Your Wedding Vendor Etiquette Guide
Treating your wedding vendors with kindness and respect is crucial. You won’t just build lasting relationships with them—you’ll enable them to do their best work! You’ll set them and your wedding day up for success by demonstrating your trust in them and looking out for their needs. However, as wedding planners, we’ve noticed that many well-meaning couples tend to make mistakes along the way. To help you avoid making some of your own, here is our complete guide to wedding vendor etiquette!
7 Wedding Vendor Etiquette Rules
Complete Inquiry Forms
You’d be surprised how many couples leave blanks on their inquiry forms. Or worse, provide inaccurate information! Your wedding vendor can’t meet your needs if you don’t provide them with prompt, accurate responses to their questions. We understand that you may not have your entire timeline or wedding aesthetic nailed down just yet—but it’s okay to provide your best guess. There’s plenty of time to tinker with things and communicate any changes to your vendors down the line!
For example, maybe you haven’t decided whether or not a first look is for you, but your beauty team wants to know if you’re doing one. Although you may not understand why your beauty team needs to know this, it will ensure you make it down the aisle on time! The bottom line: if a wedding vendor asks you a question, there’s usually a good reason. Give your best answer, and trust the process!
Feed Them
Your caterer will request a final headcount several weeks before your wedding date. Don’t forget to include your vendors! It’s wedding vendor etiquette rule #1 to feed everyone who will still be onsite come dinnertime. That includes at least your planner, photographer, and DJ.
However, consult with these vendors before generating your final headcount. You may have hired one photographer, but they may have a second shooter or assistant with them who also requires a meal. The same goes for your planner. No one wants a hangry vendor working their wedding, so check and double-check before communicating with your caterer!
Communicate
Give your wedding vendors a heads-up if any aspects of your venue could hinder their work. If they haven’t worked there previously, this is of paramount importance. Some venues may have limited or metered parking or a hidden entrance that’s difficult for first-time visitors to locate. Giving everyone the lowdown ahead of time will ensure everyone arrives and starts working on schedule on your special day! In addition, communicate with your venue to find out where vendors like your DJ and florist can unload their equipment. Then, pass this info along so everyone’s on the same page.
Set Expectations and Be Honest
A successful wedding vendor team collaborates with a spirit of positive energy to craft the perfect day. Don’t forget that you’re a part of that team too! The attitude and expectations you bring to the table make a world of difference. Be honest with your vendors, and communicate what you expect clearly. Your happiness and satisfaction are our primary goals, but we don’t know what we don’t know!
If it’s clear that you and a vendor aren’t on the same page, it may be time to initiate a tough conversation. However, if you’re polite and fair, we promise that most vendors won’t take offense! Instead, they’ll appreciate your honesty and tweak what they’re doing as needed to deliver the results you’re after.
Be Nice (& Make Sure Your VIPs Are, Too)
Family can be overbearing, and that’s never truer than on your wedding day. Those closest to you tend to go into “protective mode” because they want the best for you! However, they haven’t had the benefit of prior conversations with your wedding vendors, nor do they know your expectations. Considering this, it’s best if you and your partner are your wedding professionals’ sole point of contact.
Just trust us here: your parents and siblings may have good intentions, but it’s unlikely to end well if they’re making frantic requests of your vendors. If you see one of your VIPs getting snippy with your photo team or another wedding pro, please advocate for them. We realize this can put many couples in a tricky situation, but consider that it’s also uncomfortable for your vendors to have their process co-opted by a stranger!
Be Decisive
Your wedding vendors can give you plenty of advice, but they can’t make decisions for you. At a certain point, it’s up to you to make the final call! Once the big day is two months away, it’s time to nail down those decisions—and stick to them. At that point, your DJ is already prepping for your day, as is your florist spending countless hours preparing each flower. In addition, your beauty team has scheduled their day around the specific timeline you’ve provided.
Do your best not to change your mind or make last-minute requests. It will throw a wrench in your vendors’ prep, and it could result in disappointment if they can’t accommodate you. Try to have faith in your decisions, and remember that all the minute details will fade into the background once the time to marry your best friend has finally arrived!
Trust Them
It’s never comfortable to feel like you aren’t trusted, so try not to communicate any feelings of doubt to your wedding vendors! You should ask questions of them, but you should also rely on the answers they give you. Remember that they’re professionals who take pride in their work! Weddings are their livelihood, and your satisfaction is their #1 priority.
If you’ve hired someone you don’t trust, we recommend finding someone you do ASAP. You’ve invested significant time, emotion, and finances into your wedding day, and the last thing you want is for negative energy to spoil it!
Observing these rules for wedding vendor etiquette will ensure you enjoy friendly, mutually beneficial client-vendor relationships throughout the wedding planning process! Remember that your wedding vendors are humans, too, with responsibilities and families to tend to outside their business. Treat them with the kindness and respect you would extend to any of your coworkers and friends, and we guarantee you’ll be amazed by the impact on your wedding day.
If you’re ready to kickstart the planning process, our team would love to give you the boost you need! Get in touch today.
