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WeddingWire has a rating of 2.7 stars from 817 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about WeddingWire most frequently mention year contract, free listing, and small business problems. WeddingWire ranks 4th among Wedding Planning sites.
This company does not typically respond to reviews
A close friend of mine recommended wedding wire to me and ever since I started using it, I have been getting bookings non-stop.
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!
I run and operate a DJ and Lighting business (DA Productions DJ and Lighting Services) that has been
Doing business with WeddingWire since 2009.
When I had started advertising with WeddingWire I liked their approach in working with vendors and
Providing a personal concierge like touch in helping grow my business.
I used to get calls with support on how to improve my website so that it stood out and marketing
Suggestions and ideas (even if it was just them up selling their own ads). I loved getting their
Professional feedback on their impression on what I might try for my specific business approach.
The other thing that I was driven to with WeddingWire was the technology that their platform provided
Which was quite different from other advertisers for the wedding industry, like The Knot, which they
Had stronger branding, but their marketing and website was more like we were still in the 1990.
But now that these two companies have become one in the same, even know that the run as different
Brands – they are referred to as "The Pro's".
Unfortunate as they have grown, WeddingWire has really forgotten about their individual business
Owners and the sponsors that have supported their growth over time. In doing so, they have lost all
Aspects of what drew me to their business model and made me proud to be a member with their
Network.
This year, for the very first time when it was time to renew my contract with WeddingWire, no human
Person ever reached out to me about discussing my past years performance on their platform. No one
Asked me about feedback weather I was happy in the direction and support I had gotten or about how
Satisfied I was with the overall direction I had been given by their expert's.
What I did get is a renewal bill.
That showed me that even know I had been a loyal customer of theirs I wasn't important enough in
Giving feedback in supporting my business that I pay a lot of money for.
Their overall site is the bridge of getting clients in front of the right vendor for that perfect match.
Why I dislike The Knot...
I had advertised with The Knot for about two years at a very expensive price, but I did get a good result
Out of my investment at least for the first 18 months of doing business with them.
When I had made the decision not to move forward with renewing their contract in 2014, I had a
Dispute with the rep who had made a communication mistake and was charged for the next year worth
Of services.
After filing a complaint about the charge, I was able to prove that I had supporting paperwork that said I
Would not be continuing in advertising with The Knot. In return, they removed all my reviews and
Acknowledgment of winning three Best in Wedding and as of today, I still don't show up anywhere on
Their platform.
My whole point in writing this is the belief in providing OUTSTANDING CUSTOMER SERVICE and the
Review process which is what matters to me. What past client felt like after their special event and
Sharing it with others. Therefore, now I'm doing just that in a review.
One of my first jobs was with Nordstrom's where I learned about the approach in giving a great
Shopping experience to every customer who walked through their doors. I learned and grew with
Nordstrom and have nothing but respect for what they did for me throughout the years working for
Them.
When I left them, I never forgot about what made them so different from other retailers and have tried
To walk the same walk as I did when working for them.
That means again making sure that the clients that hire me, are given 110% of myself in making their
Special event all about them.
I feel that I have lost that relationship with WeddingWire and The Knot and feel like others should know
And learn that your only as good as your last review on what the client experience was when spending
Money for services.
People shop with people.
I advertised with WeddingWire for many years. My company did receive quite a bit of good-paying business through WeddingWire's leads. Business that was invaluable in helping my business grow. But here's the catch - AS A VENDOR, YOU MUST DO ONE OF TWO THINGS TO GET ENOUGH BUSINESS ON WEDDINGWIRE TO MAKE YOUR SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT IN A WEDDINGWIRE AD WORTH IT:
1) Pay additional for a "spotlight ad", which makes your ad expensive - by that I mean triple the cost of a comparable ad in an online marketplace focused on corporate event vendors instead of weddings. But the "spotlight" ad is guaranteed to always show up on the first page of search results for your city. That's how I got enough business through the years to justify the cost of the ad.
-- or --
2) Pay for a "regular" ad, offer prices low enough that you have no hope of doing freelance wedding work full-time and making a living. If you're a "weekend warrior" who wants extra money then this approach will work for you.
These are really the only two avenues I've found over the years that justify the cost of the WeddingWire ad. All other vendors who are paying for a "regular" ad (one that is not guaranteed to appear on the first page,) and who aren't showing up in results from filters used by bargain shoppers to narrow their search,
are probably not going to see enough leads to justify the vendor's significant investment in a WeddingWire ad.
Online marketplaces like WeddingWire are two-sided marketplaces. Meaning WeddingWire has two different types of customers: People planning a wedding who use the site for free, and vendors who pay a relatively significant amount of money (compared to say, paying for a robust Google Ads campaign) to advertise on the site. Before WeddingWire was purchased by their biggest competitor, TheKnot.com, the site was better - though still not great. Before the sale, my WeddingWire salesperson, in a candid moment, admitted that the employees at WeddingWire have internal arguments over who is their more important customer base - brides and grooms, or vendors? The salesperson said that the brides/grooms ultimately won this internal battle for the main focus and attention of WeddingWire employees. This makes some sense from a business standpoint- where would WeddingWire be without the brides/grooms that provide leads to the vendors, after all? However, for the amount of money you pay as a vendor for this service, it's obvious to vendors that you are not WeddingWire's first priority, even though vendors are the ones who keep the lights on at WeddingWire.
-- In many categories in the larger cities, WeddingWire takes on way too many vendors. In my city there are about 1200 photographers listed, for instance. People planning a wedding are confused by so many vendors, and that's why the first page of listings is the only place to be to guarantee a decent lead flow.
-- Vendors must sign a one-year contract, paid monthly. If the vendor isn't happy and tries to cancel the contract before the year is complete, WeddingWire will file a court claim for the unpaid amount to finish out the year. In this way, advertising on WeddingWire is more like signing a commercial lease for office space than signing up for a monthly online subscription fee. This fact isn't hidden from vendors by WeddingWire, but you do have to read the contract before signing. This is an unusual business model for any online business in 2023, since most online subscriptions that you can cancel at will. WeddingWire has been around for a long time, and this business model for online marketplaces is old-fashioned.
-- This one is important. If you don't get enough leads, your assigned WeddingWire sales representative is trained to blame you and the look of your Storefront, or the number or enthusiasm of your reviews. This interaction with a WeddingWire sales rep that I mentioned above was only the one time in many years of advertising that anyone at WeddingWire heard my complaints and admitted that I may have a point. The "blame" can sometimes be helpful - WeddingWire assigns someone to call the vendors who complain about lead quality or frequency to coach them through the process of sprucing up the vendor's Storefront on WeddingWire. But that's the most you will ever get if your ad is not working for you. Ever. It's not a real relationship with someone who cares about the vendors.
-- Similarly, WeddingWire will never take a negative review down, nor coach a bride to write a more fair review (the way they coach vendors who are unhappy to improve their storefront.) WeddingWire does arrange the reviews in a flattering way for the vendor, with positive reviews closer to the top. But I've had a small handful of vindictive brides who were pissed about one thing that wasn't "perfect" on their wedding day write scathing reviews with many falsehoods that WeddingWire would not do anything about. All WeddingWire will do is coach you to counteract the negative review with good reviews from your happy clients. This is easier said than done. Most brides are exhausted and moving on to other things (like married life, a new career, family planning, etc) as soon as the honeymoon is over. Additionally, if your clients are the type to spend a lot of money on a wedding, they're probably super-busy professionals or grad students who don't typically write reviews. So having a clientele that can support you financially as a wedding vendor is actually a curse when it comes to getting positive reviews. I found I had to offer the happy brides some type of incentive to encourage them to agree to write the review.
-- Like many others have said, there are a good number of fake leads that vendors get through WeddingWire. But unlike others, I don't blame WeddingWire for this. There are just a ton of largely foreign scammers preying on eager wedding vendors with the "I'm planning my wedding at the last-minute from [fill in foreign country], and I'll be in town soon, and I will send you a check ahead of my arrival" scam. (The check turns out to be fake. The "customer" has written the check in an amount that covers multiple vendors, and they act like it was a mistake. They request that the vendor forward some of the money to a different vendor -- who, of course, turns out to be the scammer's friend. The scammer hopes the vendor's bank floats the fake check for a few days before actually trying to withdraw the money from the fake account, and meanwhile the scam happens.)
For awhile, wedding clients were searching for (and booking) almost all their vendors through Instagram hashtags. Luckily, I've noticed a return to normalcy as clients realize that Instagram is mostly not reflective of reality. WeddingWire is still a solid lead source if you follow my advice above. If you don't have the money to afford the Spotlight ad, knowing the ins and outs of SEO and paying for a Google Adwords campaign may be the way to go for you. I recommend Adam Clarke's book "SEO 2023" for an easy-to-read but knowledgeable path to juicing up your SEO tactics and getting leads through Google. Good luck. The wedding business is hard. I wish you all the best.
Products used:
Vendor with vendor listing on WeddingWire
The guest list is a really nice feature, but it's not seamless and if you make a mistake it's a pain in the butt to fix.
1 you have to type every address out multiple times. They don't give you a way to easily copy addresses to other contacts.
2 After exporting the guest list, editing it, then importing it back, an entirely new group of people is created. Basically, you will have duplicate contacts with all the links, groups and lists GONE. They need to be smarter. Any changes should be recognized and automatically updated once your list is imported back to the website. What a waste of time.
3 There should be a +1 button to add the +1 guest, rather than typing it all in. That +1 guest should also stay with it's linked contact.
I find the planning tools very helpful but have been less than pleased with the open forum.
There seems to be a lot of negative comments and a few vendors that have run a muck with snarky comments.
There is a lot of "know it alls" that really know nothing. The demographic is for the 30 and under crowd and because of the ages of the members, their life experiences lead to very bad advise.
It's like a mean girl clique in high school.
Hi Mardi,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. We're sorry to hear you feel this way, as we strive make the WeddingWire Community a safe and enriching place for all users. Forum discussions are guided by our Forum Rules and Community Guidelines, which require all members to respect the time and expertise of others. We take violations of our rules very seriously. All of this said, if you have a specific violation you would like to be further investigated, please email us directly at community@weddingwire.com. Thank you!
-Lauren
I am upset that if a client posts a negative review for a vendor our review is pulled down and subject to review that takes 2 weeks to get reinstated (mine is still not up yet). Meanwhile, all of sudden my vendor gets all these 5 out of 5 reviews and her rating shoots up. All the clients have only 1 review (hers). I find that awfully suspicious. Where is weddingwire's policy on checking up on vendors to boost their rating. This can hurt future brides and grooms that rely on these reviews.
As a vendor, we receive very good reviews. However we notice that the reviews aren't screened properly and our competition has put bogus reviews on our site. There seems to be no remedy. On the Knot we can take a review down that we know is not true. Wedding Wire doesn't offer that so we get stuck with unfair reviews
Hi there,
We have a security system in place to ensure that vendors cannot write reviews for themselves/and or their competition. Can you please email support@weddingwire.com with the business of the vendor you are concerned with?
We would be happy to investigate this case further for you!
Best,
Lauren
Gain trust and grow your business with customer reviews.
Have an urgent question? Please contact support@weddingpro.com for vendor inquiries and help@weddingwire.com for couples and guest support.
For engaged couples, WeddingWire is the category leader in local business reviews, offering the ability to search, compare and book over 200,000 recently reviewed wedding vendors, from wedding venues to wedding photographers. WeddingWire also offers a comprehensive suite of online planning tools for weddings, including wedding websites and wedding checklists, all at no charge. WeddingWire is about helping brides and groom execute efficiently and effectively on their weddings.
For wedding vendors, WeddingWire is the only all-in-one business platform for businesses online and on-the-go. WeddingWire offers one comprehensive, self-service platform to reach prospective clients on web and mobile, schedule online appointments, manage multi-media assets, improve search visibility, manage social media and network with other local merchants. Over 120,000 merchants have adopted the WeddingWire platform and continue to leverage the feature set to help power their business
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We're always looking for ways to improve the experience of Wedding Professionals using our sites and we value your input. If you would like to share any additional details regarding your experience or need assistance with your account at any time, feel free to contact our WeddingPro Support Team at support@weddingpro.com or 877-331-7752.