For the 15th edition of the Global Wedding Market Report, we surveyed 53,493 people in eight languages.
The first of the 2025 Wedding Market Reports from Splendid Insights are now available to download! To celebrate the launch of the 15th edition of these reports, they are all 50% off through this Friday, January 17th.
We have been tracking the consumer behavior of real brides and grooms for the past 16 years and scientifically validate all data to ensure accuracy.
For 2024 weddings, we surveyed 53,493 people (in eight languages!) from around the world.
For this 15th edition of the Global Wedding Market Report, we also added some new questions (the reports are now 74 pages instead of 35) and added three new wedding vendor categories: content creators, insurance policy providers, and security services.
This massive undertaking was spearheaded by Rachel Cohen, our Director of Research. I am eternally grateful for all she has done to bring Splendid Insights to the next level.
Special thanks also goes to Sarah Bradshaw, the official photography partner for Splendid Insights, for the gorgeous images.
If you’re not already familiar, Splendid Insights is the wedding market research firm I founded in 2009 as a sister company to Think Splendid.
When I was writing my first book on the business of weddings, I found myself increasingly frustrated by the wedding research available. Much of what was being shared as “fact“ was little more than narrow anecdotal evidence at best or unscrupulous wedding vendors just making things up at worst.
The free market research published by wedding media brands limited their surveys to just their own users and overlooked significant segments of the wedding community. These reports were also financially biased – they would highlight areas that served the brands’ profit centers (such as vendor advertising) and would hide anything that didn’t.
The unbiased wedding market research that was available often came with a hefty price tag – starting at $10,000 per user – doable for a big-box retailer, but out of reach for the majority of wedding businesses. It also tended to be wildly inaccurate.
Back then, luxury weddings were defined as anything over $60,000 and there was very little reliable data available on weddings with 6-, 7-, or 8-figure budgets.
When I asked about this lack of data, I was told that "only 10 weddings a year cost over $1 million, if that." I knew this wasn’t even remotely true as several of my consulting clients worked on more than that each wedding season.
So I decided do something about this lack of valid wedding industry information and Splendid Insights was born.
As I mentioned, before Splendid Insights only two wedding budget categories existed: average and luxury ($60,000+). In 2009, we decided to split budgets into six categories to better analyze how couples make wedding decisions.
The six wedding budget category definitions are:
Premium Wedding Budget: $31,000-$95,000
Standard Wedding Budget: $11,000-$30,000
Economical Wedding Budget: $1,100-$10,000
Intimate Wedding Budget: $1000 or less
The category names were chosen based on where spending averages fell in relation to household income (HHI) and net worth.
I coined the term “ultra luxury wedding” to align with the financial term “ultra high net worth individual” (UHNWI).
In naming the wedding budget ranges, we were guided by our core value that every wedding is worthy of respect, no matter how much a couple spends or chooses to celebrate. We intentionally selected wording that is not condescending nor judgmental of anyone’s financial priorities.
Today, these wedding budget definitions are considered the industry standard, are taught in universities, and are used by the hospitality, tourism, beauty, fashion, and retail industries in their wedding-related strategies.
The global wedding industry is now worth a whopping $1.3 trillion USD per year. (China alone accounts for about $500 billion of that.)
All currency in the 2025 Wedding Market Reports is denoted in USD after being adjusted for purchasing power parity using the respective GDP deflators.
Each participant in this real weddings study received their original survey in one of eight languages with custom currency options.
Results were then PPP-adjusted to USD by our research team. This way we’re comparing apples to apples (or cakes to cakes).
One of the reasons I founded Splendid Insights is because unbiased data can help you make smarter decisions when it comes to running your wedding business.
The luxury and ultra-luxury wedding budget clients are no exception to this:
Everyone likes to think wealthy clients don’t look for wedding pros on Google and only hire through their wedding planner.
The research shows this is not true. In fact, 78% of couples with ultra luxury budgets hired at least of their wedding vendors through a Google search and 1 in 3 couples with luxury wedding budgets started looking for their photographer before they were even engaged.
Yes, they hire through their wedding planner’s recommendations, but that is not the only source high-end brides and grooms use to find the vendors they hire for their wedding.When I ask wedding pros why they want to break into the luxury wedding market, one reason I hear all the time is that “wealthy clients don’t negotiate” and the wedding pros are tired of clients wanting a deal.
This is another myth that the wedding market research refutes: 59% of couples said a wedding pro’s willingness to negotiate mattered when deciding who to hire and the same amount (59%) of Ultra Luxury Wedding couples agreed.
In fact, Ultra Luxury couples negotiate more often than couples who are spending less: 57% of brides and grooms with ultra luxury wedding budgets negotiated with their wedding planner compared to 42% globally.
While this fact may be surprising, it makes more sense once you stop to think about it: many high net worth (HNW) people are used to others trying to take advantage of their wealth or status — even those they once considered close friends.
They see the cartoon dollar signs that people get in their eyes (🤑🤑🤑) when they’re around and have often learned the hard way to keep their guard up when it comes to money.
Yes, they are willing to pay for quality, but they are not willing to be taken for a fool.
Don’t let your ego get in the way here. Negotiation is someone saying, “I want this to work, let’s figure it out.” That’s a maybe, not outright rejection. You can work with a maybe.
You can currently download the following 2025 Wedding Market Reports for 50% off through this Friday, January 17th:
2025 Global Wedding Market Report
Written by
LIENE STEVENS
Liene Stevens, the founder and CEO of Think Splendid, is an author, speaker, award-winning luxury business strategist and behavioral psychologist.
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Founded in 2005 and trusted by clients in 97 countries, Think Splendid is the global leader in wedding industry business consulting.
We provide strategic guidance to industry leaders, luxury brands, hotels, and tourism destinations that serve high net worth and ultra-high net worth brides, grooms, and wedding guests.
