the wedding website refuses to disclose who posted the review or take any further action. Most review platforms charge wedding venue owners sky high advertising fees but fail to provide a fair and balanced system to ensure that reviews are not used as a weapon of small business destruction. To those who say, “get over it, reviews don’t matter”. I say to you, when did we start protecting abusers who target small business to extort money or violate their contracts? Some will say, “get a lawyer and sue for slander, liable.” Most venue owners have been through months of abuse and threats by the time the reviews start coming up. By this time they are deflated, afraid and so discouraged that some begin to consider leaving the wedding industry. Often lawyers discourage these types of lawsuits saying that even if the venue wins, its too hard to prove what losses were suffered. You could spend thousands on a lawsuit and win the judgement but get awarded $1. Often venue owners give up and give in. Feeling traumatized, alone and violated by the entire experience.
Many venue owners admit that they remain on these wedding websites out of fear, not because they want to be there. They are afraid that they will lose the good reviews they worked so hard to earn and now those reviews belong to the big wedding websites and review platforms. They are afraid that they will not receive awards that they have waited years to get and spent thousands of dollars to achieve. They are afraid that if other local wedding venues are on the sites, they must be on the sites as well. During a recent poll of over 115 wedding venue owners, when asked why they are still on the big wedding websites, 53% said they are using the sites to access valuable SEO. But the reason these sights have the best SEO is because they use wedding venue owner money, keywords, images & content to be on the top of the searches! 33% said their competitors are on the sites and they feel like they must be as well. It is time for wedding venue owners to step into a leadership role and lead the wedding industry away from this toxic system.
What about all the wedding venue owners who say they don’t pay anything to be on the big wedding websites, they have free listings and get incredible value from the SEO? Why would you put so much power in the hands of these sites and not keep it local? Your venue name, images and content are improving their SEO whether you pay to be there or not. You have their websites linked on your website, driving your engaged couples & clients directly to them. Even free listings are creating incredible value for these sites when that content could be used to create value for you and your local wedding industry! Some venue owners have reported that when they cancelled their wedding website listing, certain sites refuse to remove the listing and keep the free listings up. WHY? If you are no longer paying for listing, why would these sites keep it up when other venues are paying? Because your wedding venue is valuable, your wedding content is valuable. THEY NEED YOU!
If our wedding venue owners step into a leadership role and begin to change the wedding industry, what would they be able to accomplish? Wedding venue owners working together have the power to make swift, high impact changes quickly! There is a simple system that can be used locally to access all the business priorities venue owners need & want: Qualified leads from your target audience with high conversion to booking rates, reviews that can be vetted, screened and properly governed to avoid review abuse, Local & Destination SEO, Contracts Being Upheld, Legal Support Funds, Venue Owner to Venue Owner Education, Meaningful Awards, Resources, Ethical Policies Developed by Venue Owners and More Support with Local & National Legislation Impacting the Wedding Industry. Once venue owners start working together they can break free from an outdated system that has taken power & resource away from wedding business owners and your local wedding industry.
YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHANGE THE WEDDING INDUSTRY! You really do and I have a simple system that will support you in your efforts to bring wedding industry leadership and empowerment back to our local wedding communities, led by responsible, ethical wedding venue owners. What I am proposing is an innovative but simple plan that pulls SEO power away from the big companies and places it back into the hands of the local wedding industry. All it takes to get started is one wedding venue owner in your market, JUST ONE! YOU, YOU, YOU! This will not require you to put in hours of work, schedule networking events, meetings, etc… Once one venue owner steps up, others will be excited to join you. The Wedding Venue Owners Working Vacations have proven that venue owners want to connect, share and support one another! Venue owners are ready to work together, they just need one spark to start the bonfire and they will gather around.
If you would like more information on this program please fill out this form and I will set up a time to chat with you. Please be advised that a commitment to keep all information confidential will be required. Thank you
