Wedding Industry Statistics and Benchmarks for Your 2024 Strategy

With an estimated 2.5 million weddings in 2022, the industry is booming. Whether a couple is eloping or planning an elaborate celebration, it requires time and preparation. Social media can be a source of inspiration, tips, tricks, and organization tactics that can help guide couples through all aspects of planning.  

With that said, social media is also an incredible platform for wedding marketing, as it provides brands with organic opportunities for awareness. 

Dash Hudson analyzed nearly 100 brands in the wedding industry to provide a set of Instagram benchmarks. These benchmarks provide brands with an understanding of how their content compares to the industry average. If you wonder if there’s opportunity for your brand on social media or need to prove it’s efficacy to a wider team, benchmarks demonstrate how the wedding industry performs on Instagram and whether it’s a worthwhile investment for your brand.

In this article, we discuss: 

• Which businesses fall into the wedding industry,
• Wedding industry benchmarks,
• Which social platforms are most effective for the wedding industry,
• How Dash Hudson can enhance and support your marketing strategy, 
• Frequently asked questions about wedding industry marketing. 

Which Businesses Fall Into the Wedding Industry Category?

The market size of the wedding industry in the United States is projected to grow to a staggering $413.98 billion in 2030, and was valued at $160.5 billion in 2020. With that in mind, it’s no surprise that the industry encompasses a wide range of brands. 

Dash Hudson’s Wedding benchmarks include brands in the following categories:

• Bridal wear ranging from wedding to bridesmaids dresses, lingerie, shoes, jewelry, and accessories 
• Wedding rings and brands 
• Decorations such as tablescapes to flowers 
• Stationery products or services
• Publishing companies 
• Services including photography, planning tools, hair and makeup

Instagram Wedding Industry Benchmarks

To provide wedding brands with a baseline for how they stack up, Dash Hudson analyzed nearly 100 wedding brands to provide four key benchmarks:

Dash Hudson’s Wedding Industry benchmarks for Instagram provide brands with a target and give valuable insight into the wedding industry landscape.

For example, on Instagram, the monthly growth rate for wedding brands is an impressive 2.3%! This growth rate surpasses the overall industry average of 0.6%, suggesting that the wedding industry has an increasingly interested audience for wedding content compared to other industries.

One of the most interesting findings is that Reels content performs 3x higher than static and carousel content for wedding posts. If your brand only focuses on static or carousel content, including Reels content may be a way to increase your engagement rate. Instagram’s algorithm also gives Reels content the opportunity for uncapped Reach, meaning your brand’s content is no longer limited to just your followers.

Another way to drive action and engagement on Instagram is by tapping into creators and UGC. As audiences become more niche, creators are an authentic way to reach niche audiences. Repurposing UGC is another way to drive engagement while building a community on Instagram. UGC specific to the wedding industry is highly effective because it is taking real-life wedding footage from someone’s special day, or even persuasive content from wedding prep itself. 

Dash Hudson’s Relationships tool can help you to measure influencer and creator ROI to understand how powerful brand ambassadors and UGC can be for your bottom line.

Dash Hudson’s Methodology for Collecting Wedding Industry Benchmark Data 

Data was collected using the following methodology:

Dash Hudson based wedding industry benchmarks on content posted between July 1 - Dec 31, 2022. This includes a sample of over 100 brands in the wedding industry, ranging from accounts of varying follower sizes. 

Which Social Media Platforms Are Best for Wedding Industry Marketing

While we already know the wedding industry has plenty of opportunities on Instagram, what about other platforms? 

We have yet to dive into TikTok trends for the wedding industry, but we know that, on average, brands on TikTok have a growth rate of 12% and an engagement rate of 4.6%. This data suggests that users on the platform are engaged.

In our most recent Social Media Trends Report, we identified that niche content is one of the three pillars of successful, entertaining content on Instagram and TikTok based on Dash Hudson’s Entertainment Score. Wedding brands can be considered a niche, as the content is not relevant to everyone and caters to those planning a wedding. 

We’ve listed a few examples of successful wedding brands that we admire:

Wedding Wire

Wedding Wire is a planning tool that helps users find venues, cakes, dresses and more. The company capitalizes on Reels in Its Instagram strategy, sharing a mix of funny and emotional UGC wedding footage.

• ‍Instagram Engagement Rate: 2.3%
  

Love Stories

Love Stories TV is a media company that features filmmakers’ wedding videos on its TV channel. The company repurposes this content on its Instagram and TikTok accounts, sharing real-life stories that will make you want to keep watching.

• Instagram Engagement Rate: 16.5%‍‍
  

Jenny Yoo

Bridal wear brand, Jenny Yoo, showcases its beautiful wedding gowns and bridesmaid dresses using Reels content. The short-form video is great for users who want an idea of how the dresses look. The brand also posts UGC from brides wearing dresses at their weddings, creating a sense of community. 

• Instagram Engagement Rate: 0.5%

Angela Mugnai

Angela Mugnai Events is a design and production company specializing in making your dream venue a reality. Angela Mugnai's Instagram is full of inspiration from tablescapes to cakes. This account is the perfect example of how Instagram is used to promote a company while offering couples inspiration for their special day. 

• ‍Instagram Engagement Rate:  0.8%

How Dash Hudson Can Propel Your Wedding Marketing Strategy

Brands that have a stake in the wedding industry rely on visual content for the best engagement — Dash Hudson's Vision AI will take your brand’s creative strategy over the edge by determining which posts in your content library have the best chance at performing. It also helps monitor competitor’s performance, and identify trends within your own content. 

Engagement is crucial to driving conversions, and the shopping experience should be as seamless as possible. With LikeShop, brands have a sophisticated link-in-bio solution that brand’s can also attach UTM codes to to track performance and monitor success.  

Managing your Instagram performance in Dash Hudson will save you time, help you surface meaningful insights to elevate your brand, and help you grow your market share in this competitive space.

FAQs

How has the wedding industry changed in recent years?

While the pandemic may have impacted the type of wedding that couples are planning —for example, having more intimate weddings versus large gatherings, the role of social media has become more integral in the planning process. Social media platforms such as Instagram are a source of planning and inspiration.

Why is digital marketing important for wedding planning?

The shift to short-form video content has inspired so much new content for the industry. Brands can showcase styles and inspiration and provide wedding footage more efficiently than ever.

What is the target market for weddings? 

While weddings can be a fun topic for anyone, the target market for weddings is generally engaged couples looking to plan a wedding. However, suppliers and vendors may also be a target, as partnerships in the wedding industry are common.