WeddingWire

I had an extremely disappointing experience with WeddingWire/The Knot (The Wedding Pro). Their customer support was unhelpful, and their business practices felt deceptive and rigid, ultimately harming my small business rather than supporting it.
I invested over $8,000 in an annual contract, expecting a worthwhile return based on their promises of increased bookings. However, I secured only one elopement and two weddings—far from enough to offset the cost, leaving me with virtually no profit after advertising expenses. The platform offers no clear way to evaluate ROI, and their system locks you in without flexibility.
Adjusting or canceling your contract is a nightmare. You can't do it independently online—you're forced to speak with an account specialist, whose primary goal seems to be retention rather than resolution. Worse, changes or cancellations must be requested more than five days before the billing cycle, a detail buried in fine print. In my case, I emailed just before this deadline to adjust my plan, only to endure a 40-minute retention call where I was told cancellation wasn't possible due to timing. They offered to adjust my plan with supervisor approval, but what followed was a bait-and-switch.
I received a new contract labeled as their "bottom tier" for another full year, despite our phone discussion about switching to month-to-month billing. I immediately flagged the discrepancy via email, noting the contract didn't reflect our agreement. My specialist didn't respond until after the weekend, by which time I'd been charged $689 for the incorrect plan. Monday's follow-up call revealed more confusion: another representative claimed the year-long contract was month-to-month, a contradiction that wasn't clarified to me prior. I refused to sign due to this lack of transparency, but they insisted I'd been "informed" via the contract terms.
The customer service team showed zero empathy, treating me like a number rather than a struggling small business owner. Their inflexible policies and lack of accountability left me feeling taken advantage of. My business suffered financially from this partnership, while they profited at my expense. The Wedding Pro dominates the market, but their practices prioritize their bottom line over the vendors they claim to support. I strongly caution other photographers against investing here—look elsewhere for promotion that actually benefits your business.

Do not use WeddingWire or the Knot to help you pick vendors for your wedding. I had a terrible experience with a photographer that they highly recommended. I tried to leave an honest review to help other couples and the WeddingWire/The Knot removed my review instantly. They have asked me for more information and I have provided an abundance of proof of my very poor experience regarding this vendor but they have yet to repost my review. They favor the vendor because they are paid by them. This is unethical.
Update - I have been communicating with Casey from WeddingWire and she told me EXACTLY how to reword my review if I wanted it posted. She has asked me to be untruthful and said she will not post my review until I make those edits that she made for me! This has been going on for over a month of back & forth emails. She wants me to get frustrated and give up so that Bayless Photography in Wakefield, RI can continue to have only 5 star reviews with some that are made up reviews on WeddingWire while ruining people's weddings and memories. This is outrageous. Shame on you WeddingWire!

There are real couples on here and they're great but few and far between. There are also a ton of fake leads and you'll spend so much time answering leads that never pan out. What's most concerning is how shady the business is — I was locked into a year contract and I understood that. I was clear that I was not consenting to an auto-renew. A year goes by and it auto renews at double the price. I have to pay a month before I can cancel. Such a scam. Don't give them your money.

The de-evolution of WeddingWire's business model is complete: "Screw the paying customers; growth at all costs!" They trick vendors into year-long commitments with promises of exposure to interested couples and qualified leads. They deliver garbage leads that are clearly cut'n'paste or are scams. No quality control, no customer service. A constant turnover of account reps means having the same conversation over and over again, explaining why I won't advertise with them again. The last rep ended our call with "well, we can't love everybody."
Technology and social media has made it even easier for couples to find vendors. Seems to me the entire industry has moved past WeddingWire's irrelevant platform.

This company is totally out to screw its clients/vendors. Just google the recent articles from New York Post about this awful company. My husband was coerced and manipulated into sig ing a stupid 1 year co tract that is nearly $400/month. The majority of inquiries on this site are bots and nothing converts to an actual client. We cancelled the entire credit card that was linked to the account to stick it to this company.

You pay a fortune to advertise. Then you get scam messages, ghosted, and it leads you to wonder why. Well no matter what price point you pay (they have tiers) after a couple inquires it give them 5-8 more suggestions for vendors to reach out to in the same category. So if you are tier one paying a ton of money, you still get thrown in the mix with the 5-8 others who don't pay as much as you do.

They scam you when it's close to renewal time or if you complain. I noticed it every time.

When I asked why they give more suggestions they said Netflix has the same business model. Which was comical to me. How is it even comparable? When I spend $20 a month of course I want to know all of the videos that compare to what I just watched that's why I'm on the platform. That is NOT why we pay so much to advertise with wedding pro.

I've had a glitch on my account for over a year. They combined my company with another and removed all of the reviews I had.

As a DJ these sites are supposed to be useful to generate leads. As I operate out of my home office I have to use where I live, and I can assure you that no one here uses Wedding Wire. I was told that I had to by my home town first before I could buy any other cities, lol. This is at $176/mo for zero leads. THEN I could add another city for the same. This is insane the money grab from the vendors they present to people looking. If I went with their service I would have to raise my rates which a lot think are already high.

Wedding wire charge a fee for the small business to advertise. They ask you to sign up for 12 month without having any possibilities to cancel. We didn't get any event booked after 4 months and they refused to cancel the contract. They over estimate the traffic they will generate for you. Stay away

At the time of signing I was told I will have an account manager. My account manager is never available. I asked to cancle my account renewal but they went ahead and charged me for a new year anyway. I have been wrongly charged for the last 3 months and when I tried to get in touch with someone for it, no one was available. I'm still trying! The team works remotely and no one answers the calls or responds to voice mails.
I have barely received any leads - most of the leads are scam leads. You are better off advertising somewhere else.

I like to say that Weddingwire and the Knot is a scam. There are a ton of leads and you'll spend so much time answering leads that never pay out. What's most concerning is how shady the business is. I was locked into a year contract and I understood that. I was clear that I was not consenting to an auto-renew. A year goes by and it auto-renews at double the price. Such a scam. Anytime I called them and wrote to them many times, they took more than a day to get back to me and gave me the same excuse and result. I will never recommend this company to anyone.

Leads are mostly created by a cheap AI. The real leads may or may not be relevant to your business catagory. They collect Brides/grooms and dump thousands of companies on top of them. The leads that were actually real people, dodged communication like they owed money to a collection company. This company is despicable and should be investigated.

We reached out to them with a review about Ninah Gil. We had texts messages from her, we had a quote from her for her services. She's a wedding planner who was horrible and who's listed in her site. She bailed on us after weeks of working with us, we wrote a review on WeddingWire and they hid it, they sent an email to us and they defended her the whole time and didn't listen to us, we processed the texts back on forth from her. They hide the reviews so they can just keep 5 star ratings. We had an incredible wedding, we had no problems with any vendors or the new planner, only with Ninah Gil who's on WeddingWire, who tried to hack on us vendors who were double the price on things and was very unprofessional. WeddingWire hides the reviews they don't like.

I almost never leave bad reviews/leave reviews in general but I felt the need because if this review can save one other small business friend from wasting hundreds or thousands then it's worth it. It is honestly so messed up that this huge business takes advantage of small businesses the way they do.

I have a small local home bakery and am trying to advertise towards the wedding industry more so turned to the knot/wedding wire. I was basically convinced into their lowest rate ($250 a month) by someone who worked for them who told me she had her own small business and advertised with them and it was the "best decision she's ever made." I think looking back she was lying to my face - which is so heartbreaking considering I took a huge leap of faith in saying yes - and the knot ended up taking over $3,000 from me and in return i got NO customers (lots of leads that went nowhere - which were probably fake). They also make you pay for 12 months minimum (because if you book a wedding and your spot on the website gets taken down then the client can't contact you -which doesn't even make sense because you could give them your contact info at any time) which is how you get stuck!

Please please please if you are a small business don't get tricked like I did. It's a legit website but they list so many businesses on here that there's almost no chance you will get business, and will waste tons of money and time trying. Learn from my mistake- its in your best interest to stay away!

Wedding Pro charges me $200/month to be on their platform as a vendor. I get about 4 leads per week. The leads are so low quality that many of them have no idea what service I provide. When I contact a lead they do not reply no matter how many times I reach out. The few that have replied most commonly tell me that they never needed my services in the first place and don't understand why I am reaching out to them. This is definitely a waste of money but more perhaps more frustrating is that it has been a waste of my time. Advertise on Google people, way better use of your resources. Wedding Pro is a complete joke

Started service without reading reviews, from the first day fake leads, then wedding wire flagged spam leads. Maybe 2/3 real leads out of 63 fake leads for a party bud service. You're probably asking how do you know it's a fake lead? Well I've been in my business for over 10 years and when a customer contact me through a form or through our social media regarding questions about my services or packages and when I promptly respond to them, I always get a response back whether they're interested or not, that was the first indication these were fake leads, I dealt with companies that took money for for lead generation and have employees call acting like a potential customer. One of their own employees admitted customers get fake leads. Contact me to see if we can collaborate and end the plague to small business.

Wedding Wire is a cash grab at it's worst. Over the past 2 years, our venue has spent over $30,000 and had declining lead quality, inconsistent notifications and customer service is almost nil.

They changed their model in December 2021 to be more like Google and started charging $32 per lead automatically. They racked up over $4000 in leads that 100% were not quality and were a complete waste of our time.

When I brought up the issues, they refused to give refunds, credits or to pause my account.

If you are a wedding vendor, stay away. Wedding Wire is a waste of money in 2022. They will take your money, not care about the quality of their service, and then tell you that you are out of luck.

Wedding Pro is a nightmare. In short RUN. They claim "we do not offer any promises on performance of vendor advertisements" but yet they share numbers that are drastically exaggerated when trying to get you to sign up. I was told I'd receive 15-50 inquiries per month as a videographer in the Chicago region and that as my account developed better SEO over time, that number would increase. I am now 5 months into my 12 month contract and have received no inquiries for over 30 days. I am working on taking Wedding Pro to small claims court on grounds of false and misleading advertisement with intent to sell goods and or services.

Please stay as far away from this company as possible. You will regret ever doing business with them.

My business has a premium account with Wedding Wire and we will not be renewing at the end of our contract. I suspected after a few months that Wedding Wire generates fake leads and click thru website numbers come from account reps who are required to click around our actual website. After reading many other reviews on Pissed Consumer and here on SiteJabber, I am convinced that my suspicions are accurate. In 6 months, I have had a handful of "leads" actually respond. I will go weeks without leads then get 3 or 4 in a single day which is highly suspect. I receive notifications of new reviews for my business, but when I pull up my storefront, they're not there. When I asked Wedding Wire about this, they say something must not have been completed by the reviewer and offer no other solution. This is a waste of my advertising budget. Vendors use your funds more wisely and do not pay for Wedding Wire space.

Wedding Wire allows Customers to write reviews that paint a picture of someone being a sexual predator with no proof. Even after being presented the facts, they still refuse to take down a review that is a complete lie. And just in case happens, buying advertising to have a review removed is not a solution, it's called a ransom, just in case it happens. I was once told I didn't spend enough money. Which explains why some vendors only get positive reviews. I also bought leads from them early on but no luck. In fact it is my opinion they were made up. They allow competitors to post reviews so any bride depending on getting good services from their Vendors, might want to consider other local options like local Wedding Planners! They don't always advertise on the Wedding Wire and the Knot.