Weddings are big business in the hotel industry, however they are far more than the big Saturday night show IF they are booked right and setting your hotel up to properly market weddings is more about convenience for the bridal family than anything else.

However, if you commit, you may soon find that your Saturday night weddings can turn into three or even four days worth of business for the hotel.

Finding ‘Approved’ Vendors

One of the more frustrating aspects of weddings is in working with uncooperative vendors, such as bands and photographers. It is of the utmost importance that you find vendors that understand the banquet comes first. Far too many times, schedules have been thrown off and food has gone cold simply because a photographer wanted more shots or the band refused to dial it down a few notches so the banquet staff can do service.

Your goal here is to find vendors that will work well with your banquet captains and managers to ensure that these functions go off well. With proper communication, both the vendor and the happy couple will be satisfied. However, it goes a bit further than that, which is our segue to the next point.

Develop Packages

While it will be impossible to incorporate all services into a wedding package, there are some items that could naturally be incorporated, such as the wedding cake. For your sales team, the more you can incorporate, the higher their commission, so you should not have that much trouble getting them on board with this idea.

Additionally, you want to offer packages that will keep as much of the wedding at the hotel as possible. For instance, are you offering a wedding rehearsal discount at your restaurant for any wedding held at the property? Are you offering “morning after” breakfast packages that can be included? Are there discounted rooms available for guests at the wedding? Do you have a wedding “room” that can be offered to host the ceremony itself?

The goal here is to wrap up as much of the weekend as possible in one neat little package for the bride and groom as well as their guests. The less stress the couple has regarding the arrangements for the weekend, the better.

Do Something Special & Personal

If you read our posts regularly, you know I believe social media is far more effective than most other forms of marketing, and a big wedding weekend is your time to shine. Above and beyond the normal photos that will be shared, you can increase those shares by personalizing the hotel for the wedding guests, especially if they have the run of the hotel for the weekend. Put up banners welcoming the wedding guests and create personalized amenities for the immediate family of the bride and groom as well as the entire wedding party.

Take it a step further by creating a special drink at the bar that weekend named after the bride. Imagine her surprise when she shows up at the rehearsal dinner and finds out the drink special is named after her! You don’t think that will end up all over social media?

While your sales or catering manager may not be able to function as a full wedding planner, he or she can come pretty close. The more services you offer, the more profit the hotel makes and the less stress the bride suffers through over the course of her weekend. Once you pull off a few of these functions and it gets out on social media, those catering department phones will be ringing off the hook!

Is your sales team making the most of your banquet space? Need a Director of Sales that thinks out-of-the-box to help improve sales? If the local talent is just not getting it done, it’s time to call JDI. Joseph David International is consistently ranked among the top hotel recruiters because we do more than just find candidates; we find the ideal fit for both the property and the managerial candidate to ensure success. For more information about our hospitality recruiting services, please click here.

Facebook:

Weddings are already highly profitable functions. However, by tweaking your sales approach just a little, you could end up significantly improving additional sales related to that big Saturday night wedding.

Twitter:

Is your #hotel really maximizing sales off #weddings? How can you turn a Saturday night wedding into a four-day event?

Google Business:

For most hotels, weddings are big money makers, but they can make more. With a few small changes to your approach, that Saturday night wedding could turn into a weekend event!

LinkedIn:

How do your #sales #managers look at #weddings? Are they a one-off event or is your staff capable of selling the hotel to the bride for the entire weekend? By creating better wedding packages, you can easily turn a big Saturday night into a big weekend!