Public availability calendar: how to cut communication with couples by 40%

Every day you receive dozens of the same questions: “Are you free on 15 September?” “What about 22 May?” “Can you accommodate us on 7 March?”

This is not sales; it is administration. And each of those questions costs you 10 minutes: opening your calendar, checking bookings, calling back, writing emails.

Imagine if couples could see when you are free and when you are not, all by themselves. Without you having to intervene.

The Numbers

A wedding venue with an average of 40-60 couples per year receives around 120 availability enquiries annually. If you have been handling these yourself:

• 120 enquiries × 10 minutes = 1200 minutes = 20 hours per year
• In monetary terms (if your time is worth 400 Kč/hour) = 8000 Kč per year

With a public calendar, couples check availability themselves and send you an enquiry with a specific date already selected. This means you do not reply with “we are available”, but instead go straight to “great, let’s look at the details”.

This is not about saving 20 hours. It is about being able to dedicate those 20 hours to sales conversations: how they will view the venue, what interests them and why they chose you.

What is a public calendar

It’s simple: on your website or via a link (Google Calendar, Calendly, your own system), couples can see:

• 🟢 Available (all weekends in June are green)
• 🔴 Booked (May is red - you have a booking)
• 🟡 On request (July is yellow - you need to check)

Couples click on a green day and either:

1. Book immediately (if you have automatic booking enabled)
2. Send you an email with a specific question: “We are interested in 12 June, what does that include?”

The difference: Instead of receiving 100 emails asking “Is it available?”, you get 10 emails saying “It is available, but what about the details?”

How to set it up

Option 1: Official calendar (recommended)

You use Google Calendar or Outlook:

• Create a public calendar called “Wedding venue availability”
• Add colours: green = available, red = booked
• Insert the link on your website (in the “Contact” or “Booking” section)
• Couples can add it to their own calendar (+ subscribe)

Advantage: Couples always see the current status. As soon as you add a new date, they see it. Disadvantage: Couples do not see the price, number of guests or other details, only availability.

Option 2: Automatic booking (better)

A system like Calendly, Setmore or Svatbio CRM:

• Couples choose a date
• They fill in a form (name, number of guests, phone, email)
• You receive a notification
• The system sends an automatic confirmation email to couples: “We have received your enquiry for 12 June, we will get back to you within 24 hours”

Advantage: Couples enter their details directly, leaving both your hands free for sales. Disadvantage: To make this work, you must choose the right system.

Option 3: Custom solution (for tech-savvy users)

Do you have your own website? Connect your internal booking Excel/CRM with a JavaScript widget on your webpage. Couples see live availability and can click to send an enquiry.

Advantage: Fully custom, no fees. Disadvantage: You must implement it yourself (or hire a developer).

How to do it in practice

Let’s assume you have Google Calendar.

1. Create a new calendar: “Wedding - Availability” (in Google Calendar → Other calendars → +)

2. Set it as “Public” (Settings → Sharing → Change to “Public”)

3. Add the following to the calendar:

   • Booked dates (red - reservations)
   • Available dates (green - open for booking)
   • Your days off (grey - I do not want to work)

4. On your website, write:

   <h2>Availability</h2>
   <p>Do you want our venue? Check when we are free:</p>
   <a href="https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r?cid=...">Click here to open the calendar</a>

5. Done, the calendar is published.

Problem: Synchronisation

If you maintain your calendar in two places (your own Excel file and Google Calendar), manual synchronisation leads to errors.

Solution: There should be only one source of truth. If you record bookings in Excel, you should synchronise with Google Calendar once a week. If you use a CRM, that system should be the source of truth and the calendar will update automatically.

Without automatic synchronisation, your calendar falls out of sync and couples book dates that are no longer available. That is a nightmare.

What changes for couples

Long wait times:

• Couples: “Are you available?”
• You: “Let me open the calendar… yes, we have 15th, 22nd and 27th September free”
• Couples: “What about May?”
• You: “May is completely booked, unless 1st May works for you”

Short wait times:

• Couples check the calendar themselves
• Couples: “We are interested in 22nd September, what’s next?”
• You: “Perfect! Let’s find a time for a viewing. When suits you?”

The second scenario is sales. The first is administration.

What will change for you

• Fewer emails (~40% drop), unnecessary inquiries disappear
• Specific enquiries: couples have already chosen their date, so you don’t need to sell them on your venue’s existence
• More time for sales: instead of searching through the calendar, you speak directly with couples
• Fewer errors: couples no longer see outdated information

Alternative: Phone line

You could grit your teeth and hire a new person who would be in the office from 8 to 16 hours and tell couples availability over the phone.

But that is 1 person × 40 hours/week × 400 Kč/hour = 800,000 Kč per year. A public calendar costs 1,000 Kč per year.

The maths is simple.

Conclusion

A public calendar is not a cool feature you have “because it’s trendy”. It is incredibly practical: couples save time, you save time, and everyone has a concrete starting point for the conversation.

When you implement it, you will find that 40-50% of the emails you used to handle simply disappear.

Please ensure you keep it synchronised. Otherwise, it will be worse than having no calendar at all.

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