How do you know if youre paying too much?

ellone400

like facility fees,photographer,videographer is there a average  or  something?

JKeyes2011

I would say shop around and ask people who are already married and ask around on the boards. I'm sure you will come up with an average. It can be a little different for every area, but there is a point where I think for anywhere it would just be too much for any service.

eagles347

Ditto what J said...the key is to shop around. When you find something that is great quality at a price you can't resist, you snatch it up. Otherwise...give yourself time to do thorough research.

kiyamurph

I think it's best if you got a book of some sort for wedding planning.  My matron of honor bought me the wedding planning book written by the people from The Knot and it has averages for every category from venues to flowers to DJs.  That can kind of give you a starting point.
Asking what's too much is a bit subjective because what's too much for one person may be peanuts to someone else.  When it comes to certain things like a photographer or a videographer, you really get what you pay for.  For instance, my mom suggested this photographer that my dad knows and it was only going to cost $800.  But it was $800 for a reason; his pictures were HORRENDOUS!  There was a major difference between his crappy pictures and my photographers that I'm going to use that costs 3 times as much.
I think the best thing to do is just basic comparison shopping like you would anything else.  For example, If all of the videographers that you're looking at are around the same price but someone else is significantly cheaper or more expensive, I would look into why there's such a huge price difference.  One videographer that I looked into was $3,600 and I thought that was insane!  It turns out they charged that much because they won lots of Emmy awards and blah blah blah.  I don't care if you've won as Oscar, just because you have lots of awards doesn't mean you can start charging out the wazoo!  HTH!

tcwalk2403

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/cultural-wedding-boards_african-american-weddings_paying-much?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Cultural%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:400Discussion:b5914de9-d75a-4a12-ac28-4f9d9a3bd5e0Post:72ce59ab-914f-4a01-ae9e-18aa00723c7e">Re: How do you know if youre paying too much?</a>:
[QUOTE]Ditto what J said...the key is to shop around. When you find something that is great quality at a price you can't resist, you snatch it up. Otherwise...give yourself time to do thorough research.
Posted by eagles347[/QUOTE]<div>
</div><div>I agree as well..I'd definitely also check your local board to see if you can get some prices on what's reasonable where you are..I'm located in NYC but I'm getting married in Ohio--no way on earth would I be willing to spend the same bucks at home that I'd be charged here, no ma'am! But I was looking for a videographer over the weekend, and looked at about 5 websites before I got a feel for who was reasonable vs. overpriced based on the quality of their videos/package options. 

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KSTURGIS

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/cultural-wedding-boards_african-american-weddings_paying-much?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Cultural Wedding BoardsForum:400Discussion:b5914de9-d75a-4a12-ac28-4f9d9a3bd5e0Post:ed8900a7-7a79-4f6d-bff7-969a85b38d4e">Re: How do you know if youre paying too much?</a>:
[QUOTE]I would say shop around and ask people who are already married and ask around on the boards. I'm sure you will come up with an average. It can be a little different for every area, but there is a point where I think for anywhere it would just be too much for any service.
Posted by JKeyes2011[/QUOTE]

I agree