Emerald on tour: listening and learning about weddings, weddings, weddings!

Emerald on Tour – listening and learning about weddings, weddings, weddings!

James Wharton, Communications Manager, Emerald Life

Emerald Life has spent the last month talking to excited couples at a series of wedding fairs across the UK. Members of the senior team attended the National Wedding Show in London’s Olympia, then two Gay Wedding Shows at Manchester and Brighton.

Since launching earlier this year we have explored different ways to engage with our community and its allies, and so attending the three wedding fairs was an opportunity to talk to real people about their plans and how the service provided by us at Emerald could help their special day without additional stress. On each occasion we spoke with excited, soon-to-be wedded couples (as well as excited friends, parents and children) about how our wedding insurance can protect them and the investments they are making ahead of their big day.

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The wedding industry is worth an estimated £10billion a year in the UK yet alarmingly many couples are not even aware insurance exists to protect all their outgoings. Typically, a couple in this country will spend £24,000 on this most special of occasions, and too many do so without insurance, potentially placing this expenditure at risk if there was a need to cancel in the run-up to the event or if something goes wrong on the day.

Listening is an important part of what we do at Emerald Life. Across the three events, many couples talked to us and were genuinely pleased to learn about a product like wedding insurance. There were some common themes that arose – for example, coverage abroad and travel for elderly relatives.

Sometimes exhibition attendees met the prospect of wedding insurance with suspicion or even laughter, “What on earth is wedding insurance?” or “can you insure me if I change my mind?” another quip asked on more than one occasion. Our aim is always to help people to understand what wedding insurance covers and how Emerald can help. When we did explain further there was a light bulb moment in their minds when they suddenly understood the need to insure such an expensive undertaking.

When asked what sort of things did typically go wrong ahead of a wedding, we started by stressing some of things that could go wrong are the sort of possibilities that perhaps most didn’t want to think about or associate with a day so happy as a wedding: illness effecting one of the two people tying the knot, a compassionate reason within the family leading to the wedding party needing to postpone the big day or a key financier of the wedding being made redundant. If any of those three things happened, the couple might want to or indeed might have to cancel or reschedule the big day.

With wedding insurance from Emerald Life, irrecoverable costs from the delay or cancellation would be reimbursed (subject to policy limits): the florist, the cake maker, the car provider, the entertainment, the photographer or the venue itself.

And there are other elements of a wedding covered too, such as damage to gifts, cake, dresses or wedding rings. But, as we told the hundreds of people we spoke to at both the National Wedding Show and the two Gay Wedding Shows in Manchester and Brighton, with wedding insurance the couple would not be out of pocket if such did occur (again, subject to policy limits).

Every member of the Emerald team came away from the wedding shows feeling pleased to have been able to shine new light on an important item of wedding planning largely unknown to many of those working towards their special day. We went to the wedding exhibitions to talk about our product, but our role as wedding insurance providers extends to educating people about the protection available to them against the unknown, and just what those unknowns could actually be. We knew this, but what we perhaps didn’t realise was how big a job that is; telling people that all that investment is at risk without insurance and thinking even at this exciting time about what could go wrong.

We are committed to this informative approach, and look forward to meeting more soon-to-be married couples next year when we return to wedding exhibitions up and down the UK.

Worldwide wedding insurance from Emerald Life starts at just £50 (one-off payment covering you up to £12.5k cancellation costs) and is available online in minutes. Visit www.emeraldlife.co.uk for more information.