Who are The Wedding Industry Supplier Network?
The Wedding Industry Supplier Network provides networking events, support and education to wedding business owners around the world. Established with the goal to bring collaboration and a sense of community across the industry, The Wedding Industry Supplier Network has championed business owners in the wedding and creative industry across the globe. The company also provides accessible and industry specific business education to thousands of wedding business professionals around the world.
Our local meet-up’s provide the opportunity for business owners to collaborate in ways that are beneficial to their business and are designed to bring together people inside of the industry as many small business owners find self-employment to be an isolating and lonely place.
Our online wedding business education is designed to take the jargon out of business and to be accessible and affordable to businesses of all sizes and ages. So many small business owners inside of this industry become suppliers (vendors) because they have a passion for weddings and product and service that they create.
The Wedding Industry Supplier Network bridges the gap between wedding professionals raw talent and passion for what they do and the business knowledge such as branding, sales, marketing and operations that will ensure their business is a success for years to come.
After more than 10 years in the wedding industry working as bridal retailers Katie and Roxy felt that there was a gap in the market. Being small business owners they knew that part of the success in the marketing of their business was having other people inside of the industry talking about their business and referring clients to them. Unfortunately the only business networking events that they could find were full of more business to business kind of networking and although this provided them with useful people to help with outsourcing tasks in their business the kinds of other wedding professionals that they wanted to gain introductions too weren’t attending these meetings. The only opportunity they had to network and build relationships with other wedding professionals was at local wedding fairs (shows in which couples go to meet with local vendors in their area) but these didn’t provide an ideal situation to talk business suppliers in attendance are there to be focused on gaining leads from
attendees. During their time in the industry they would network with suppliers for the odd coffee but this would always take them away from the running of their business, (racking up a to-do list when they got back) and there was nowhere where they could network with venue owners, wedding fair organisers and other local vendors connecting with local suppliers chatting to local couples and also facing similar issues in their businesses. Being a small business owner presents itself with issues and can be a lonely place, Katie and Roxy identified that a key
part of their business success inside of the industry would be having a supportive network of people around them
who could relate to their business and also understood the unique industry and the challenges that business owners sometimes face. In early 2019, they set up The Wedding Industry Supplier Network initially just a support group online of wedding businesses for suppliers to come together and support one another inside of a community forum. Within less than a month the forum membership had surpassed 2,500 members and the community were beginning to ask for local meetings to further the business relationships and ideas for collaborations that were being discussed.
