The owner of a growing event business had a good year on paper. Revenue was well into six figures. There were associates working weekends, a part-time assistant and a waitlist for peak dates.
And yet every time they thought about hiring one more person, the math said no.
So they finally sat down with a coach and went through it, event by event. Every time an associate worked a wedding, about 70% of the fee went to that associate. After gear, software, travel and insurance, almost nothing came back to the business. The owner only made real money on the events they worked themselves. Which meant they could never stop working events.
It usually starts with fairness. You want to pay your team well, so you set a generous split. It works fine when you're doing most of the events and associates fill in. Then the business grows, more events go to the team, and the split that felt generous slowly hollows out your margin.
Coaches who work with growing wedding businesses say this is one of the most common things they have to undo. The owner's pay is tied to the number of events they work, not to the fact that they run the company. Running the company is real work. If you stepped away tomorrow, someone would have to be paid to do it.
It's a widespread problem. In a 2026 Bluevine survey, 62% of small business owners had cut or skipped their own pay at least once in the past year, and 21% had done it four or more times. And it's not always the split. Bluevine's March 2026 study found 29% had delayed their own pay because customers paid late.
None of this means paying your team less than they're worth. Good people are hard to find in this industry, and keeping them is cheaper than replacing them. The goal is a price that pays the team fairly and still leaves room for the business, and for you.
For more on the pricing side, see why your biggest package might be your worst deal.
Once you've built your salary into the price, small leaks start to matter. Card fees on client payments and transfer fees on team payouts come straight out of the margin you just fixed. Maroo charges zero processing fees on ACH and debit payments, and you pay associates and contractors by ACH from the same account, with W-9s collected and 1099s prepared from those payments at year-end. Money in and money out live on the same booking, so you can see what each event actually left for the business.
The takeaway: pick your last five team-delivered events and calculate what the business kept from each one after paying the team and covering costs. If it's close to zero, start there.
