How to Calculate Your Minimum for Events
Finding your ideal minimums for weddings.
How do I figure out what my minimum should be for weddings and events?
Having a minimum for weddings is essential to grow your business and book your ideal clients.
That sounds easy, right? The question is how do you determine what your minimum should be?
I think most of us pluck the number out of thin air. We think about the sweet spot of a wedding budget and where we want to be with floral budgets without putting the facts and numbers together. You can determine a realistic minimum budget very easily with real numbers to help.
The two things to look at are HISTORY and REALITY.
History:
Fall is around the corner and for many of us weddings slow down or stop, this is a great time to sit down and look at all of the weddings you’ve done in 2022. Focus in on the ones that felt really, really good. Your team managed it well, you hit your profit goals, you felt like a rockstar.
Now take those and look at the totals - average them. This is one number to look at.
Reality:
This one takes a little bit more time and it’s really important! Take some time to determine your AVERAGE (not minimum) price for each element. Write a recipe if you need to (see our blog post about recipe writing here) and make sure to use current pricing and labor costs.I even add on a bit here to anticipate further rising costs. So, you’ll determine your average price for a bridal bouquet, a centerpiece, an arch, an aisle meadow, etc. Now look at your ideal wedding (above) and determine how many of each element you would design for your ideal wedding. Do the math and you’ll come up with your minimum.
Now, look at these two numbers - they should be very close. You can set your minimum for 2023 somewhere in the middle or choose the higher or lower of the numbers, that's up to you.
To be clear this is the minimum for your ideal wedding and your ideal client. Will you do weddings below this number? That’s up to you. If it’s smaller than your ideal wedding but the minimum for each element is there and it’s a wedding you want to do - then yes. It’s your decision. If you are setting your goals and doing your business plan for 2023 and your goal is growth - then maybe not. That’s the beauty of owning your own business - you get to decide.