How Much Should Traveling Wedding Pros Charge?

Recently, Thrillist came up with some data examining how much people spend per state when they give a cash gift for a wedding.

Things fall in line more or less where you would expect them to, with some exceptions.

For example, the average cash gift in California is $150, but in my home state of Ohio, it’s $164.

This is in spite of the fact that is costs about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times more to live in California than Ohio, and all there is to do in Ohio is bowl.

The most generous state is Vermont, where well-wishers shell out about $245 per cash gift. That will buy a lot of maple syrup and a nice day skiing.

On the other side of the spectrum is Arkansas, where the average is $73. But that’s also a fair price for Arkansas syrup and a day of Arkansas skiing.

If you’re a wedding professional who travels, such news comes as no surprise to you. You’ve already seen the vast difference in the price of Vienna sausages in each state, or other products if, unlike me, you don’t eat disgusting canned meat.

Have you tweaked your prices accordingly?

Perhaps you should consider it. If you’d be willing to travel to the Deep South and charge a bit less to fit their more modest budget, are you costing yourself business by charging a flat rate?

Or maybe you already work heavily in poorer states and don’t realize you can be charging more in New York, New England, and the West Coast.

Flexible pricing can lead to more business in both directions.

The data comes from Tendr “a site for giving personalized cash gifts.” They include a few tips with their data, such as:

“When you’re deciding how much to give for a cash gift, consider your relationship with the couple and how well you know them.”

“Hey honey? How well do we know and like the Hendersons? $89 worth or $58 dollars worth? Vermont syrup’s worth, or Arkansas syrup?”

“Use the amount you’d be comfortable spending on a physical gift as a guide for how much to give. A budget is a budget, regardless of what you’re giving.”

 I thought I was supposed to base my offering on how tight I was with them! What’s this new wrench?

Maybe Tendr has a complicated sliding scale and axis algorithm where I can graph how much I like the couple vs. how much I’d be willing to spend on a physical gift.

“Remember, it’s not about how much, it’s about how. When you give money, writing a thoughtful message makes your gift personal.”

That’s all well and good, but if you’re dealing with a couple that signed up for a cash registry (that seems to be Tendr’s model), then they probably want or need your moolah more than  being miffed that you didn’t include a nice poem.

But I’ll give it a shot:

Roses are red

Violets are blue

What’s your worth to me?

About $72.

 

Do you vary your pricing based on location? Leave a comment and share below!