The Vegas Wedding Hype is
JUST GETTING STARTED . . .
Lynn Marie Goya, Clark County Clerk, along with the Las Vegas Wedding Chamber of Commerce, Las Vegas Convention & Visitor’s Authority (LVCVA), and several integral entities in the Vegas Wedding Industry shed light on The Current State of the Wedding Industry, Thursday, June 23, 2022 at The Tuscany Resort and Casino.
Tuscany Resort and Casino hosted the Las Vegas Wedding Chamber of Commerce, LVCVA, Clark County Clerk’s Office, and many more in tonight’s presentation of “The Current State of the Wedding Industry.”
This event recaps the previous year, sets the tone for the following 12 months, and provides marketing insights to all involved in the Wedding Industry.
Hashtags, such as #ForeverHappensHere – #5MillionLoveStories – and so many more are strategized, planned, and executed with the full support of the Las Vegas Wedding Community.
The brains behind such marketing efforts ranged from PR Plus’s Aimee Stephens, the persistence of Clark County Clerk Lynn Marie Goya, and the talented team behind the digital presence of the @vegasweddingcapital JMP Force.
I had the wonderful pleasure of meeting Vivian Palmer, Palmer Global Solutions in discussing topics ranging from the work she did in preparation for the SOTWI Event and her lifetime work of creating opportunities and expanding education for domestic and international students.
As my work with Amy Vandermarketing continues, the roots of Nevada education are receiving the nourishment of a well founded network. I can’t wait to continue the conversation with this new friend!
Vivian Palmer shared that she enjoyed typing up my quote, and I praised her for making my rambling an eloquent conspectus:
Vegas Weddings are Joyful “I think there is going to be a silver lining, a saving grace, a reminder of who we are and why we do what we do. Weddings are joyful coming out of the last two years. Embracing joy seems to be a common thread. Everyone seems to be on board with that. I think it is just going to be an amazing complement to all other talking points that surround Las Vegas.”
If you were wondering where all the marketing dollars come from to fund such efforts, it was the brilliant mind of now Clark County Clerk, Lynn Marie Goya, who added a $14 fee to each Wedding License issued. This revenue generator has created an influx of several hundred thousand marketing dollars to the Marriage License Bureau’s budget to disperse domestically and regionally. The idea was prompted in 2015 when marriage license issuance dipped for the first time in years, and has been a focus item for the city and county as a whole ever since.
One of my biggest take-aways from the event each year is the regions where our wedding traffic is originating, since this assists in marketing strategy for small business (and big business) initiatives. Please see a breakdown of the top 10 states and top 10 cities accounting for marriage license issuance.
All in attendance were happy to report and happy to hear that marriage licenses issued have once again stabilized with the tourism traffic as shown in the slide below.
Aimee Stephens of PR Plus reminded the wedding community that our main objective in marketing is for more people to think VEGAS when they think WEDDINGS.
Initiatives around specialty dates, such as 2.2.22 and 2.22.22 drove traffic not only physically to the valley, but also digitally. The 5 Millionth Marriage License issued was completed on 2.20.22 and the couple is shown below.
The exponential value of social media was a fantastic surprise when Aimee Stephens, PR Plus, shared this image of the 5 Millionth Couple dawning a Brad Paisley T-Shirt with Brad Paisley’s PR Team.
Not only did his team pick up and share the monumental occasion on their digital channels – Allegiant Air provided complimentary airfare, Caesar’s Entertainment provided complimentary stays, and Wynn Las Vegas provided back stage passes for the Brad Paisley concert that the couple was now invited to attend.
As we can see from this story alone, the wedding industry of Las Vegas has quite a draw, great name recognition, and is a benefit to the Southern Nevada community as a whole.
After the above article was released, Ramon Montez and team at LVCVA quickly jumped on the verbiage “Don’t let forever wait on your marriage license. . .” and started issuing micro-targeted ads announcing “SAME DAY MARRIAGE LICENSE” – and the efforts have been effective. Efforts were targeted in Southern California, as in the instance in Santa Clara, the couple would need to wait 6 days to receive a response to their application to only then find out that their license would take an additional 6 – 8 weeks to be issued.
Another favorite take-away from the presentation was from JMP Force – the Social Media Firm brought on my the Marriage License Bureau. They showed their analytics from this past year – and STAGGERING – STAGGERING numbers – we are talking Top 6 Most Viral Viewed Video with over 1.28 MILLION views. ^^^Click that link to see the video – currently at 929K views on TikTok alone.
Not to mention their audience demographic on TikTok is 98% female.
Wedding Industry – take note – 98% female on TikTok – you can’t make up a skewed number like that.
Great wisdom shared by Paul Ryu of JMP Force, is that “the audience responds and engages when they see a personality behind the content.” When the content creator is well versed in the platforms and up-to-date on current trends, the value will speak for itself.
I took a moment to meet Paul and his wife Mindi after the event. Paul was thrilled to hear of my marketing background, and my favorite quote of the evening was when he exclaimed, “Oh – you’re speakin’ my language!” as we discussed GTM strategy and juggling priorities.
There were so many other great takeaways:
1. WEDDING INDUSTRY – respond to the Wedding Chamber emails asking for your promotion, response, etc. These are GREAT PR & Media opportunities that not many are taking advantage of (or not prioritizing in my case – oops!).
PRO TIP: Media & PR Opportunities will provide backlinks, driving the authority and trust of your website which will enable more traffic finding your website for services related to the wedding industry. #themoreyouknow
2. There are some COOL and INTERACTIVE applications within LVCVA & the Wedding Industry. Join the LUCKY IN LOVE contest to receive free brand awareness, opportunity for engagement, and the ability to make more happy memories include your business. Go to the LVCVA’s landing page for Lucky in Love to learn more or click here for full rules. See below on how to get involved as a wedding vendor.
As always, thank you for reading.
I may add to this post as more information and tid-bits are available in the immense amount of notes I took and information that was available. (This current version is surface level information)
I also was interviewed by press – so hopefully Forge Social House gets a nice media plug that I can share with all of you as well!
Thank you to the Office of County Clerk, Lynn Marie Goya, for hosting another stellar event. This event was the first event I attended after diving into the Wedding Industry in 2021, and it is the event that made me sit back and think – I made the right decision. It lit the flame of passion within me. I am so grateful that I get to be a part of it and share it all with you.
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