Qualifying Questions To Ask Your Destination Wedding Clients

One of the most important parts of any consultation is asking your clients questions, and this is especially true with destination wedding couples. The right questions can help you understand what each couple truly wants their destination wedding to entail. From the number of guests and food options to the overall vibe, asking questions helps you bring their special day to life.

If you’re working with multiple wedding clients, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel here — create a go-to list of questions you’ll ask each couple. Similar to other consultations, once you get the clients comfortable, they’ll begin opening up, and your follow-up questions will come naturally. But if you need some inspiration, here’s a list to help get you started.

To break the ice, begin with the fun stuff and learn all about their wedding day vision.

• What do you picture when you imagine your wedding day in paradise?
• If you could choose any wedding venue or backdrop, what would it be?
• What part of the celebration matters most to you (food, setting, reception, resort, etc.)?

Once they start painting a picture of their big day, you may have a few destinations and resorts come to mind. Next up, you can figure out how far along in the planning they are and ask about the more specific details.

• Have you done any initial research or are you just starting out?
• Do you have a date in mind or is the timing flexible?
• How many guests do you expect, and where will everyone be traveling from?
• Will children be attending or only adults? Do you want the event to be held at an adults-only property?

Some advisors prefer to ask about budget early in the process and others like to first create a few wedding packages based on their vision and allow the clients to see these options first before deciding on a budget. It’s not uncommon for budgets to change throughout the process.

Once you get further along in the consultation, there are some other questions you’ll want to remember to ask.

• Have you considered whether this will be a legal or symbolic ceremony? (Be sure to educate yourself on this so you can explain the difference to your clients)
• Is it important that you’re the only couple getting married that day? (Some resorts have multiple weddings each day and others only book one per day)
• Who will all be involved in the decision-making process? (Sometimes this is only the wedding couple, but other times a parent or grandparent is funding the event and may have a say in the final decisions)

In order to keep the conversation going and learn as much as possible, consider asking open-ended questions and see how the couple responds. Once you get in a good rhythm, the follow-up questions will come naturally, and after you have a few weddings under your belt, you’ll start compiling your own specific questions to add to your list.

In the meantime, if you’d like to learn even more about booking weddings, visit the destination weddings campaign page on VAX VacationAccess.