{"id":276580,"date":"2022-02-21T09:44:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-20T22:44:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.easyweddings.com\/au\/pro-education\/case-study-the-wedding-crasher\/"},"modified":"2023-04-14T16:50:56","modified_gmt":"2023-04-14T06:50:56","slug":"case-study-the-wedding-crasher","status":"publish","type":"au-pro-education","link":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/pro-education\/case-study-the-wedding-crasher\/","title":{"rendered":"How Brent \u2018The Wedding Crasher\u2019 grew to 100+ weddings in two years – and quit his full-time job"},"content":{"rendered":"

This Perth dad took a crash course in wedding marketing when he joined Easy Weddings \u2014 now, he\u2019s one of the West’s busiest celebrants.<\/p>\n

\"Brent<\/p>\n

Brent Dickson, aka The Wedding Crasher<\/strong><\/a>, first listed with Easy Weddings back in August 2019 while he was still working full-time selling PVC pipes and plumbing supplies.<\/p>\n

In just under two years, with the help of his Easy Weddings advertising<\/strong><\/a>, he booked enough weddings to become fully self-employed and is absolutely loving his \u201cnew start\u201d as a Perth and Fremantle marriage celebrant.<\/p>\n

The Rookie Road to The Aisle<\/span><\/h2>\n

Of course, as a new business owner, it wasn\u2019t a straight line to the aisle. A fair bit of trial and error had to happen before Brent could realise his ideal clients weren\u2019t hanging out in bride groups on Facebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started getting on these Perth wedding sites and on Facebook,\u201d he says. \u201cIf someone came up saying, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m looking for a celebrant\u2019, I found that maybe two out of every 10 enquiries would want to meet, but they were really price-conscious. So then I\u2019d drop my price.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot sure why I did that to myself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI took it personally if an enquiry didn\u2019t get back to me. I learned pretty quickly that it wasn\u2019t because of me \u2014 but I was priced out. I was in the wrong target, I was in the wrong area and people weren\u2019t worried about who was going to be their celebrant, it was how much their celebrant was going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upfront Pricing Means Minimal Money Talk<\/span><\/h2>\n

One of the things that helped Brent turn sales conversations from \u201chow much?\u201d to \u201chow can I help?\u201d was being transparent about his prices. When an enquiry comes in, Brent replies with a quote within 24 hours, and if the couple is happy with it, he invites them to a no-obligation meet-up.<\/p>\n

\"Brent<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the clients I get now, we don\u2019t have a price conversation,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s about them. It\u2019s about their day. It\u2019s what they want. Nine out of ten meetings they\u2019ll say, \u2018Yep, happy to move forward,\u2019 and that\u2019s from probably 50% of all enquiries.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds, \u201cOn Easy Weddings, you\u2019re able to display your prices so it\u2019s pretty upfront as to how much you\u2019re going to be. As a result of that, you\u2019re only getting people who are price-aware when they contact you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I took my name off all those Facebook pages and asked friends to stop recommending me there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crafting a High Converting Storefront with Images and Reviews<\/span><\/h2>\n

As a brand new celebrant, Brent was still learning how best to market to millennials<\/strong><\/a> when he started working with his Easy Weddings account manager, Chelsea. One of the first things she advised him to do was work on gathering quality content for his storefront.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, Brent didn\u2019t have many photos we could use to create his storefront,\u201d says Chelsea, \u201cbut we were able to repurpose some images from his own wedding just so he could make a start. Knowing how important high quality, emotive images are, Brent worked hard on getting those images so we could add them to his profile<\/strong><\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other area Brent focused on, that\u2019s helped him get to an 83% profile strength so far, is client reviews. Within two years, Brent earned 40 five-star reviews<\/strong><\/a>, which he now uses as one of his key sales strategies.<\/p>\n

\"Brent<\/p>\n

\u201cI always say to couples that if they want to see my reviews, hop onto Easy Weddings and have a look. All my reviews are there,\u201d he explains. \u201cBut half the time, they\u2019ve already looked at Easy Weddings before coming through from my website.\u201d<\/p>\n

Utilising many of the in-built features of his Easy Weddings storefront, Brent has also written an engaging bio, crafted personalised answers to frequently asked questions, and had his storefront professionally written by our in-house content team.<\/p>\n

New Heights<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u201cI heard of people doing a hundred weddings in a year and I was just like, \u2018How am I going to do that?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a question Brent asked himself while he was still a hobbyist celebrant. He says, \u201cSo, I contacted probably the busiest celebrant in WA to catch up for a coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirk Samuel Goodsell<\/strong><\/a> is a Perth marriage celebrant and a long-time member of Easy Weddings. \u201cOne of the things I asked him was, what to do if someone\u2019s not getting back to me,\u201d recalls Brent. \u201cHe said, you need to do two follow-up emails, maybe within a fortnight, and if they don\u2019t come back to you, then you just have to move on. He also said to get that first email out within 24 hours; action that straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When Brent decided to take the plunge and give Easy Weddings a go, he started out with a \u201cPriority\u201d level listing that very quickly resulted in enquiries and bookings. \u201cThen I spoke to Chelsea about doing more weddings in the south of Perth. We upgraded my campaign to the \u201cPremium\u201d level and I look at the overall result. For what I put in, it\u2019s a no-brainer. If I got five weddings a month through Easy Weddings, that more than covers the cost.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2021, Brent upgraded again, taking advantage of Easy Weddings\u2019 new \u201cPremium Plus\u201d offer to receive additional exposure with a long-form SEO article, social media campaigns and newsletter features.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a great article<\/strong><\/a>,\u201d Brent says, \u201cI attach it in an email to all my enquiries, and it\u2019s helped me secure several bookings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Post-Pandemic Advice for Fellow Wedding Biz Owners<\/span><\/h2>\n

Brent\u2019s road to becoming a full-time wedding celebrant has been so inspiring, we wanted to hear what other advice he had for fellow wedding business owners \u2014 particularly in the recovery from the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, you have to make sure you\u2019ve got something to offer. So, get your marketing right \u2014 your Facebook, your Instagram, your reviews, your Easy Weddings site, your website \u2014 get that sorted.<\/p>\n

\"Brent<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then you have to invest in your business and it\u2019s not always about money. It\u2019s networking. Three weeks ago, I went down south for a week and I organised 10 meetings with venues I\u2019d never met before.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t sit back in your lounge room and say, \u2018Why is nothing coming to me?\u2019 \u201cIf you don\u2019t go out and give something first, nothing\u2019s going to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life\u2019s Great as a Celebrant \u2014 But Better as a Dad<\/span><\/h2>\n

Becoming a full-time celebrant has not only meant a stunning career change for the former Reece Group manager of 15 years, more importantly, it\u2019s given Brent and his young family flexibility and balance at a time they needed it most.<\/p>\n

\"Brent<\/p>\n

\u201cSoon after our second child, Frank was born, he had to have open-heart surgery,\u201d Brent reveals. \u201cSomeone had to stay home to look after him. It was going to be me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely love being a celebrant \u2014 but, really, even more important than that, I now have the time, flexibility and balance to be there for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m doing this now for my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Curious to see how your business could grow with Easy Weddings? <\/span><\/i>Tell us a little about yourself<\/span><\/i><\/a> and we\u2019ll reach out for a no-obligation chat.<\/span><\/i><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":270929,"template":"","au_pro_edu_tags":[],"class_list":["post-276580","au-pro-education","type-au-pro-education","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","au_pro_edu_categories-supplier-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-pro-education\/276580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au-pro-education"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/au-pro-education"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"au_pro_edu_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easyweddings.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/au_pro_edu_tags?post=276580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}