12 October 2008

The Business of Weddings

According to www.costofwedding.com the cost of the average wedding in Seattle is between $24,157 and $40,261. With numbers like these it's no wonder the wedding industry is a $70 Billion a year business in the United States. That number doesn't even include the engagement ring or honeymoon. It's no wonder that a group of high end wedding providers in Seattle have banded together to promote one and other via The Wedding Circle.

Launched in July of 2008 by Tolga Ural, founder and CEO of ImagineCDs, participation in The Wedding Circle is strictly by referral only. This ensures that the quality of service is consistent across all 30 different service categories. You're not going to find a photographer that just graduated from high school or a caterer using their home kitchen here. The service providers featured in The Wedding Circle are best of class, and serve a discerning clientele.

Mr. Ural uses a three pronged approach to his marketing strategy:
  1. Theweddingcircle.com web site

  2. A Patent Pending multi-media CD based technoloy

  3. Word-of-mouth referrals from participating service providers

The real power of the program is in the CD technology, of which I only have a very high level understanding. Each service provider is given a minimum of 50 CDs, valued at $34.95 msrp, and asked to give them to prefered clientele as a thank you. The CDs contain an hour of classical music by world class guitarist Andre Feriante. Yet when put into your computer it hyperlinks you to The Wedding Circle website as a wedding planning reference guide.

You can purchase the CDs on Amazon.com and CDbaby.com.

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