Ultimate Guide for Tipping Your Wedding Vendors
You carefully research and secure your wedding vendors based upon your budget, make your deposits and plan final payments.
But what about tipping your wedding vendors?
Should you be planning to tip your wedding vendors? If so, who do you tip and how much?
Navigating the tipping situation can be sticky a sticky topic. You want your wedding vendors to feel your appreciation but you also need to adhere to your wedding budget.
For these reasons, we put together this ultimate guide for tipping your wedding vendors to help you navigate the process.
Set aside money for tips.
When you’re working out your wedding budget, remember to allocate money specifically for wedding day tipping. This will alleviate the problem of realizing the week leading up to the wedding that you have no money set aside for tips.
If you are completely unsure of typical tipping amounts and how much to possibly budget for your wedding vendors, you can always reach out to your vendors and ask for a suggestion list. Most vendors do have a list of suggested tip amounts put together for their clients who inquire. Again, these are only suggestions to help guide you in your tipping decision process.
Always check the contract.
Some event professionals may include tips in their final price to avoid any confusion so be sure to check your contact! Generally, this is most applicable for caterers and venues, but do your due diligence and check all of your vendors while you’re at it.
Consider quality of service.
Outside of caterers (which is generally 15-20% of the total cost), most vendors generally don’t expect a tip (but are always appreciative!). When considering whom to tip, factor in the amount of work they put into your event as well as the quality of it.
Have tips wedding day ready.
Since you’ll most likely be all over the place on your wedding day, spend one day during the week prior to portion out your tips in labeled envelopes so they are ready to go. Ask your planner, maid of honor or a parent to take charge of handing them out so that you don’t have to worry about it.
Don’t feel obliged.
If you just don’t have the room in your budget to add-on tips for every vendor, don’t feel like it’s a must-do. With that said, it’s still nice to take some time to verbally express your gratitude and follow-up with a nice card after the wedding. In fact, one of the best ways you can “tip” your vendors is to write a positive review on social media. Testimonials are worth their weight in gold as they can bring in future business, so it’s certainly a kind gesture!
Kim Sayatovic is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Belladeux Event Design, a full-service wedding and event design firm based in New Orleans, Louisiana.
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