Wedding Industry Research

Let us be clear at the beginning. This is not a guide on how to plan a wedding, but rather on how to find information on the business of weddings. The wedding industry is a large industry in terms of dollars, but tracking where that money is spent is more difficult for several reasons.

• First, it is an industry that is made up of multiple smaller enterprises like caterers, wedding consultants, dresses, various beauty suppliers (hair, makeup), photographers, favors/bridesmaids gifts, music, honeymoon related, etc. While the industry as a whole represents a lot of money, each of the component parts is much smaller -- some smaller than others. These smaller composite suppliers can be very local and likely will be small and privately owned -- traditionally the types of businesses that do not necessarily report financial information to any agency other than the IRS. This is in sharp contrast to larger industries, comprised on many public companies which are required to file with the SEC making it much easier to find information. These larger industries also affect the economy as a whole on a much more obvious scale, also making it easier to find out information on them.
• Second, many of the smaller components like caterers, DJs, and photographers, wedding favors, invitations, etc. also do other events without necessarily breaking their business down into wedding versus non-wedding.
• Third, because some of the individuals and businesses that provide services and products may only work part-time on wedding-related services to supplement their income or out of friendship, there will either be a minimal charge or no charge at all. Figures if there are any, will likely not be in any "industry" tally.

Since overall industry numbers are going to be hard to come by, other ways of finding the information will be necessary. One way is by searching local (and community) newspapers,which may provide information on a local market. Also, there may be individual accounts of weddings that would be relevant. Contacting local companies/people will provide someone with experience and knowledge on the local scene. Try the local phone books under weddings, party planning, catering, event planning, etc. to find the local companies/professionals. Also, ReferenceUSA (often available in local public libraries) is an electronic directory with SIC/NAICS codes search limitable by various geographic search functions.

Many times keywords, Standard Industrial Classification (SIC), or North American Industrial Classification Codes (NAICS) will be helpful in finding information. For example, the following codes can be used to search for companies in databases like ReferenceUSA or D&B. They can also be used to locate information in the Economic Census. This Census comes out every 5 years and has information on sales and numbers of establishments (national and by state).

SIC
5812 Eating Establishments (includes Caterers)
2335 Women's, Misses', and Juniors' Dresses (includes Wedding Dresses, Wedding Gowns)
5621 Women's Clothing Stores (includes Bridal shops, except custom-retail)
5699 Miscellaneous Apparel and Accessory Stores includes Custom Dress Making Shops)
7299 Miscellaneous Personal Services, Not Elsewhere Classified (includes Wedding Gown Rental and Wedding Planning)
5943 Stationery Stores

NAICS
722320 Caterers
315233 Women's and Girls' Cut and Sew Dress Manufacturing (includes Wedding Gowns, Bridal Dresses, Wedding Gowns)
315212 Wedding dresses, women's, cut and sew apparel contractors
448190 Other Clothing Stores (includes Bridal gown shops -except custom)
532220 Formal Wear and Costume Rental (includes Bridal Wear Rental)
812990 All Other Personal Services (includes Wedding Planning)
45321 Office Supplies and Stationery Stores (pt)

Services

Dresses

When looking for data on the size of this industry, the first thing to note is that, while there is a lot of money in the wedding industry, gowns represent only one segment of the industry.

Second, wedding gowns are part of a larger women's clothing industry -- depending on how the business reports itself and how deep the search functionality is of the database, separating wedding dresses from the larger industry may be difficult. It might help to use the two NAICS codes that are applicable to help you find companies and numbers (that is, sales figures). Databases like Duns Million Dollar Directory and ReferenceUSA allow searches by the NAICS codes given above, while other databases still use SIC codes. To have a complete picture, however, it is necessary to also consider those establishments that sell used gowns and those offering rental gowns. Lastly, neither of those take into account those women who have someone make their dress. There are SIC codes for all of these others but not for the instance where a friend or family member makes the dress.

Lastly, there are many definitions of wedding dress. When most people in the U.S. think of wedding dresses, they think in terms of the traditional long, white dress. However, there are brides who only buy a nice outfit and go to the judge's chambers and others who plan "ethnic" weddings where the bride wears a traditional costume from her country.

You may have more luck with industry information by searching through articles and gathering snippets. I would suggest searching in wedding/bridal magazines such as -Bride's, Modern Bride, as well as clothing trade magazines such as Women’s Wear Daily, all of which cover this area. In addition, there are full-text databases that local public and university libraries subscribe to such as Infotrac, (which has all three of the above titles) and ABI-Inform, among others. Also, both databases index articles. For example, Infotrac uses the index terms Wedding, Costume and Wedding Supplies, and Services Industry). One caveat, many of the articles will be more fashion-oriented and less business- oriented.

Consultants

If you want to find information on this industry, try one of the associations listed below or contact a local consultant through your phone directory or web sites such as http://respondweddings.com/ or http://www.afwpi.com/consultants/ and see what they may offer.

For those who want to get into the wedding planning/consulting business, Sell the Bride offers tips as well as some books and reports

Food, Videography, Disc Jockey

These three industries are ones where some of their business is not wedding related. There may not necessarily be caterers whose only business it to cater only to weddings. The same could be said about Disc Jockeys and videographers.

However, the two associations for videographers and disc jockeys have interesting data about their particular industry and their industry in regards to weddings.

Favors/Bridesmaids Gifts

Finding industry information for favors also presents difficulties: the biggest of which is that the choice of favor is individual -- it could be anything the bride/groom chooses. There may be things that are more likely to be chosen (picture frames, jewelry, etc.) but these items are not solely for the wedding industry. There is no way to distinguish between those that are bought for weddings and those that are not. Also, the places where favors or gifts can be bought is not limited to the "wedding favor store." Most stores sell a variety of products and will not mark items specifically as "wedding favors." There may be estimates of the average amount that a bride spends per party favor/gift, but such "averages" fail to take into account the number of people to whom she is giving a gift - which can vary from one to five to eight, and on up. Searching through publications geared to gift markets may be one way to find information on such gifts.

Destination Weddings

There has been an increase in what is known as destination weddings - those weddings held where neither the bride or the groom lives or necessarily has family. It has been estimated the one in ten weddings are destination weddings - a massive increase over the last decade.

Modern couples are often older then they were 15 or 20 years ago, they are often more well traveled, and/or they may want something more exotic. Top destinations for U.S. couples include Hawaii, the Caribbean, Mexico, and in Europe, southern France and Italy. Resorts and hotels in hot areas are becoming increasingly proactive in their wedding business by putting together packages and offering more services for those seeking wedding services.

There is no single statistical source for data on this segment of the wedding industry; rather much of the information is anecdotal and derived from surveys/questions to hotels/resorts, couples, wedding planners, and others. Thus, article searches may yield the best information on this topic.