For many years now, the marketing world has promoted “surprise and delight” as a way of strategically wowing customers to build brand loyalty and garner positive attention. It should be no surprise that the wedding industry embraced the concept and applied it on a microcosmic level into individual events. Thus, surprise and delight in weddings means intentionally building memorable guest experiences that make a lasting impression.
You can expect your prospective couples to demand new and innovative ways of turning “standard” events into serious crowd pleasers. Creative minds that think outside traditional event boxes will find the most success in this market. You can start your evolution toward surprise and delight by familiarizing yourself with the techniques employed now and opening your imagination to an exciting future.
So how can you surprise and delight your couples?
Set the scene with a memorable entrance
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure your guests experience the ultimate in memorable entrances. Hire specialty musicians and entertainers to perform live as guests arrive or offer something over-the-top and delectable to whet their taste and lead them to wonder what could possibly be next. Pull something from your clients’ love story, or their family traditions that they want their guests to know about them, and turn it into a grand entrance for all.
Elevate your events with luxury décor
Transform a common space into something incredible and unique through luxury décor like lush hanging installations. High-tech, extravagant lighting can change the mood of an event space multiple times in a single evening, helping keep things dynamic and interesting from beginning to end. Employ some of the year’s most in-demand trends like digital mapping against a variety of backgrounds, including the wedding cake or even the bride’s dress, to tell the story of the occasion in a beautiful and completely mind-blowing way.
"A great way to appeal to an audience with diverse tastes is to create different scenes throughout your events, tied together in a single story."
Incorporate a variety of guest interests by creating scenes
A great way to appeal to an audience with diverse tastes is to create different scenes throughout your events, tied together in a single story. Each scene might reflect a different ethnic menu from the couple’s family traditions, for example, complete with live musicians playing authentic music from the region of the world where the menu items originated. Or, the scenes could tell an epic tale through time by representing different eras. Signature cocktails might be taken from a certain decade with design based on the colors and motifs of the time period.
A wedding weekend is full of opportunities to tell a couple’s unique love story, and leave guests with experiences they can never forget. Nothing honors the beginning of two new lives joined as one like personalizing their wedding with unforgettable, magical moments. Let your creativity flow as you design events to surprise and delight your VIP couples and their guests.
Fabrice Orlando is the CEO of Cocoon Events Management Group, a luxury event planning company based in Marrakech, Morocco that specializes in high-end weddings and special events worldwide.
