VENDOR INFORMATION
If you are coming to this website for the first time, and are looking for information, this is the page for YOU!
There are the main things you must remember about this site!
1) This site is totally 100% FREE (for the near term)! I originally decided to create this website because of the increasing costs on wedding websites like The Knot & Wedding Wire. I think that many other wedding vendors are feeling the same pinch. Then came Covid and 2020, which made it MUCH tougher for wedding businesses to even survive. I also want to make this free to vendors that we like to work with / do great work for their wedding clients.
2) The site is designed to be TOTALLY mobile friendly - actually its designed with a ‘mobile first’ mentality. The site has a very clean layout and is easy to navigate so that visitors can quickly get the info that they are looking for online.
3) The site is NOT done yet. Honestly I don’t know if we will ever be ‘done’ as we are constantly looking to add more wedding venues. We really just need pictures for this to happen. If you scroll down you can see the long range plans for the entire website. And you can also see updates on the progress that we are making towards launching.
4) The biggest obstacle facing us right now is finding great pictures of venues with the permission to use them. To be fair we are looking for a pretty narrow focus of pictures. If you want to help us with pictures, you can read what we are looking for if you scroll to the bottom of this page.
Here is the website’s ‘target market’ and how I see a typical visitor coming to the site.
A Central Ohio bride-to-be just got engaged and one of the first thing she does is start to research for a venue. This initial search is done online of course.
Thru a local SEO strategy, the search results in her coming to the WedVenColumbus.com site and sees all these different venues in the Central Ohio area. She can then narrow her search by select venues by either their type (hotels, country clubs, barns etc) or by their specific area (Dublin, Hilliard etc).
On any page she can click on the venue which takes her to the venue specific page that is full of more information and pictures for her to envision her own wedding. The pictures of actual wedding days at the real venues will be our biggest key. We want to make it easy for her to visualize HER reception at the venue she is previewing. She also get some insight for the venue which she can’t get on most other sites.
There will also be local wedding vendors information on each page along the way! That is where you will benefit!
THE “PLAN”
With my own DJ business website, I’ve been able to make it go to the top of the FIRST page of Google. Many times I am just below The Knot and Wedding Wire in the organic searches!
I’m very positive that I can make make these Google search results happen to this website! But it will be a VERY LONG PROCESS!
This new website starts off with a few basic assumptions.
1) The wedding venue is VERY important. So that means that brides are looking for wedding venues VERY early in their planning. This initial research is always online and can take a long time.
2) Local online searches for wedding venues are more important than nationwide.
3) Most wedding venue websites do not give the brides the information they want when doing their initial searches! Their websites offer very few photos for inspiration. Usually its a generic picture and some basic information on the number of guests the venues can handle. Here’s the bottom line - they fail to capture the attention of today’s visitors looking for a specific venue.
I want to fix that. My goal for this site is to be a perfect source of wedding venue information that a bride will look for, once again very early in her wedding searches. The pages will have all the info she needs to start looking for a venue, and there will be lots of great pictures. She will also see some very well placed (but NOT intrusive) ads for local wedding vendors.
ADVERTISING (future)
Its VERY likely that advertising will not happen for at least one year from the launch date, but I will let you know what we are planning.
As you should know by now, early on there will be no charge for the site. It is honestly our ‘gift’ to other vendors that we know and believe offer a superior product to wedding couples.
There will be two different tracks for the advertising. The first track will be for the actual venues, which will allow them to get higher placement on the pages.
The second track will be for the wedding vendors. There will be a short list of vendors on the home page. But if a vendor wants to be listed on a SPECIFIC venues page (or multiple venues pages) we can make that happen. This will allow wedding vendors to really focus their marketing dollars to venues that fits them well, no matter what that reason that might be.
When we do start charging for the advertising, (as opposed to The Knot, Wedding Wire, and bridal shows) we plan on keeping the costs low AND very targeted to specific venues.
THE LATEST UPDATES:
January 13, 2021
Well at least 2020 is over - THANK GOD! We are hopeful that weddings will start to go back to their original state. We are going to be making some more updates to the site. The website it starting to gain some SEO traction for ‘wedding at VENUENAME’. We were on page 1 for the “Wedding at the Westin Columbus” and “Wedding at the Hilton Easton Columbus”!
October 3, 2020
2020 continues to suck with the closing of LaScala in Dublin. That listing has been removed.
June 29, 2020
We were quite surprised to hear that the Smith Brother’s Venues (Loft, Dock 580) had closed. We took them off our list as the virus wrecks havoc on the wedding business. But it appears that Milo’s Catering has purchased them and we will re-open them under new names. We will then update this, and put them back on our site!
January 29, 2020
Well we lost our first venue with the closing on Noah’s in New Albany. We had been hearing rumors for a long time but its official. We still have some great pictures from that venue that we will save in case someone buys it and re-opens it.
November 9, 2019
So we have officially started PAGE TWO of the venues. That means we are up to 38 total Columbus venues. The visits to the site are still low, but I am anxious to see what happens in “engagement season” for early 2020.
September 4, 2019
Slowly but surely we are getting more and more venues listed. We are up to 32!!!
April 25, 2019
So the website if officially OPEN! The business is incorporated in the State of Ohio. We are starting with 19 venues. The advertisers are placed onto the venue pages.
FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHERS
Our biggest problem to getting different venues finished in getting pictures with permission of course. Here’s what we are looking for photography wise. Actually we have several needs:
1) For our venue banner image we are looking for B/G pictures either outside the venue or inside the ballroom. We need something that really shows off the venue! It has to be a real ‘hero’ shot that will inspire couples.
2) Ceremony pictures. We will need pictures of the ceremony locations at the venue. So we would like to have a nice shot of the empty chairs before the ceremony takes place. And then we would like to have the shot of the couples walking down the aisle with the big smiles etc.
3) Reception pictures. I want a two-pronged approach to the pictures that we use – romantic and fun! For romantic we are looking for those incredible shots of a first dance. The fun pictures are just as important to us. Whenever possible we want to have pictures while showing a fun reception also shows off the venue. So we would love to see some great shots of the venues without the guests at their table, but still want a similar shot with the guests at their tables.
What we are NOT looking for in pictures…
1) Church pictures or shots of the couples getting ready early in the day.
2) Shots of the food at the venue. The signature cocktails. The funky little welcoming signs / hashtag signs.
3) Shots of little kids.
4) Pictures in black and white.
Some random thoughts about the photography.
1) We would need your permission to use any picture of course. You know from your past experience with us that we always ask permission first.
2) We will NOT make big changes to the pictures. While we will resize, we will not do any massive color changes to make your pictures look bad LOL. Our photoshop skills aren’t that good anyhow.
3) We will be in need of higher resolution pictures to start, but then we will resize them to fit.
4) If its possible and OK with you we could simply select the pictures that we like from you. So if you have an online collection that you could share with us (create a password for just us to use), that would make things go MUCH faster.
5) No logo or branding on the picture. We are doing this so as to not appear to favor one particular photographer over another. You also have to remember that most of these pictures will be viewed on a phone so your logo will almost not been seen anyways.
So there you have it. Pretty simple huh? LOL Please let us know how we can get some of your pictures on our site!