Wedding Marketing: What the 2025 State of Small Biz Report Means for Wedding Pros

If you’re a wedding pro who’s been thinking, “Is it just me or did marketing get wildly harder this year?” this is your proof that it’s not just you.

In this blog, we’re unpacking the State of Small Biz Report but specifically through the wedding industry lens. Because 26% of the 245 respondents were wedding and event professionals. In other words: these insights weren’t pulled from some random corner of the internet. They came from you. Your peers. Your exhausted-yet-still-showing-up community.

I (Tayler Cusick Hollman, one of the Co-Founders of Enji) was joined by three of the smartest wedding marketing experts who see and support the industry from different angles:

What we found was equal parts validating and motivating: marketing is harder, burnout is real, and the old “just post more” advice is officially out of touch. But the panel also made something crystal clear: wedding pros can absolutely win in 2026—if they stop guessing and start marketing with a plan.

The theme of marketing a wedding business in 2025? Overwhelm, inconsistency, and meh results

Very quickly, we landed on the word that describes 2025: overwhelm.

Adrienna put it bluntly. Marketing is exhausting even when you’re a marketer. And for many wedding pros, the overwhelm shows up as:

“What do I do next?”
“Nothing works like it used to.”
“I know I should…I just can’t keep up.”

Amanda connected that overwhelm to what she sees most often in wedding businesses: inconsistency. Not because people don’t care about their marketing (they do), but because when everything feels urgent and unclear, doing your marketing becomes sporadic. And inconsistent marketing almost always results in an inconsistent stream of leads.

Mark echoed the same idea from the paid ads side: the people who had a plan performed better. The overwhelm isn’t just emotional—it’s practical. More platforms, more content formats, more competition, and more noise.

The marketing stat that made everyone sit up straighter

One of the biggest wait…what moments came from the answer to the question “How many hours per week do you as a business owner spend on marketing?”

Because wedding pros who spend 6–10 hours/week on marketing were 6x more likely to say their marketing is effective.

That’s not a cute motivational quote. That’s a giant flashing sign that time set aside for marketing (not squeezed in between client work and life) is a real differentiator. And before anyone panics, the point isn’t to “work more.” The point is stop rushing marketing like it’s a chore and start treating it like the thing that creates future revenue.

“Spend money to make money” (and why that’s hard for wedding pros to hear)

Adrienna called out another tough-love stat: Wedding pros spending $1,000+ per month on marketing were 3x more likely to report high marketing effectiveness than those spending under $500. Naturally, the group acknowledged the immediate reaction most wedding pros have: “Cool. I don’t have $1,000/month.”

But Adrienna’s point was sharper (and honestly, kinder) than the internet usually is: marketing requires investment. If you’re consistently saying you can’t invest, the question becomes: Where is the money going—and what needs to change so you can fund the thing that brings in leads?

Amanda reframed this with a mindset shift that wedding pros need: risk assessment. If a booking is worth $6k, $10k, $15k+…why does spending a few hundred dollars feel scarier than staying stuck?

And Mark added the truth that nobody wants to hear but everyone needs: most people give up too quickly. Couples take time to decide.The wedding buying journey is long. Marketing investments often require months to compound before you feel the payoff.

How did wedding marketing change in 2025?

When we asked “what shifted the most?” the answers were incredibly aligned.

Adrienna: What worked in 2018 doesn’t work the same way now. Couples have more time, more options, and they’re making decisions differently than they did during the post-pandemic booking surge. That means wedding pros need to evolve their marketing and their sales process.

Mark: Couples are searching in more places than ever (Google, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, and beyond). And the hard part is this: being “great at one channel” isn’t always enough anymore because trust is built across touch points.

Amanda: Wedding pros are burned out on Instagram, but (this is important) she doesn’t believe Instagram is “dead.” Her hot take: Instagram isn’t oversaturated—your approach might be. What’s oversaturated are the tactics people keep copying. When you use the platform differently (more intentionally) results can come back.

The surprise plot twist: couples are reading again

One of the most interesting threads in the panel was about long-form content. Amanda pointed to Substack and the broader shift. With couples (and people in general) being visually overstimulated, there’s growing appetite for reading—especially when someone is closer to making a decision.

Adrienna backed it up with what she’s seeing in real client analytics: people are spending more time on websites than they did in years past. The “nobody reads” belief is often false. People may not read at the top of the funnel but when they’re evaluating vendors? They absolutely read.

And then Reddit entered the chat—because yes, Reddit is a chaotic microcosm, but it’s also:

a giant decision-making engine
a hub for long, detailed “wedding debrief” posts
a growing influence on how people search (including via AI tools)

Takeaway: Thinking couples don’t read your content isn’t true. Thoughtful content is a trust builder.

How to create a marketing plan for your wedding business

This was one of the most practical moments of the conversation, and it’s worth repeating: “marketing plan” does not need to be a 40-page Google Doc. And Adrienna’s had a great and simple starting point: Pick your topic of the month. What are you talking about in January? February? March? Then build backward:

What questions do couples ask all the time about that topic?
Those questions become blog posts, captions, email content, video scripts, and more.

You stop staring at a blank screen because you’re just answering real questions.

Amanda added something every wedding pro needs tattooed across their forehead: You do not need new content all the time. Reuse, repurpose, repeat. If it worked once, it can work again—and often better the second time around.

Measure ROI and marketing success in the wedding industry: yes, it’s harder (and here’s what to track)

Mark said he would die on this hill: ROI is harder to measure in weddings because the buyer journey is long, emotional, and multi-touch. Couples don’t see one ad and instantly book you. They browse, lurk, compare, ask friends, read reviews, and take months. So instead of obsessing over “which post booked this wedding,” focus on metrics that reflect momentum and trust.

Here are the panel’s favorite KPIs for wedding pros who are just starting to track their metrics:

Cost to acquire a customer (how much you spend to win an inquiry/booking)
Inquiry-to-booking rate (and if it’s low, your marketing or sales process needs attention)
Number of reviews per month (social proof is oxygen in wedding businesses)
Website conversion rate (traffic is nice; conversions pay bills)

The mic-drop marketing advice

Regardless of whether you read this full blog or watch the panel replay (or both), there are plenty of wedding pros who will walk away and do nothing. So when I asked each of the panelists, “What would you tell the pro who read the report and still says, ‘I’m just gonna keep doing what I’m doing’?”here were their responses (said with love).

Mark: “In order to do something different you have to give up something else.”

Amanda: “Then you’ll only get this or worse because there is a law of diminishing return.”

Adrienna: “You can’t complain when your competition is crushing it because you have decided to allow them to beat you every time.”

Final takeaway: the wedding pros who win at marketing aren’t louder—they’re clearer

If 2025 taught wedding pros anything about marketing, it’s that hustle isn’t the answer. The businesses seeing results aren’t magically more talented or more motivated. They’re just doing three things differently:

They have a marketing plan (even a simple one)
They show up consistently (without reinventing the wheel every week)
They track enough data to make decisions without guessing

That’s the good news: you don’t need to do everything. You need to do the smartest marketing things you can—and long enough for them to work.

And if you are ready to make a change to do the work you know needs to be done, start your free 14-day trial of Enji’s marketing tools for wedding pros. It’ll get you the simple marketing plan you need and help you plan, draft, and schedule content along with tracking your results.

Tayler Cusick Hollman

Enji Founder and Small Business Marketing Expert

Tayler is one of the Founders of Enji (marketing tools for small business owners who need to plan, do, and review it themselves). With over a decade of marketing experience, she has helped thousands of small business owners create simple marketing plans that help them get results. When she isn't thinking about how to solve the "I do my own marketing" problem, you'll find her skiing, mountain biking, or climbing rocks somewhere.

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