Top 6 things wedding vendors wish you did!
Over the years and weddings we have planned there has always been a common theme of conversation when wedding vendors get together, or have a moment to sit in a meeting room around a banquet table when the dancefloor is in full swing. The theme? What our current couples have done that we LOVE and wish every couple did, and things we have seen that couples may have done or not done that led to a few planning bumps along the way that may have been easily avoided early on had they known to look for them.
Although the list can get long and very niche, there were some very common occurrences that we wanted to take some time to share with as many newly engaged couples as we could reach!
So without further delay and my blabbing on, here are the top — things couples do that vendors LOVE to see, and some of the common things couples don’t do that cause unnecessary bumps down the road for their wedding planning.
1
Hire your Wedding Planner FIRST!
Please Please PLEASE listen to me when I say you have nothing to lose and everything to gain when you hire your wedding planner first. Your vendors will thank you, your vision will thank you, and your budget will thank you.
There have been far too many times when my team and fellow planners have booked the sweetest couples with great budgets, and a healthy guest ratio only to find that they signed with a venue or other vendors prior to signing with us and have in some ways shot themselves in the foot and have no idea. It is heart-wrenching to have “the” conversation with a couple who decided with their heart without fully understanding the financial or logistical implications they have also committed/locked themselves into.
You get the idea. Hiring your wedding planner before you sign a single vendor contract gives you access to a professional who can point out any areas of a vendor’s contract, pricing structure, and needs that you are not looking at and give you a big-picture breakdown of what it would mean to book said vendor so you have the luxury of an informed choice rather than being strapped to a contract that you need to work around.
2
Treat your guest list like a vendor!
Friends, your guest count is your biggest expense. Absolutely EVERY vendor’s cost is affected by your total guest count. If you are not building your guest list in a way that your budget can support you are setting yourself up for a lot of compromising or foregoing portions of the vision you wanted. This is my biggest advice to couples and something I did a deep dive on how to successfully build a wedding guest list you can financially support. If you have not read it yet I highly encourage you to read through it and put it to practice! Weddings are expensive and your guest count truly is a determining and leading factor to what the bottom line of your wedding day looks like, and how far your budget can stretch.
3
Know when sunset happens on your wedding day!
This one comes overwhelmingly from our photography and videography friends and is a challenge we are always trying to work around for our couples who choose a wedding date in the later and earlier months of the year. Most couples will want a 5pm or later ceremony start time which can be extremely challenging when also attempting to factor in sunset. Sometimes, given the venue and direction it is facing, we can work sunset perfectly into your ceremony (hello first kiss at sunset! SWOON), but other times it is not as simple. Couples either end up compromising for a much earlier ceremony start time, really having to force time for sunset photos at the expense of guest flow/enjoyment, or forego sunset photos altogether. So if. you are a sunset-loving couple be sure to mention this to your planner at the start of planning so they can help factor that into your base timeline and build your day and ceremony around sunset! Your photography and videography team will thank you immensely!
4
Gather loose inspiration for your vision
From all of your creative vendors, your planner, florist, and stationer, to even your rental company we highly encourage couples to gather loose inspirations and allow your creative team to guide you through the refinement process. When a couple comes to the table with a whole presentation on what they want their wedding day to look like it can be challenging. Odd to think right? The problem with hard “inspiration” is that it often comes from several different avenues, and can make your wedding look… well flat. We are going to get deep into design and our processes hear at SJE this summer, but when you work on loose inspiration (hint hint, your wedding planner can greatly assist or take this work on your behalf) you are allowing your highly skilled and talented creative vendors the opportunity to flex their muscles and build you a design that is rooted in your aesthetic inspirations and dripping with the intimacy that comes with designing you into your wedding day.
5
Get Organized
You don’t have to figure everything out all at once, but before you start reaching out to vendors you want to have a few things figured out ahead of time.
- Total budget
- Estimated Guest Count
- Ideal date(s) and locations
This tiny list is what we consider the “holy trinity” of early wedding planning. Knowing these three factors will put you in a position to make decisions, and allow potential vendors the base information they need in order to initiate a consultation. When you are bouncing around on budget, guest count, or your date it can be difficult for some of your early vendors, like your wedding planner, to give you accurate quotes and availabilities leaving you in limbo and potentially wasting your time. Having these three elements squared away before looking for your “first few “12-month” vendors will put you in a position to make informed decisions with the vendors available to you, saving you precious time and a lot of back-and-forth emailing.
6
Remember to hire well so you can enjoy the process!
The last nugget I will leave you with is to hire quality professionals. No contract? NO BUSINESS. Only communicates over the phone, a major red flag. Doesn’t have a breakdown of what is included in their services in a written contract – you are not guaranteed anything. Won’t work with your wedding planner, RUN.
Guys we have seen and been forced to work with all sorts of “wedding vendors,” and let me tell you… we see the red flags coming a mile away. It can be extremely tempting to hire the vendor with a widely cheaper estimate, the friend who “is super type A and can handle the planner role,” the family friend who has their own small catering business and needs their break…I could go on, but at the end of the day these poor decisions will cost you immensely. Sometimes this cost will come as an unexpected financial burden, other times it comes at the expense of professionalism and guest experience, other times it comes at the expense of your vision, and most often and always guaranteed, it will come at the cost of your joy throughout the planning process.
Trust me, the more a vendor says “I got you” and the less they listen to you the worse off you will be. Wedding Planners and venues have preferred vendor lists for a reason. We personally have a high vetting process when it comes to adding vendors to ours. We want to guarantee to our couples that when we are building their vendor team we are pulling from the best of the best, pairing them based on personality – budget – and vision, and ensuring that your process with them will be an enjoyable one. The season of engagement is incredibly short and we want to see you thrive through the entire time!
Your wedding planning journey is unique to you and I hope you take this little piece of advice as you begin your wedding planning process. Don’t shoulder the weight of planning all on your own, lean into the professionals, choose wisely, and watch your vision come to life in ways you never imagined. If you do this, I just know you will look back on this time you are about to embark on with so much joy and a heart full of fond memories. Your wedding day doesn’t “fly by” when you celebrate the entire process!
As always, if you are looking to get married in Coastal Virginia and surrounding areas, shoot us an email! We would love nothing more than to be the professional in your corner that turns wedding planning into a time of celebration for you!
