Source: Entertainment Weekly // Image Credit: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Wow!  Royal Wedding Fever has come… And, whether or not you care, the industry is going to change.  (Read up on Business Insider’s Article How Kate Middleton Reinvented the Wedding Industry).  In case you forgot, or weren’t alive in the 1980s, Princess Di is the reason we lived thru the glory of over-the-top puffy sleeved dresses for about a decade.  Get ready folks!!!

Like the smart business owner that you are, you’re probably asking yourself some of the following questions:

  • Do I want to capitalize on royal wedding fever?
  • How should I adapt my business?
  • What trends do I want to incorporate?
  • What does this mean for me?
  • Is this what people are going to want from my business?

This week, we’re going to talk about the impact of the royal wedding on your business.  Here are my initial thoughts:

Change is gradual…

Change does not happen overnight.  Trends build. We’ll begin to see some changes in the next few months and they will continue to evolve over the span of this decade.

Wedding industry trends have a long development cycle. Because people plan weddings 12-18 months before the big day, it takes a while to see the culmination of change in this industry.  The weddings that will happen this summer were being planned in 2009 and 2010.  We have already been working on weddings that will take place in 2012.  We will start to see some of the trends from the royal wedding then.  But, if your client already booked their farm venue, chances are that they won’t be changing it for a Church wedding.  We’ll start to see major changes and much more in line with Kate and Will’s wedding choices in 2013.  Tho, our businesses will begin to slowly change NOW, we won’t see the actual weddings change immediately.  (This explains why we, in the industry, are often tired of wedding trends long before the brides themselves have actually caught on.)

There are Innovators, Adopters, and Laggards

Malcolm Gladwell perfectly describes Who Decides What’s Cool in his book The Tipping Point. In it he talks about the following trend-setters, trend-builders, and trend-followers:

  • Innovators: People who create the trend; Visionaries
  • Early Adopters: People who quickly respond to the new trend and incorporate the trend quickly; These people bring the trend to the masses
  • Early Majority: The segment of the mainstream population who will try something first
  • Late Majority: The segment of the mainstream population who will try something once it’s “gone mainstream”
  • Laggards: People who adopt the trend when it has become passé OR those who do not adopt and who embrace tradition

Finding Your Place

The wedding industry is incredibly innovative.  However, the innovators – in this scenario – are Will & Kate and the wedding professionals who put this wedding together.  They are setting the trends that much of the wedding industry will mirror.  Right now, we’re seeing some early adopters working quickly to bring the innovation to the masses. The big question is… where do you fall in the rest of the chain?  Is this an innovation you want to bring to the masses?  Do you want to create your own innovation?  And, most important: what do your customers expect of you?

Tomorrow…we’re going to do some soul-searching and think about who we are, what our clients want of us, and where the royal wedding falls into all this.

Circle back here tomorrow to chat about incorporating the royal wedding into your business (or NOT).