Is it normal for vendors to be unresponsive for weeks at a time?

Knottie1459984638

I just started planning my wedding and found the perfect venue.  The only problem, it takes them over a week to respond to an email and I never hear back when I leave a voicemail.  I haven't even booked the venue yet because I can't get them to send me a contract.  I've read reviews that say they can be like this in the beginning, but as your date nears, they become much more accessible.  I definitely want to stick it out with them, but this is frustrating.  To top it all off, I found the perfect photographer and even they wont return my many emails!  So far, nothing has been accomplished.  I'm dying to get something going here.  Our potential wedding date will be in 5 months, so I need to get the ball rolling.  Why won't anyone respond!?!  Don't they want my money? Anyone else have unresponsive vendors?

holyguacamole79

Knottie1459984638 said:

I just started planning my wedding and found the perfect venue.  The only problem, it takes them over a week to respond to an email and I never hear back when I leave a voicemail.  I haven't even booked the venue yet because I can't get them to send me a contract.  I've read reviews that say they can be like this in the beginning, but as your date nears, they become much more accessible.  I definitely want to stick it out with them, but this is frustrating.  To top it all off, I found the perfect photographer and even they wont return my many emails!  So far, nothing has been accomplished.  I'm dying to get something going here.  Our potential wedding date will be in 5 months, so I need to get the ball rolling.  Why won't anyone respond!?!  Don't they want my money? Anyone else have unresponsive vendors?

Repeat after me ... there is no such thing as perfect.   There is no such thing as perfect.

If you are 5 months out and they're already giving you the cold shoulder and you haven't signed a contract ... I personally would find another venue.  I'm not sure what the availability is like in your area, though.  If you can find another good venue, I'd go with that.  The headache of not having phone calls / emails returned would've been a big turn-off for me. 

MesmrEwe

Usually we say "if they don't respond to email, call, if they aren't responding to your call, show up in person..." It's about using their preferred method of communication.  That said - if they're this much of an issue now, yea - moving on!  It's one thing if they say "We only respond to emails/contacts the second Tuesday of the month for one hour", it's another to just be completely blown off.  And depending on the venue, it's not unusual that there's a SUPER high turnover of staff!

JediElizabeth

If two or more vendors are independently acting the same way, you may also want to look at your communication style. Your original post seems fine (for customer-to-vendor grammar, clarity, etc.), so I may be stabbing in the dark, but are you coming off as clear, direct, polite, and professional in them?

There's really no excuse for vendors not getting back to you, but I've always believed that if I'm getting the same results from multiple sources, I'm probably the common denominator to the problem. 

crowsgirl15

Knottie1459984638 said:

I just started planning my wedding and found the perfect venue.  The only problem, it takes them over a week to respond to an email and I never hear back when I leave a voicemail.  I haven't even booked the venue yet because I can't get them to send me a contract.  I've read reviews that say they can be like this in the beginning, but as your date nears, they become much more accessible.  I definitely want to stick it out with them, but this is frustrating.  To top it all off, I found the perfect photographer and even they wont return my many emails!  So far, nothing has been accomplished.  I'm dying to get something going here.  Our potential wedding date will be in 5 months, so I need to get the ball rolling.  Why won't anyone respond!?!  Don't they want my money? Anyone else have unresponsive vendors?

I have one question about your correspondence with the venue and photographer: are you being clear in your e-mails that you are ready to hire them/sign a contract and move forward? It's possible that they're not going to be super attentive until they're confident you're their customer.

If you are being clear about that, however, I would either move on or accept that these are places that are tough to reach by e-mail.

Also, it could just be an e-mail issue...some people are not as responsive by e-mail as they are in other forms. Have you called them? It's tough for someone to be unresponsive when you have them on the phone.

ETA: Whoops! Just saw the voicemail part! Maybe call the photographer and move on with the venue, or accept their lack of responsiveness.

bleve0821

FWIW... When I was looking at venues and vendors, I would say only about half of them actually were responsive to my initial inquiries.  Those were the ones (obviously) who we interviewed, and of them, the ones that responded within 24 hours were the folks who impressed us most.  Since then...

Our officiant is THE WORST at communicating with us. I'm still waiting for a response to my three emails and two voice mails about the rehearsal this upcoming Friday.. I'm banking on a no, he won't be there.  Which is fine... But we would at least like to talk to him about the ceremony transitions.  He has probably been the hardest to communicate with, and I'm fairly sure it's because the husband-wife team don't talk to each other.

Our venue has gone through 3 event coordinators, one of whom was the general manager of the venue. We found out from the hotel when we went to block off rooms that our original event coordinator had quit. It took us three weeks to finally hear from the GM about the issue, and that was only because I called every day for three weeks in a panic.  We repeatedly asked him to let us know when a new event coordinator was hired, and he did not do that. He wouldn't even return calls (we live out of state, so we couldn't go in to talk to him in person... FH actually called the pro shop on a number of occasions looking for the GM).  It wasn't until January, almost nine months after we booked the venue, that I found out that they had hired a new event coordinator in October (thanks, Google).  She, however, has been great.

We still don't have a final number for what the cake costs, and I have a sneaking suspicion it's going to be quite a bit higher than the original quote, even though the head count has gone down.  Because we are working with the cake baker through our venue (and because of the issues with the event coordinators at the venue), by the time we got even the initial quote there wasn't enough time to find a different baker.  

We're getting married on Saturday. I haven't heard from the florist since they got my last payment (although at this point, the flowers are the least of my worries).  We played phone tag with our DJ for three weeks before we finally got to talk to him.  Our photographer now has a day job driving semis so he's hard to connect with, too.

I don't know if it's "normal," but I do realize our wedding isn't the only one these vendors have committed to work. It's frustrating, to be sure, but they have promised to fulfill their end of the contract, so it's just something we've learned to be patient with.  All of our vendors have been very highly reviewed, so it's never been a huge source of concern for us, but it has been an added stress.

If you haven't signed a contract, and you're on a tight deadline, it may be time to find a different venue.  The only thing that makes any venue the "perfect venue" is the one where you and your spouse-to-be actually get married.  Everything else is just cake.

missJeanLouise

I remember going through a couple "call me and take my money!" phases when booking vendors, particularly venues and photographers. Reach out to a couple others in the mean time. It will give your brain something else to focus on.

Knottie1459984638

Both the venue and the photographer have great reviews.  I'm less concerned about the venue because I've read in several different reviews that they can be a bit difficult to get a hold of at first, but the closer you get to your date, the more responsive they become.  None of the photographer's reviews allude to lack of response.

I have actually met with one of the coordinators at the venue and worked out all the pricing.  She did respond to one email after I emailed her, her boss, and called another coordinator and left a message.  That was only giving me a list of available dates.  I then picked a date and asked what the next steps were to get a contract going.  That was over a week ago.  So, I'm pretty sure I have been clear that I'm ready to sign.

the photographer is a little different.  I contacted them at first through their website.  Then, about a week later after not hearing back, I emailed him directly.  That was three days a go.  I'm going to try calling tomorrow.  I only told them that I am interested in talking to them about shooting the wedding and gave them some basic details...time, place (potential), etc.

i did at first think I must be the common denominator.  Maybe my emails weren't going through, maybe their response was in my spam folder...but I checked.  That's not the problem.  honestly, I don't mind waiting for a response, I just want to get these first things lined up so I can move on with the rest of it.

SP29

I had some lack-luster responses to e-mail. Some of my initial vendor sourcing emails went without response- usually I moved along as there were many other vendors who did promptly respond.

I did find that phone was the best bet- talk to someone directly.

I also had some poor communication with my venue initially- turns out the person I had been told to contact as my coordinator was on leave for a month due to family health issues. Obviously understandable, but I think someone else should have been picking up her work and at the very least checking her voicemail. I had to be the one to start calling and asking to speak to someone else. Once it came time to picking decor and the meal, I found out there were some staff changes so the person I was originally talking to (who seemed great) was no longer working. In the end, it turned out fine, but I did have a contract to back that up.

I would call these vendors again, directly tell them you would like to talk and discuss a contract if they are available on the date, but if you do not hear by X date you will move along to another vendor.

charlotte989875

If call the venue directly and tell them you're ready to finalize the contract. 

Id be more concerned about the photography. If after a form email and follow up email you haven't heard anything I'd look for others. Also, trust your gut on that my photographer forgot about our initial meeting, but everything else with her was good. I did have to remind her to send me contracts and follow up on the pictures, but she was young and just starting out. Had she blown off emails after the meeting I would have walked. 

Knottie1459984638

Well, I finally heard back from the venue the other day.  They emailed me to tell me they were reserving the date for me and that she would be out of the office until Friday and would work on my contract when she returned.  At least this person tells you the plan.  That's all I ask.

i contacted another photographer yesterday and she immediately responded.  We had a nice chat and she quoted me a price as well as looked into a couple of concerns I had with the venue that I just happened to mention to her in our conversation.  I told her I would have to talk to my FI about the price and she immediately  threw in 3 framed photos. Again, I told her I would get back to her.  20 minUtes later she emailed me to tell me she could do it for $600 less than she had quoted me.  Ha!  I still called the original photographer and left them a message only because I really, really love his work.  At this point, I've done all I can do with him.  If I don't hear by Monday, he's out of my life!

sarahsaurus-2

I'm having the same problem! My wedding is planned for summer 2017, but I want to get things started so that it's not a big rush later. I found this really beautiful venue that I love, but the communication is driving me crazy! My fiance and I went in for a tour, and the event planner who showed us around was very nice, and told us that we could have the wedding at a certain time, for a certain cost. He said he would send our contact information over to the catering company so that they could start working with us. 

Well, a couple days later, I emailed back with a few questions about the venue and everything. Didn't hear back for about 3 weeks, so I emailed him back to say I never heard from the caterer, and I repeated my questions. Then he said he would re-send my information to the caterer, and he answered half of my questions and basically told me that the pricing and available times were different than what he had said in person! It's now been a week or so since that last email, and I still have not heard from the caterer!!! I really love this venue, but I need a quote on their catering before I can decide if it's affordable...Plus, I had been hoping to have the wedding at a certain time for the per-hour cost, which is what I was told in-person, but now he's saying that I can't use that time slot, since it runs into their evening block (which he now says is more expensive than when we talked in-person). 

I'm new to the wedding planning, but jeez I didn't expect it to be this ridiculous to communicate. I don't really know what to do right now, except maybe see if I can find the caterer's email and phone number and contact them directly...I really don't want to give up on this venue.