RealWeddings.com.au has evolved from a multi-award winning national magazine to a 'next generation' digital marketing platform which helps 170+ venues across Australia & Asia Pac book more weddings.
We launched Real Weddings in 2002 as the first national bridal magazine dedicated to featuring the most inspirational weddings from across Australia. It has now evolved into a "next-generation" digital marketing platform exclusively focused on helping venues generate more wedding business.
Over the years we're proud to have won many accolades and awards including twice being named Publisher's Australia 'Magazine of the Year'.
Founders, Toby & Kirsten MacKelden
“It’s a magazine with the WOW factor. Real Weddings is a delight to the eye; well designed, stylish and confident. Every page is a winner. Real Weddings is an exciting success story and its founders' philosophy, drive, enthusiasm, vision and talent are impressive.” Ita Buttrose
The RealWeddings.com.au story began on our honeymoon when we read Sir Richard Branson's autobiography. In it, Sir Richard wrote about launching his own magazine at the age of 16.
"If you publish a magazine, you're trying to create something that is original, that stands out from the crowd, that will last and, hopefully, serve some useful purpose. Above all, you want to create something that you are proud of." Sir Richard Branson
The team at RealWeddings.com.au live and breathe weddings; we’re passionate about showcasing wedding style and beautiful ideas. Attention to detail is at the heart of everything we do.
Like you, we are passionate about what we do and committed to being the leader in our field. Our aim is to deliver value to your venue business in every aspect of our relationship with you.
Our mission is to help you build your venue business by delivering high-quality wedding enquiries that convert to real bookings and more revenue.
Our unique digital venue marketing platform is delivering some fantastic results - here's what our venue clients are saying...
“Since coming on board with Real Weddings over the last 3 months we have received an abundance of leads, one of which has now turned to a definite booking for October this year, which we couldn’t be happier! Thanks again to the wonderful team at Real Weddings.”
Park Hyatt Melbourne
"The leads that come through RealWeddings.com.au are excellent and we're very pleased. The site and the support we receive is also excellent. RealWeddings.com.au has been a great source of referral and business for our venues this last year, and we're looking forward to continuing the relationship with you. Very happy."
Dedes Group (View by Sydney & Deckhouse)
“I'm so happy to still be working you. Your business is going from strength to strength which means it also benefits us by working with you. Thank you for all your support over the years and many more to come.”
The Baths Middle Brighton
“We work with Real Weddings here at Crown Resorts and we love the partnership!”
Crown Resorts
"The results are live, trackable and impressive. Advertising with Real Weddings has been a core pillar of The Langham, Melbourne's wedding marketing strategies for many years.
Their personal approach to clients paired with the company's on- going innovation in the industry makes Real Weddings an expert in their field. I highly recommend working with Real Weddings, we here at The Langham are proud to be a long standing client and look forward to a relationship for many more years to come."
The Langham Melbourne
"We trialled the venue showcase with one of our exclusive venues, Port Melbourne Yacht Club. The results from these leads have been so successful that we will now have six of our venues listed on the site. We receive more pre-qualified leads from the Digital Venue Showcase than any other online directory we work with.”
Peter Rowland Catering
"75% of pre-qualified leads that you sent to our Venue Showcase went on to request our brochure, putting us in the best position to convert. I’ve followed this same data approach for all of our listings (Lancemore Hill, Lindenwarrah and The Mansion Hotel & Spa) and the same applies i.e. brochure quality with all at 75%+, but Lindenderry is even higher."
The Lancemore Group
"Less than one month after listing The Park with Real Weddings we requested to list River’s Edge Events too, since the cost of our listing had already been recuperated from a quality lead.We receive approximately 6 quality leads every week from our Real Weddings listing! And our conversion rate is considerably higher than any of our other wedding partners.”
Melbourne Events Group, (The Park, Rivers Edge)
"We have seen some great leads coming from Real Weddings for Aqua Dining so we would like to continue for another year. "
Aqua Dining Sydney
"I've noticed lots of enquiries coming in from Real Weddings already!"
The Refectory Werribee Park
“I have had a huge number of enquiries since my ad went live with Real Weddings, thank you. My bookings are still going strong, and I took my record number of bookings for January and February. Thanks for all your help and interest in my venue. I look two bookings recently - Skye and Rebecca - from direct enquires from your site.”
Stevens Gardens Estate
"I would estimate we get at least 2 leads a day from the Real Weddings Digital showcase - with many of these enquiries proceeding to bookings. We have a higher rate in converting leads from Real Weddings than from our own Website."
Campbell Point House
“Working with the team at Real Weddings has been an absolute dream. My digital promotional request was slightly out of the ordinary but that didn’t matter. The team came back to me with an array of opportunities from the get go to align the Qantas Holidays brand and objective of reaching out to wedding planners and consumers across the country. All creative and digital landing pages were sent through for approval and met our promotional needs. The one month campaign was a huge success with over 100 people clicking on the campaign landing page and over 70 consumers registering to receive the Qantas holidays Weddings & Honeymoons brochure. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the Real Weddings team and look forward to our continued relationship.”
Qantas Holidays
"The layout of the digital venue showcase was beautifully presented and a great interactive tool for couples searching for a wedding venue. It has been a very positive marketing tool for us, with regular enquiries received from our online venue Showcase.”
Sandringham Yacht Club
"I find the brides we get from Real Weddings are genuinely interested in the venue, not just shopping around for the cheapest price. Many of the brides from Real Weddings book venue viewings allowing for us to make that personal connection that is so important. We get leads from Real Wedding that do turn into weddings for us."
The Point
"Real Weddings has already done a great job of generating enquiries so we are very excited to continue working with you!"
Taronga Zoo
"We are definitely keeping an eye on the traffic and incoming enquiries for The Refectory and are happy with the results to date."
The Refectory, Werribee Park (Bursaria)
“Working with Real Weddings is an absolute delight, I believe the way the team deals with their suppliers is reflected in the outstanding product that is displayed to brides. The website allows brides to find exactly what they are after rather than sifting through such a large volume of venues which I think allows venues to stand out more. We are very happy with the results provided by Real Weddings and it is now a very important part of our business.”
RACV Clubs (Healesville & City Club)
“We have seen some immediate great pick up from Real Weddings for Hotel Kurrajong.
Are you able to send media kit/info for our regional marketing manager based in Perth to review for a few of our hotels”
TFE Hotels
"We have found that Real Weddings provides more leads than any other online search portal, and includes more details per enquiry. This gives us an opportunity to personalise our quote from the initial contact, as we know more about what potential couples are looking for."
Chateau Yering Historic House
"The volume and quality of our results is the best acknowledgement that RealWeddings.com.au works for us - our couples are able to discover our venues even when they did not know that we were an option! We found Real Weddings very easy to work with and were able to have our profile updated as required. We needed to ensure we used a website who could offer us personalised solutions and to work together to increase our reach. Nobody wants to just be added to a list, and to have Real Weddings on our team to enhance our reach to couples was a fantastic bonus! We receive regular enquiries from couples finding us through Real Weddings and are very pleased with the standard of enquiry. We are able to get information direct to the clients and convert most to a strong lead, getting them on site to come and visit us direct.
The Real Weddings team are absolutely fantastic and offer us a personalised service that makes you feel as if you were the only venue they deal with. They care about us and our results and have a genuine interest in pushing for our success."
Luna Park Weddings Sydney
"Your team is amazing, very helpful, friendly and organised."
Club Rose Bay
"Real Weddings is a great way for us to market our venue online and get the word out there. From a client’s perspective, the website itself is easy to navigate and very user-friendly."
The enquiries that we receive have been tailored prior to them coming through so we know that they are genuinely interested in getting more information about our venue. We have received over 3k views on our Venue Showcase from Real Weddings with at least 630 quantifiable enquiries from this. The Real Weddings team have always been friendly and helpful to assist whenever required."
The Baths Middle Brighton
"Within the first month of listing our venue with Real Weddings we started receiving enquiries that showed a genuine interest in hosting their wedding at our venue. Not only did we like the look and feel of the site, but it is clearly apparent that Real Weddings is an industry leader in the wedding space in Australia. This expertise is exactly what we were looking for to ensure that potential brides are confident in the venue choices when submitting enquiries."
Taronga Zoo
"Before we found Real Weddings, we were using a different wedding directory that we really felt didn’t care about our results or whether we actually received leads.
We decided to change course and give Real Weddings a try, and we haven’t looked back! The team at Read Weddings are lovely to work with, and they work hard for us. We find that we receive genuine leads, which we have converted into real weddings! We couldn’t be happier with our decision.”
Cnk Catering
"Encore St Kilda trialled the Real Weddings Digital listing and we have not looked back. What drew us to Real Weddings was the filtering system providing only qualified leads, but most of all having the ability to track statistics and collect client information. Always producing on trend information, Real Weddings is a sure leader in the wedding industry - we would highly recommend!"
St.Kilda Venues
"We love the quality of the leads that are sent to us! We get real couples who are interested in us and the leads we are getting are more targeted, so the couples that do enquire are more likely to pick us. This saves a lot of time and energy from following up couples that were never going to book with us in the first place.There are details we can follow up such as phone numbers and emails, as well as knowing their wedding dates really help us to assist them. We have booked weddings through Real Weddings since we signed up last year. Kirsten and her team are very helpful and the site is great to use, we love it!"
Summerfields Country Estate
"We have found the Real Weddings team passionate and committed to achieving quality lead generation for the Manor on High. We are looking forward to working with Real Weddings for another year and continuing to grow our market."
Manor on High
The website is amazing! Thank you for such an amazing job already.
Merivale
“Wow, I love the website! I was instantly familiar with it, your branding is very strong – as soon as it uploaded I kind of felt at home, so familiar and user friendly. Well done! What an incredible portfolio of venues you have! Wow, so impressed.”
Waterview in Bi-Centennial Park
“The new website looks great! Well done! I really like the way it looks and how easy it is to search.”
Marriner Theatres
"Real Weddings provides us with not only a quantity of leads, but also quality leads. Working closely with their team we were able to create a digital showcase that accurately portrays our business, attracting the right sort of client. Overall Real Weddings, while new as a digital platform, competes just as strongly in the market as those who have been present for decades. The results now speak for themselves. The team are fantastic to deal with and this is a platform that will continue to grow alongside industry trends. We look forward to working with Real Weddings for years to come."
Atlantic Group
