filed under Wedding Advice, Wedding Planning
How To Pick Vendors for Your Wedding
So you’ve picked your venue and your wedding date and NOW you have to figure out the vendors… For what, you ask? Vendors for food, flowers, music, and any other miscellaneous things you might want (like a photobooth!). How do you even begin to pick your vendors?
Step One: Find options
- Ask friends for suggestions.
- The internet makes finding vendors pretty easy. There are tons of websites with suggestions. And most vendors have websites that give you an idea of what they do.
- Look at ads on the web. One of my friends found her photographer through a Facebook ad… which led her to look at his website. And they loved him!
Step Two: Find reviews
- Search any potential vendor on the web. There are so many sites with reviews (like www.yelp.com) that can provide valuable feedback and advice for a particular vendor.
Step Three: Find out their rates
- Contact the vendor to find out what they charge AND whether that cost is within your budget.
Step Four: Find a time to meet
- There’s no replacement for meeting people in person. You’ll have to work with them and the best way to judge that is in person! Find some time to meet and see how it goes.
Step Five: Check references
- Ask the vendor for references and check them out! No harm in finding out what the real deal is. Of course, you may not need to do this if a friend referred you to the vendor.
How did you find your vendors?
~ Natasha
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Posted to » Wedding Advice, Wedding Planning
Best Man Survival Guide
Lenicam
Laura Taylor
Eugene
Alouise
Love this blog. Being on the vendor side Your five steps are right on track.
Its also very important to be careful about who is providing you the referrals. As this article said, friends are the best referrals. Avoid obtaining referrals from other wedding vendors. Vendors often trade referrals for no good reason except to make each other money.
That is great advice, Mike! It’s interesting that vendors might trade referrals for the sole purpose of making money. I suppose that happens in a lot of different industries. Best to rely on friends!
I generally agree that referrals from friends are great, but if is for something like photography or flowers, make sure your friends have the same taste as you in those areas of interest. For something like photography, not everyone agrees what a quality product is. Having said that, follow-up and professionalism are, of course, universal.