Your wedding day is a once-in-a-lifetime event, and you want everything to be perfect. One key element in achieving that perfection is selecting the right team of wedding vendors. With an overwhelming number of choices available, it’s essential to make informed decisions. In this guide, I will try to take you through the steps to ensure you pick the ideal vendors for your special day.
You want to start by figuring out what your wedding priorities are, what is most important to you and what is most important to your spouse when it comes to their dream wedding. I knew my priority was the decor whereas my husbands priority was the food and music. Also, together we decided we were going to prioritize photos higher then video on our budget. After you set your priorities you want to make a list of must-have and nice-to-have vendors to guide your search.
- Research and Recommendations
You want to start by gathering recommendations from friends, family and recently married couples in your network. The wedding industry is HUGE on referrals and word of mouth. Second, expand into the online wedding communities, forums and social media groups to seek recommendations and read about others’ experiences.
We got most of our vendors from referrals from our friends and our wedding planner. A good thing was picking vendors that our planner had worked with in the past, this honestly made all our events go by seamlessly.
You want to schedule meetings or consultations with your potential vendors, we were lucky to have a wedding planner before we started looking for vendors, so we had an experienced person joining us on most of the calls with our vendors. You also want to prepare a list of questions to ask during these meetings, such as their availability on your wedding date, their experience, and their pricing structure.
You want to examine each vendor’s portfolio or previous work, or essentially stalk them on social media. Pay close attention to the style and quality of their offerings. You want to make sure that what they are offering aligns with your vision. I spend a lot of time looking at things my vendors were tagged in on social media to evaluate their work, rather than looking at what they posted themselves.
- Reading Reviews and Testimonials
You want to read reviews and testimonials by utilizing online resources like Yelp, Google Reviews, and wedding-specific websites to find reviews of your chosen vendors. You want to take both positive and negative reviews into consideration and weight the overall sentiment. I was lucky enough to have vendors who I was introduced to by credible sources, so I did not have to do research of my own on them.
You want to establish a realistic budget for each vendor category based on your priorities. You want to set a realistic amount and a max amount you are willing to pay for that vendor. Don’t hesitate to discuss pricing and potential discounts with vendors during negotiations. Almost 95% of our vendors gave us an initial quote which was over our budget, and we then negotiated them down to a price we were comfortable with. I also feel like the wedding industry has become so competitive that vendors often don’t come down in price, especially if you are getting married in peak wedding season because they know they will get booked by someone sooner or later.
Once you’ve made your decisions, ensure you have clear, written contracts with all vendors. The contracts should include important details such as services to be provided, payment schedules, and cancellation policies. We signed all the contracts, and had the vendors counter sign them. Keep all your contracts in a safe place, accessible to you and your wedding planner incase they have to be referred back to at any point.
THIS IS WHY YOU NEED A WEDDING PLANNER, OR AT LEAST A MONTH OF/ DAY OF PLANNER! Coordinate your selected vendors to ensure they can work together seamlessly on your big day. Each of them will need different things from the venue, small things like coordinating time to arrive at the loading dock need to be considered when thinking of the big day. You want to share timelines and contact information to guarantee smooth communication. I had a Google doc with an explicit timeline that was distributed to all the vendors and family members who need to help with things. The top of this document had every vendor listed, with contact information incase they had to reach each other for any reason on the day of the wedding.
- Preparing for the Unexpected
Always have backup plans in case any vendor encounters an emergency or is unable to fulfill their duties. Luckily, another perk of having a wedding planner, they will make sure to take care of the issue that comes up. This means you can just sit back, relax and enjoy your day. You can also consider wedding insurance for added protection depending on how big your event is. We did not have wedding insurance.
Trust your gut feelings when making the final decisions. A positive connection and open communication with your vendors are often signs of a good fit. You are putting a lot on these vendors to come together and put together a wedding that you have envisioned for over a year in some cases. I think we connected with all our vendors immediately, and we knew they would make our dreams a reality.
In the journey of planning your dream wedding, choosing the right vendors is a critical step. By setting your priorities, conducting thorough research, meeting with vendors, assessing portfolios and reviews, staying within budget, and ensuring clear contracts, you can create a team that will help turn your dream into a beautiful reality. Remember, your wedding day is about you, and with the right vendors by your side, it will be an unforgettable experience. Now I am going to take a moment to list all my vendors if you at in the Chicago area and need THE WORLDS BEST VENDORS!
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