Unconventional Career Idea 💡 Become a Mobile Wedding Writer

I hate weddings.

I hate the poses, hate the dresses, hate the cliche-ness of it all. AND YET, this job might be the one that would convince me to actually go to them. 😉

You’ve got your typical suspects at a wedding, right? You’ve got the photographer, the videographer, the planner, the DJ. Maybe the DJ is making out with the planner. Maybe the photographer is screwing the groom. See what I mean? Weddings are rose-colored cesspools of false hopes and dreams.

SO WHAT I’M SAYING IS MAYBE I SHOULDN’T DO THIS JOB.

But, someone should *totally* do this job.

Okay, so hear me out: lately, I’ve seen a new trend emerging called “live wedding painting.”

Exhibit A:

(Search for “live wedding painter” on Instagram and you’ll find a little enclave of artists hopping on this career trend!)

And so recently, when I went to get my hair done, a young girl in the next chair was talking about her wedding, and then that forced me to picture her wedding, and then that forced me to think about what in the living fark I would do if I had to get married, and that’s when the thought occurred to me:

I’d want a book.

Photographs are great, videos are great, but they’re also incredibly one-note. You see the outfits, you see the cake, you see seventeen people doing the macarena.

Even with video, you might capture the best man’s speech—which will inevitably include a drunken story nobody wanted to hear—but it all still feels so very generic, flat, expected, hackneyed.

Enter: the live wedding writer.

Here’s what I’m picturing:

• Writer shows up live at wedding
• Writer documents what they see, experience, hear, smell, taste, feel, think, witness.
• Writer collects supplemental material on site at event: interviewing guests, jotting down songs played, taking notes about real conversations happening around them, documenting tiny, fascinating details: like the fact that the mother-in-law was wearing MAC lipstick in Retro Red, or that the best friend ran around asking everyone if they wanted a tequila, or that the drunk uncle spilled a vase of roses. You know, the little details that actually make things interesting.
• Writer goes home and drafts a “micro novel”—a novel that takes place over the course of one day. (I’m calling it a “novel” because “wedding book” sounds too much like a wedding photography book or scrapbook.)
• Writer delivers leather-bound micro novel to couple as a totally unique keepsake; one that their children and grandchildren and great-great grandchildren can read and re-read forevermore. It’s one thing to see a picture of your great-grandma, but another thing to read a book about who she was and the people she knew and the world she lived in, suspended in a moment of time.

WHY AREN’T MORE PEOPLE DOING THIS?!

The wedding industry is incredibly lucrative, given that in some markets, people plan on spending tens of thousands of dollars—or more. It’s the one time when people can justify a big expense. (“I deserve it.”) Normally, if you’d try to do this—say, write micro novels of people’s everyday family lives—it would be considered a “nice to have,” not a “need to have.” (And that’s way harder to sell.) But, people go crazy about their weddings, and that turns things that are normally “nice to have” into “MUST HAVE, CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT, DID I EVEN REALLY MARRY IF I DON’T HAVE A BOOK ABOUT IT?!?!”

If you’ve always wanted to be a writer, this is a great way to marry your love of writing with a legitimate commercial need—especially if you love weddings! (I know you freaks are out there. 🤣)

Next Up: The Wedding Writer Career Plan (Advanced)

Career Title:
Live Wedding Writer

Career Overview:
Live Wedding Writing is a form of written art in which a professional writer attends a wedding event and writes about it in real-time in order to create a fascinating and unique heirloom keepsake book for the couple.

Income Potential:

From what I can tell, there are only a few people doing this already, and the income potential is high. Live wedding painters—the closest comparable career—are charging between $2,500 to $5,000 per wedding to paint—(see here and here)—so live wedding writing should fall into at least that price category, though likely more, if a published book will be produced as the final product.

Here’s how I would work it:

I would offer two types of services.

1. One quick ‘n dirty writing service that has the writer documenting the event in real time: messy, rich, interesting details as they happen. That’s the final product.
2. One full-length writing service that includes real-time writing and a polished, finished, structured version of the story that’s printed into a leather-bound book. (~ 3 months delivery time.)

I’d price the quick ‘n dirty service at $2,500, and I’d price the full-length service at at least $5,000, and then adjust according to demand. Pricing is one of those things that requires experimentation and testing, because supply and demand is a (totally) real thing.

As demand goes up, and supply goes down, price goes up.

The inverse is also true: as demand goes down, and supply goes up, price goes down. But, that’s not what we want. 😉

So, let’s do a possible income projection.

Let’s say I’m booked 50% of the year, which is 26 weekends. I do one wedding per weekend, because otherwise I will be DECEASED.

26 events x $2,500 = $65,000

26 events x $5,000 = $130,000

(That should help you get the cojones to charge more, huh?)

So my income potential for this, working on event per week, is $65,000 - $130,000.

The average of is $95,000 (assuming some people will opt for the cheaper package, and some people will opt for the more expensive one).

Not bad for one event per week! Especially if you’re just doing live writing on the spot, and don’t have any work to take home with you. 🤩 So, this is an important consideration: you would make less money doing the quick ‘n dirty, on-the-spot writing (with no book deliverable), BUT, you don’t have to take any work home with you—which can be a valuable trade off.

ALWAYS weigh what the cost of doing the work will be. You can make all the money in the world, but if it costs you your entire life, then the money is moot. And, so are you.

That said, if you did two weddings per week, you’d double your income to $130,000 - $260,000—and that is a tough thing to argue with. 😀

Let’s go over the other pros and cons of this career, shall we?

Pros of This Remote Career:

• You get to write books for a living.
• Clients will pay you top dollar for your writing.
• It’s artistic and luxurious - way classier than a photobooth. (And the right market is willing to pay for that).
• Unlike the fussiness of photography, no one’s going to get mad you didn’t capture them well. (Photography seems like there’s a lot of pressure!)
• It’s a one-day event with quick turnaround (you don’t have to sit and interview a person for 90 days straight to get the material for the memoir).
• The work is fun and uplifting, not depressing or somber.
• Can also hire writers and expand team. (So they start going to the events, and you just manage the biz.)
• No overhead! You don’t need an office, you don’t need equipment, you don’t need a team.
• People will immediately get it when you say what you do, which is just a cool bonus! This makes marketing so much easier. (Than, say, being a “life activation coach.” Or something.)
• You can travel the globe doing this kind of work, particularly if you build up a reputation for yourself. How cool! Wouldn’t it be great to have an all-expenses paid trip to Dubai, because you’re known as one of the best wedding writers in the biz??? And then the following month, you’re in Paris? And the next, Vancouver? This is a great career for the wanderluster! (You can even bring the family; your income would go a long way, especially if traveling less expensive parts of the world.)

Cons of This Remote Career:

• The biggest elephant in the room: you’re always going to be working every weekend (since that’s when weddings usually are).
• AND—you have to go in person. (You can’t Zoom yourself in, lol.)
• I imagine this would start to get very same-samey. It’s the same songs, the same toasts, the same scene (making it hard to write about creatively).
• You have to like weddings! Because you’ll be going to A LOT of them.
• And you can’t call in sick (because this is someone’s BIG DAY, and there isn’t another).
• You also have to be incredibly focused, making sure you are able to do your job (without getting too distracted by excited guests, interrupting your writing).
• And, you’ve also got to have solid business policies and boundaries in place, because brides are known as one of the most notoriously high-stress clients to have.

How I’d Get Started:

1. Come up with a catchy brand name, because the catchier your brand name, the less work you need to do to market yourself. 💃 “Melissa Perry Wedding Writing,” is stodgy and boring and not creative at all (creative businesses should have creative names!), so I’d shoot for something that makes it fun for your friends to tag you and talk about you—and makes you seem like a modern, hip dreamboat. One word names are cool right now. Right off the top of my head, I’m thinking you could do something cool with the word “bound,” because books are bound, and so are partners in marriage. BOUND. BOUNDLY. BOUNDARY. (HAHA!)
2. Make a one-page website on Squarespace.
3. Put up a page that says you’re having a grand opening, and live wedding writing is priced at just $2,499 $1,499 if they book before September 1st. (Booking can be anytime in 2024 - 2025.)
4. Volunteer to write at a friend or family member’s wedding! Someone’s always getting married—it isn’t hard to find clients, all you need to do is convince them to hire you. Offer them the grand-opening rate.
5. Pitch them your services like this: “This month, I’m having the grand opening of my new wedding writing company, [NAME] where we go to weddings and “live write” about the event in real-time, and then publish a beautiful leather-bound keepsake ‘wedding novel’ that tells the story of your day in a fun and unique way, including details that photography and videography can’t capture, like [DETAIL, DETAIL, DETAIL]. I’d LOVE to do this for you if you’ll have me! Here’s my vision for your wedding: [paint a picture of what kinds of things you’d want to cover, keeping in mind their aesthetic, preferences, and anything you know about them to help tailor the experience]. And here’s what the finished book would look like. [INSERT IMAGE] I’ve got 4 available spots for the grand-opening. The rate is an experimental $1,500 through September to work out any kinks, at which point the rate will increase to $3,500, before ultimately reaching its final price of $4,500. Will you marry me be one of my first clients?! I promise I won’t document anything your MIL says. 🤣
   
6. When they say yes, tell them what your process is, and include a 50% deposit down upfront, and 50% upon event completion. Then, send the damn invoice. Get that 50% locked in! This is critical, and the faster you get this done, the better.
   
7. In the meantime, I’d keep my marketing focused on the local market. First, I would market to local wedding planners, photographers, videographers, and venues. I would do this by: (a) In-person meetings and drop-ins (the best!); (b) By creating a free local wedding pro Discord or FB group, where you can share all things wedding-related industry in your area. Only local wedding professionals allowed. Must be vetted and approved to join. You lead it, and focus on being truly helpful and sharing interesting ideas as related to the wedding industry…news…things you’re learning…and things that might help other local professionals. And then, of course, you are marketing yourself by way of just being an awesome leader—because once they join, they will figure out REAL QUICK who you are. :)
   
8. Then, I’d target directly to the consumer. I’d market to them in a number of ways: (a) Pinterest! BRIDES LOVE PINTEREST. I’d take out ads and then use location targeting to make sure that only people in my local area are seeing them. (Read more about this hot shit here.) Then, (b) I’d take out targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram. Local helps soooo much when buying ads—that’s just one more reason to start local: so you can easily build your portfolio and get your first gigs! Finally, (c) I’d send out direct mailers to their actual homes (like postcards, but hyper creative!)—which is way easier than you think. Google “direct mail marketing” and you’ll find a bunch of companies that do this, like Stannp and Mail Shark. You can even do it through the United States Postal System, lol. The cool part is getting to segment by things like “high earning households,” so you can be sure your mail is getting into the hands of the people who have the resources to hire you.
   
9. And, of course, I would HAVE to have an Instagram account, showcasing tons of Reels of me doing live writing at weddings. Make ‘em great. Then, let your clients tag the hell out of you—and watch your business soar through the roof. (Local biz is the easiest for referral-based marketing!)

Other Things I’d Try:

• This would make an AWESOME wedding gift. You could market this to parents, family members, friends, or anyone attending bridal showers, since they’ll probably need a present! (Though it’s an expensive one for a friend, would most likely come from a parent or family member.)

I think this could be a most lucrative, fun creative career—and it’s one where you don’t need a particular educational background or credentials, you don’t need years of work experience, you don’t need a physical location, you don’t need overhead. For those reasons, it’s a really great transition job for anyone who’s currently figuring out their next chapter—you can jump right in anytime! Plus, since we all know people who are getting married, the opportunity to talk about what you do is a super easy way to market what you do. This is one of those jobs where you’d get a TON of word-of-mouth referrals, and that just makes life delicious.

Overall, this seems like a remote work slam dunk.

Do you happen to have any experience doing something like this—or know someone who does?! Anyone work in the industry?! Would love to hear YOUR own experience / tips / watch-out-for / career wisdom in the comments! The more you know… 😀