Wedding Boom Predicted for Next 22 Years

Whether you have an existing wedding related business or have an interest in selling or writing about a new niche market, demographic predictions* related to the wedding industry point to strong potential growth.

Couples spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year getting married … and that number is about to get bigger.

Regardless of your current business, you may be able to position products or services for the predicted wedding boom.

U.S. Average Wedding Cost By Year 1945 - 2009/Q3 ~ Graph provided by TheWeddingReport.com

At least 3.8 million children have been born each year since 1987 in the U.S. Because the average U.S. woman marries at 25 and these women start turning 23 in 2010, they will start planning their weddings soon.

Graph of U.S. Weddings by Year 1945-2008 in Millions - Attribution WeddingReport.com

Graph of U.S. Weddings by Year 1945-2008 in Millions - Attribution TheWeddingReport.com

Weddings mean huge opportunities for wedding clothing, accessories, catering, wedding planners, flower shops, honeymoon planners, travel and gifts. There is also a visible increase in sales related to gay weddings as more states legalize same sex marriages.

A huge wedding boom will start soon and last for at least 22 years.

The good news is there is much available wedding market research and many strong existing online markets you can use to greatly increase your visibility now to be positioned during this wedding boom.

Estimated Median Age at First Marriage - Click image for full Bridal News Network Wedding Trend Report (PDF)

The bad news – which is actually good for some including destination weddings and wedding DJs – is the economy is changing spending patterns so to maximize your results you will want to stay ahead of these wedding trends.

Wedding planners are consistently reporting an increase in the number of weddings but a decrease in the amount spent and more interest in bargain shopping, requests for discounts, and brides trying to save using do it yourself or having friends take on some responsibilities.

According to The Wedding Report, wedding spending is estimated to be down about 6-8% across the board in 2009, then grow by about 6% by 2014. Number of weddings is estimated to grow by 1.2% in 2009 and 5% by 2014. These numbers will vary by market. [I believe they mean geographic area.]

UNIQUE GIFT IDEA for the WEDDING COUPLE: Oil Burning Stone Candles

The fastest way to grow wedding related business is through identifying and using some of the very strong wedding niche sites that already have the lion’s share of the traffic.

Top Wedding Sites by Compete Traffic - TheKnot, WeddingWire, MyWedding and Wedding Bee - click to enlarge

According to traffic numbers from Compete, the top Wedding sites by traffic are TheKnot, WeddingWire, MyWedding, WeddingBee (shown above) and ProjectWedding, OneWed, WeddingMapper and 1WeddingSource (below).

Compete Traffic Comparison for Wedding Sites ProjectWedding, OneWed, WeddingMapper, 1WeddingSource and WeddingIMC - Click to enlarge

Although the graphs above reveal wedding niche sites with more current traffic, of these wedding sites the one we feel is most promising is OneWed. They have an excellent reputation and are very creative and active in Social Media.

Advertisers will find them very pro-active in following up and collaborating and their knowledge of the wedding industry is exceptional.

Did you know that January is the top month for wedding planning because so many get engaged over the holidays?

OneWed is the force behind Matrimony Monday, Kicking Off the Prime Wedding Planning Season on the Second Annual Matrimony Monday. Their Press release includes this quote according to TheWeddingReport.com:

“Approximately 35-40 percent (550,000-650,000) of engagements in the US take place during the winter holiday season between Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day*. Thanks to the romantic nature of the holiday season, the majority of proposals take place between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, making the first Monday back at work the peak time to start searching online for planning ideas and inspiration.”

Now is the time to get moving in your wedding related promotions. We will be writing much more about OneWed and why we will be working with them and also about Bridaluxe, an exceptional wedding affiliate program that allows any blogger to add a fully stocked Wedding Store with one line of code.

Read how much easier Bridaluxe is for affiliates in Derek Semmler’s excellent review of the Bridaluxe wedding affiliate program.

BACKGROUND RESEARCH:

[NOTE: *Some demographic predictions data used in this post came from http://www.ideablob.com/posts/366 which is no longer available due to the bankruptcy of their parent company.]

ClickNewz on Issues with StomperNet
Inside The Internet Marketing Mind – see comments about StomperNet

WEDDING AFFILIATE PROGRAM RECOMMENDATIONS:

Derek Semmler (Twitter) How the Bridaluxe Wedding Affiliate Program Hits the Affiliate Network Nail on the Head
Weddex (Twitter) Bridaluxe: Wedding Affiliate Program for Wedding Pros
GrowMap (Twitter) How to Evaluate a Gift Affiliate Program
ExecGiftsBlog (ExecGifts) Executive Gift Shoppe Gift Affiliate Program

AFFILIATE MARKETING for AFFILIATES:

Derek Semmler (Twitter) Case Study: Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing
AffiliateXFiles (Ron Cripps) How to Become an Affiliate Marketer
AffiliateXFiles (Ron Cripps) How to Create a Product Review Site That Sells
Derek Semmler (Twitter) Building Affiliate Stores
Adam Riemer (Rollerblader) How to Pick Merchants to Promote
Derek Semmler (Twitter)How to Add Affiliate Products to Your Site
AffiliateXFiles (Ron Cripps) Affiliate Marketing Tips For Long Term Results

AffiliateXFiles (Ron Cripps) Affiliate Marketing FAQs – Ask your questions here and get answers from successful affiliate with 9+ years experience