Weddings are special celebrations. At heart, a wedding is a public demonstration of two people’s commitment to one another. But thanks to thousands of years of storytelling and a few decades’ worth of magazine articles, television shows and social media posts, a couple’s special day can blossom into a festival for family and friends.
The Wedding Party
Capitalize on the booming industry built around the special day.
By Myrna Traylor
(Originally printed in the May/June 2023 issue of Insights.)
Weddings are special celebrations. At heart, a wedding is a public demonstration of two people’s commitment to one another. But thanks to thousands of years of storytelling and a few decades’ worth of magazine articles, television shows and social media posts, a couple’s special day can blossom into a festival for family and friends.
For producers of custom gifts, signage and other items, weddings also represent a major opportunity. The range of items for the wedding itself (and the parties before and afterward) that can be engraved, stenciled, printed and labeled is nearly limitless. From cutting boards to old fashioned glasses to signage, personalized wedding items are growing in popularity.
Shops that are interested but not yet in the wedding market can add items to their offerings and build a wedding business organically. Crystal Evans, owner and CEO of Conejo Awards in Thousand Oaks, California, whose company’s main offerings are corporate awards and engravings, relies on word of mouth and in-store displays for wedding business. “When people come in to place an order for their company, they’ll be walking around the showroom and they’ll realize, ‘Oh, I didn’t know you could do custom Yetis or Polar Camels, or engrave on wine bottles and glass.’ So, having those products in the showroom piques their interest.”
Evans offers several items for engraving in her store but will also engrave a piece purchased elsewhere, such as a silver tray or cake knife. “We also do a lot of ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ champagne flutes for that official toast,” Evans says, “and glassware that is more functional, like vases, that will be either used for display or other purposes in their home.”
The customer base for wedding parties is self-selecting, but brides and grooms aren’t the only ones who are looking for personalized items, says Becky Gromala, owner of Silver Squirrel Engraving & Gifts in Kaukauna, Wisconsin. “Oftentimes, when you get the bride, you get the rest of the family. You get the mom, you get the grandma, you get the aunts who are all looking for something that’s customized, and the great thing is I get to know the whole family, and I can make sure that the bride isn’t getting the same gift from four different people.”
A Positive Flow
E-commerce is a significant driver of wedding business, and shops should make sure their sites are up to date with all their wedding offerings. Tammy Truelove Winstead is the owner and CEO of TrueLove Designs LLC in Armorel, Arkansas, and even though her town has faced the closure of a military base (with a loss of about half the town’s population as a result), she turned her love of personalized gifts into a successful business in 2020. Her wedding business started with a random inquiry for a guestbook. “They wanted something unique,” says Winstead. “Back then, I just had a laser engraver, and I created the guestbook. After attending our first APA meeting in 2022, we added UV printing. I started doing little gifts for bridesmaids and groomsmen, and it’s just snowballed. Now we do large bar sets with engraved decanters and whiskey glasses, bride boxes, groom boxes and acrylic welcome signs.”
Winstead says that most of her business originates online. “People realized that I had the equipment, so they didn’t have to source [personalization] on the internet—they could do it all at one shop.” This is a huge advantage, she says, “because then your fonts match and the whole aesthetic could be unified—which to a bride is everything.”
Conejo Awards emphasizes its wedding products in in-store displays to help boost sales.
Retailers should look to promote and capitalize on the shop-local trend, especially following COVID-19. “We’ve seen an increase, especially during the pandemic, of people who are looking for something different and looking to support local and small businesses versus just buying everything through Target or Amazon—even though Amazon does provide an avenue for small businesses,” says Evans. “Still, people look at Amazon as a big corporation versus that mom-and-pop shop. They don’t quite make the connection that a lot of the people vending on Amazon are actually small businesses.”
Depending on the size of the wedding party—and the lead time, of course—wedding-related business can be quite manageable from a one- or two-person shop. Desiree Colonna has been running Inkwell Designers® from her base in Woodstock, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, for eight years. Her one-woman shop is an outgrowth of a calligraphy business, for which she created invitations and seating charts by hand. She says the game changed for her when she acquired a UV printer and a laser engraver. She uses these to fulfill her Etsy orders for luggage tags, table signs and acrylic cocktail stir sticks adorned with the faces of members of the wedding party.
Keeping Customers Happy
Some couples are very particular about what they want for their big day; it’s all part of a mood or aesthetic that they are trying to achieve. And if you think about it, this may be the one day in which they can arrange so many things to their liking, including colors, music and overall style. “Most brides and grooms have done a lot of online research about what they want to offer as a gift, and then they come to me and see if it’s something that I can provide,” says Gromala. “A lot of them are perusing places like Etsy and Amazon, but there’s a big trend to support local. So they’ll find those items online, and then they’ll come to me and see if it’s something that I can make for them. I also get a lot of referrals from a faith-based store the next town over for specialty engraved gifts.”
TrueLove Design Shop's custom wedding products
Gromala says that the easiest way to work with the customer is to show them ideas. “I don’t run into too many bridezillas,” she says. “Be upfront with them and say, ‘Here are my designs. If I have to design something for you, here’s my artwork fee.’ Communication is always the key; it eliminates problems in the end. Send proofs and make them spell check everything. The biggest problem that I run into is brides who come to me at the last minute, and their wedding is in two weeks. So, keep your popular items on hand.”
Plant the Seeds
Don’t think of the wedding and its associated events as a one and done. As Colonna points out, “They get married, and then we do their baby shower signs, and then their baptism signs. Carry it all along through their lives.”
(Top and bottom) Silver Squirrel's diverse wedding offerings.
“My customer retention is amazing,” says Gromala. “I have customers that I’ve known for years—some of them I consider almost like family at this point. We get return business for all of life’s big occasions: retirements, new babies, weddings and anniversaries.”
It’s a privilege to be part of an event that is so special. As Winstead says, “To me, when the bride walks in on that day—and their wedding planners call me saying, ‘Girl, she was in tears [of joy],’ and knowing I had a hand in that? That’s what matters. Making it all come together not just for my event planners, but for the brides and even for the moms who have called me to say, ‘Oh, my gosh, I was ready to strangle her. And then we found you, and you just dealt with her.’”
Working the Network
There are opportunities to leverage relationships with other professionals who cater to weddings and related events, such as florists, photographers, caterers, event planners and venues. Such partnerships can lead to working together on joint projects or opportunities for that vendor to recommend your work to their clients, as well.
Becky Gromala is part of the Chamber of Commerce and works with local boutiques. “I have my inventory at a local coffee shop,” she says. “They refer people over to me, and I have my relationship with the local faith-based store. They send people for not only weddings, but baptisms, confirmations and memorial gifts. Even for the items that they sell, they then send the customers over to me for engraving. It’s a nice little partnership.”
Tammy Winstead works with a local venue and wedding planner; when couples make selections with them, they pass the business over to Winstead for fulfillment. She offers them the same cut she would pay to Etsy, and it saves her the time it would take to go through all the details with the customer separately. “It’s helped the venues, and they can trust me. I can go ahead and get the design work done and send the completed job directly back to them or the planner, so they have it in hand before the event.”
Reaching out to businesses in other industries that work with the wedding industry can be a great starting spot. Annual wedding expos can be another avenue to explore. “I could see that being very beneficial for a lot of businesses like ours,” says Crystal Evans. “Things like that are great places to set up a table and talk to the couples as they’re coming through. They go to these expos looking for everything. So, if you have some samples to exhibit, it kind of sparks the idea train for them.”
If you’re not yet committed to this market segment, you could always run a scouting mission to a wedding expo as a visitor before becoming a vendor. You can look for ways to dovetail your offerings with those from other vendors. For instance, if you make etched crystal photo frames, maybe a photographer would be willing to offer that as part of their wedding package. Just remember that the vendors are busy trying to generate business at these shows, so get their information and contact them at another time if they are open to discussing options.