What Your Wedding Vendors Wish You Knew Before Booking

So, you’re on the search for your dream team of wedding vendors? Congratulations! There’s no better feeling than assembling a crack team of experts to support you on your big day. From stunning wedding photography, dreamy florals and delicious food, the journey to booking your wedding vendors is a real treat for the senses!

When it comes to ensuring a smooth planning process, nobody is better qualified to give you advice than the wedding vendors themselves - after all, they’ve been there, seen it all and got the t-shirt! If you want the run-up to your wedding to be a smooth ride and your big day to go off without a hitch, then read on to find out what your wedding vendors wish you knew before booking!

1. It's your wedding day, be true to yourself

The wedding industry is an absolute behemoth, churning out millions of weddings a year - trends catch on quickly and spread like wildfire, and before you know it, every wedding starts to look the same. We’re here to say, in a world full of copies, be an original! That doesn’t mean you have to throw the baby out with the bathwater and do everything differently - you don't have to go out and buy a black wedding dress (unless you want to) - we just mean rather than being swayed by the latest trend, try to focus on what you actually like!

Though it might be tempting to take the easy route and just book the exact same wedding suppliers as your best mate, you’ll have a much more rewarding experience if you seek out vendors that you really click with on a personal level. These are the people who are going to bring your dream wedding to life, who will share in your excitement and joy, and having a good rapport with them really does make all the difference!

2. Poor communication sucks!

Whether you’ve just made an enquiry about a vendor's services or have been in conversation with them for a while, if your plans change or you decide to go in a different direction, please do the right thing and let them know! As well as holding your wedding date for you, wedding suppliers put a lot of time and energy into responding to enquiries and building a relationship with potential clients - it’s always better to politely inform them you’ve decided against working with them rather than leaving them to chase you multiple times whilst you avoid their emails!

When it comes to liaising with your vendors prior to your big day, good communication is key! Ensure they have all the information they need, including a wedding timeline, emergency contacts, and a list of specific requirements at least a week or two in advance.

3. Set realistic expectations

One of the downsides to our Pinterest and Instagram feeds being full of polished, aesthetically pleasing wedding content is that it sets the bar pretty high! Often, the imagery you see is from styled shoots - and to add to the confusion, some unscrupulous suppliers might even try to pass off these highly styled, aspirational images as real weddings, skewing couples' expectations even more. Throw a healthy dose of AI wedding inspiration into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for disappointment. Ask yourself and your potential vendors whether your vision is truly achievable at your chosen venue, on your budget, and at the time of year, you’ve chosen to get married.

In the age of increasingly intelligent filters, wedding photography is particularly vulnerable to the epidemic of unrealistic expectations. If you’re used to using filters on your selfies, then you might want to check whether your photographer offers retouching. You’ll need to look beyond the smiling faces and the composition of the photos and also focus on the editing style. Is it dark and moody, or light and airy? Are the tones warm or cool? Each wedding photographer will have their own editing style, which is often legally enshrined in their contract, so you need to make sure this aligns with the imagery on your vision board.

4. Drown out the noise and go with your gut

When you’re planning a wedding, it can be tempting to run every decision past your friends and family, but honestly, this can just muddy the waters! Personal taste is just that, personal, so try to keep those important decisions between you and your partner because you’re the only ones who really matter - bringing in your mum and your Auntie Maureen is only going to confuse things, trust us!

That said, once you’ve made your decisions, it can be helpful to bring your nearest and dearest on board just to set expectations - maybe they’re expecting lots of formal photographs, but you’ve booked a documentary photographer, or they’re looking forward to a traditional three-course meal, but you’ve decided on sharing platters - giving them a heads up in advance can avoid any tension on the day.

5. Easily find the best vendors

Wouldn’t the whole wedding planning process be so much easier if you just knew someone who knew someone? Well, as soon as you’ve booked your first wedding vendor, you kind of do! If you’re feeling completely overwhelmed by the number of choices out there, then ask your chosen wedding vendors for recommendations from other suppliers they’ve worked with and rated highly. In the highly unlikely event they don’t know anyone, they’re almost certainly going to be a part of some kind of network or group where they can ask other vendors for recommendations. Ask, and you shall find!

When it comes to asking for help, your wedding planner or wedding venue is the most obvious place to go for advice or recommendations from other wedding vendors. If their list of recommended suppliers isn’t doing it for you, then ask your venue coordinator if they can offer some personal recommendations - they’re likely to have worked with hundreds of lovely suppliers who haven’t made it onto the “official” list.

The journey to bringing your wedding vision to life is a collaborative one, and your wedding vendors should be enthusiastic about making all your wedding dreams come true, from your photographer to your wedding band! Some of these people will be with you all day, from getting dressed to the dance floor, so follow your intuition, trust your gut, and you should definitely be able to find your dream team. Good luck with the search!