Building strong connections: The importance of a community of wedding suppliers

As part of the Enterprise Nation team, small businesses are what I live and breathe, so when I was planning my wedding, I was excited to discover a whole community of entrepreneurs I hadn’t had much to do with before.

The whole experience was really eye-opening about how many small businesses are operating in the wedding industry, how they succeed and how they work together as a community.

Here are four strategies I discovered that all of the suppliers seem to implement and how you can adopt them to grow your business:

1. Referrals

I planned my wedding with quite short notice and when I was reaching out to potential suppliers (photographers, hairdressers, etc), ones that weren’t available sent me lists of other suppliers they’d recommend.

This was such a lovely thing to experience as rather than viewing each other as competitors, a lot of suppliers buddy up with each other.

Whether it’s photographers booking other suppliers to help them at bigger weddings or hairdressers with a list of people they’ve worked with before and want to recommend.

2. Tagging 

There seems to be an unwritten rule in the wedding industry that when one supplier posts on Instagram, they tag all the other suppliers and the venue from the wedding in the posts to increase each other’s exposure.

Watch this webinar to discover how to grow your business on Instagram, with Martha Keith, founder of Martha Brook LDN, where I actually got my wedding planner from!

3. Reviews 

All of the suppliers we used were so amazing, I gave them Google reviews straight away but some also asked.

When searching for suppliers, I checked their reviews before contacting them – they all know the importance of good reviews as it helps build trust with potential new clients.

Watch this webinar to find out how small business owners can get more reviews, testimonials and case studies from customers:

4. The benefits of incredible service

We received incredible service from our suppliers but one particular highlight was that our videographers turned around a ‘highlight teaser’ in less than 24 hours – this was amazing for us to watch back parts of the day so quickly – but also really smart of them as instead of sending us the file straight away, they added us as collaborators on their Instagram post to further increase their reach and followers.

Final thoughts

 Our wedding day was the best day of our lives and that was all down to the incredible entrepreneurs who worked tirelessly to give us the wedding of our dreams.

I was completely bowled over by the reliance the wedding suppliers have on building a community.

If you want to be a part of a community while running your business, join Enterprise Nation today!