Vendor payment plans

JessiC21

I am sitting here in my planner's office while she is trying to get my DJ to compromise on the payment plans. I booked the DJ prior to my planner and now they want huge sums of money when everyone else wants one. My planner is trying to get my DJ to compromise and do a monthly or bimonthly payment plan but he's being a jerk about it. My planner has gotten everyone else to agree to a much lower monthly payment plan instead of large installments that are all due at the same time. Is anyone else dealing with this? Do you find it easier to pay monthly or am I making it harder for myself? My planner has me pay monthly and the budget just seems so much easier that way. How do other people deal with difficult vendors? I guess I am lucky that I only have one who is being difficult...

kls114

What was the arrangement on your DJ contract?

Before we signed, we knew when & what our schedule was.

Do you have something like that on yours?

JessiC21

It was one of the first vendors I booked and Ijust signed without reading. BIG MISTAKE...but I've learned since then.  He just doesn't like getting smaller monthly payments which would work for us...  Lesson learned. I was just wondering if anyone else was working out payment plans.

Whippet8

hmm...when we booked everything, our vendors (cake, florist, photographer, venue) all required a deposit, and then there was a final due date for the remaining balance...no monthly payments.

akulaji

Honestly, I haven't heard of vendors doing monthly installments.  I think it's pretty standard for all wedding vendors to get a deposit and a final payment.  With our photographer and videographer it was a bit different... deposit, first installment before the wedding and final installment when the pictures/video were ready for delivery.

If you have vendors that are agreeing to monthly installments, that's fabulous, but I believe that's above and beyond and you can't expect that, since it's not the normal business practice for probably 99% of them.

I personally think that monthly installments would be more effort for me to deal with.  I can't imagine having  to remember to write a check to 5-8 vendors each freaking month for a year and having to keep track of all of that.  I understand that you feel like it doesn't hurt as much paying monthly, but I would hope that you've created a budget and have appropriately calculated the money you have to spend.  As long as you're good with your budget and spending only what you allotted, you should be fine.  If it's really such a big deal to you, and they don't agree, make the monthly DJ payments to your own 'piggy bank'.  Squirrel away the money each month as if you were paying them and then you'll have the money there when it's due.

sarahmraley

We have only had a deposit and final payment.  The only different plan is our venue who has us pay a deposit, then a quarter of the estimated total cost due 6 months out, then 3 months out, then final payment due 10 days before wedding when final head count is provided.  So, I'm not sure.  Good luck!

christikao

Same here with the deposit then final payment with all my vendors. I've never heard of monthly installments. I agreed with Carrie, having to keep track of all that payments would be PITA. If your issue is with budget then I would suggest opening a savings account and put money in there weekly or monthly. Thats what FI and I did. We opened an online savings that we can't access with our debit card. 

laure143cmm

All of the vendors that we have booked all have a required deposit and final payment 1 month before the wedding. Its in our contract that we have to have certain payments by certain dates.

All the vendors said that if we wanted to we could make payments during the year at any time to help with the final cost. We could either go to them or mail them a payment and they would give us a reciept for the payment.

Since my fi and I are on a budget and are paying for at least half of the wedding on our own, we wanted to make sure our vendors could let us pay outside of the scehduled payments.  Our biggest fear was giving out all the checks at once and having all the vendors cash them at once.

krys810

Ditto to the prev posts..we just had deposits and final payments..now that its getting closer we're starting to pay some off. I think I would be too frantic to pay them monthly on top of household bills..Does it work for you to do the monthly installments for all others and just pay him a lump sum in the end?

GL

Lisa8888

Never heard of any vendor taking monthly payments. Normally just a deposit and final payment prior to the wedding.

JessiC21

I don't mind the monthly payments and my planner was willing to work with me and so were most of the vendors.  The dj was so not going for it and I thought it was weird.  I don't mind paying in chunks I just didn't want to pay all of my vendors in the same chunks at the same time. 

JessiC21

Honestly it isn't a pain in the ass...first off my planner lets me know what is due and an in a timely manner and I hate having to pay it all in clumps..I guess each their own but when I am playing what I'm paying I want choices.

wrdgirl

Yes it's true most vendors do a deposit and then a final payment.  But my venue actually allows clients to do monthly installments.  I didn't do it but the coordinator explained to me that she's had other people do that and it is my choice if I want to.

Monthly installments is good for those that can't afford to fork out a large amount of money in one sitting (which is how the final payment will become as they are all due so close to the event!) and I think it's a good idea (and easier on the bank account!).

I think in the end it depends on how flexible the vendor is.  And since you have a planner to keep track of things for you (I hope!) it might be easier.

Unfortunately your DJ has to be that way.  If you can compromise on your end maybe you can pay more for other venues and save money towards the end for your DJ if all else fails?

Sorry not really answering your question but hope this helps!

skarupak

I would agree that most vendors don't do this. My DJ allowed you to make payments via credit card through his website so that was great, but certainly not common. I can imagine that with the # of clients they have it would be very difficult to keep track of who had paid in full if they are all on different payment plans.

I also don't understand why you would even want a payment plan. It seems like a HUGE waste of checks, plus you could be saving that money while you are planning the wedding and earn some interest on it. I put away wedding savings each month into a high yield savings account and the interest I earned really added to the amount we ultimately had saved for the wedding. Maybe in the end it LOOKS like a lot of money leaving your account at once, but that is totally a mental thing!

ttbeach

I worked out a plan that worked for me. I just didn't want everything due on the same day so I paid my planner on months when other things weren't due and I would also ask each vendor what plans could we do.  I of course had vendors who weren't interested in working with me but I was thankful for the ones that were.