February is the month of declaring and celebrating love with your significant other. According to WomanGettingMarried.com, Valentine’s Day is the second most popular day for couples to get engaged, which means we are officially in engagement season.
Whether your venue is a restaurant, hotel, or unique venue, there are a few things you can do to ensure the proposal moment is perfect for your couples. It's time to get your venue ready for engagement season!
First, make it known that your venue offers Proposal Specials for couples. In order to get couples planning their very special proposals at your venue, they have to know it's a possibility. Start marketing your proposal packages now via your website, social media channels, and email promotions.
Sometimes, all it takes is offering your professional expertise for free in order to get couples to book with you. If you have experience helping others plan the perfect proposal, offer a free consultation via email or phone call. You can also promote this service on social media and your website. This is an excellent way to show off your skills and get couples excited about what you can do for them.
Make sure your venue has a dedicated corner, private room, or an area that can quickly be transformed into a private space when you have a proposal couple coming in. You will also want to make sure that the space is properly lit for the first look at the ring and all those photos they will want to capture to remember the night by.
Decorate the area to enhance the romantic ambiance and set it apart from the rest of the venue. Add fresh flowers, battery-operated candles, a ‘Marry Me’ sign, balloons, frames for personal photos, a custom printed menu, or napkins. These personal touches come together to create a truly one-of-a-kind experience for a once-in-a-lifetime moment for these couples.
Curate a food and beverage menu dedicated to heightening romance and sharability between the couple. Tall glasses of champagne, oysters, charcuterie boards, and small desserts they can feed each other.
Do you have a pastry chef on staff who can whip up some gourmet chocolates or macaroons for the happy couple after their meal is complete and they are celebrating over champagne?? Bring your Maitre D’ in on the proposal couple so they can make sure there are no hiccups with seating yet still keep the element of surprise. You want all staff on the same page with who the proposal couple is and what expectations there are for the night to make sure the night goes smoothly and flawlessly for the couple.
Our friends over at Ivy Hall Events are running an Engagement Season Special, offering 50% off the venue price if you book the venue during the engagement season. You can set the parameters of your special to what works best for your venue. Offering up specials is a great way to grab the attention of newly engaged couples while also filling up dates on the calendar that may take more work to fill.
These special touches will surely make the proposal night for the couple memorable. These special touches can also be bundled as a Proposal Package that can be sold at a premium price.
Offering up this type of package is also a great form of marketing since the couple will be sharing photos of their engagement on social media, tagging your venue in the process exposes your venue to their entire social audience.
Once your venue handle has been tagged on Facebook or Instagram, you can easily share those special moments as well as user-generated content, which is content created by your customers, you can also use those photos in your email marketing with the couple's permission, as a way to promote your Proposal Package and gain new customers.
These proposed couples can also be repeat customers, you can work with them to book future parties connected to the wedding, such as rehearsal dinners, anniversary dinners, or even the wedding reception if your venue accommodates weddings as well.
We’ve given you some engagement season hacks to help you ace the season with style and finesse. So, get going! As engagement season is the most exciting time of the year, we want you to enjoy it to the fullest. After all, it's engagement season!
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