Florida-South Florida

Negotiating with vendors?

I just read in the Videography thread about people paying less than the vendor had listed on their website. I'm just curious how common this is. Did you try to negotiate with your vendors? Specifically like photographers or DJs that seem to have set price lists? (I negotiated with my venue location, but they didnt seem to have a set price list like photographers do.)

If you did negotiate with a vendor and wouldn't mind sharing - could you share the type of service? the % or amount of the discount? and you best approach to get something other than the listed price? Thanks!

Re: Negotiating with vendors?

  • What I've always said is "This is my budget for ________. Can you work with that?" and see what they say. 

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  • Exactly what Faith said. It worked for me.



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  • I'll let you know after next week how it works for me. I'm meeting with a couple photography vendors and we have a set budget, that I'm not increasing.
  • In the Miami area, my daughter was offered discounts only from some hotels.  Photographers and videographers - no discount "at all".
  • I negotiated with my videographer and photographer...I told them both what my budget was and what I was looking for in terms of a package, and they both reduced their prices....still above my budget, but much lower than their original price.  I did this for my makeup lady too.
  • I negotiated with all of my vendors...my MOH got married about 4 years ago and I learned from her that the prices are never set in stone for wedding related things.
    What I did was contact the vendors ( via phone/email) and ask what the price was for what I wanted then I would simply say..."Thank you for letting me know...since I am working on a tight budget I am going to continue shopping around. I will be contacting you if I decide to go with your services." Almost all of them would then reply asking what my budget was and they they could do it for that. I even had a few ( the Photo & Video) tell me that once I was done shopping around to come to them with the best deal I find and that they would work something out. Both of the ended up matching the lowest I found and adding extra items to make themselves the better deal. I jumped at that especially since they were my first pick based on the quality of their work and I was probably going to go with them even if they were slighly higher.

  • agree with pp. NEVER say "what kind of discount" can you give? ALWAYS mention a budget, and then have a number ready to go. It never hurts to try :)
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