How do you short list your vendors?

Knottie1455736470 · March 2016

I'm getting married next summer. I'm little overwhelmed trying to short list my wedding vendors. Hoping you can point me in the right direction.

What do you look for or have looked at when selecting your wedding vendor(s)? Which vendor is really important? (venue, photographer, etc). Appreciate your insight

ernursej · March 2016

I think the first thing you need to do is figure out your budget and guest list and then you can start looking for venues next. Do not look for anything outside of your budget or spaces that cannot equally accommodate your total number of Invited guests. After that, then I would prioritize thing that are important to you. Really picky about photography? - book the photographer first. Often, when you've secured one or two vendors, they often have great suggestions for other vendors to check out. Venues needs to be picked first as they sometimes come with preferred vendors or restrictions.

ThxSugar · March 2016

venue was first for us. You don't really have a date until you have signed a contract with a venue and you can't book any other vendors until you have a date. We did the most research on our venue. I bookmarked probably 40 venues (In Our Budget!) before Fi and I sat down for the first time. This is where we talked about our styles, preferences, and 'visions'. It was easy to cut down the list once we did it together. Don't like country clubs? That cuts 7. I hate barns, cut another 10. Etc. From there we emailed a handful a list of questions (mostly stolen from Here comes the Guide) and that narrowed it down further. We toured 4 or 5 places and chose one of those.

thefanciestbeckler · March 2016

We picked the venue first. I did lots of research online and picked venues that fit our budget and then set up times to see them. Once we booked the venue, we booked everything else. Having a date locked in will automatically rule out some vendors, which is helpful. You'll be able to save on some areas and splurge in others. Just keep your budget in mind at all times.

kvruns · March 2016

Venue first bc you can't book a vendor for the other things if you don't know your wedding date.

then it was asking others for recs and doing my own research based on budget. We got lucky that our vendors were all free the day of our wedding so it wasn't too stressful

Knottie1455736470 · March 2016

Thank you everyone for your response! Majority of these venues/vendors don't publish their cost or availability. I've found them extremely reluctant to share their cost over the phone/email. Which is really frustrating. Do you've any suggestions on how to get around it, without having to go and see all of them?

kvruns · March 2016

Knottie1455736470 said:

Thank you everyone for your response! Majority of these venues/vendors don't publish their cost or availability. I've found them extremely reluctant to share their cost over the phone/email. Which is really frustrating. Do you've any suggestions on how to get around it, without having to go and see all of them?

I never had a problem with that, it was either posted online or I was able to get the info before hand. Maybe I just got lucky.

In this instance know your approx. size and budget and call back and say, I'm looking to host 150 people for $10,000 for the venue, is that something you can accommodate. Or ask what the range is. They don't want their time wasted if your budget is $5,000 for everything and their venue starts out at $10,000 for just the space.

kimmiinthemitten · March 2016

Knottie1455736470 said:

Thank you everyone for your response! Majority of these venues/vendors don't publish their cost or availability. I've found them extremely reluctant to share their cost over the phone/email. Which is really frustrating. Do you've any suggestions on how to get around it, without having to go and see all of them?

That seems very strange to me. Just like most couples have limited resources to plan a wedding, venues have limited resources dedicated to the sale of the rental contract and most would rather weed out the events that aren't ideal for them rather then spend time and money on someone who can't afford them.

Check out our the local boards here and on FB. The more specific you can be about what you're looking for, like in @kvruns example, the better responses you get. Remember that descriptive words like budget, rustic, large or small vary by person so one persons budget is another's splurge.

thefanciestbeckler · March 2016

I didn't have any problem getting venues to share cost with me.

pinkcow13 · March 2016

I didn't have an issue with them giving me the cost over the phone, either. That seems to be a waste of everyone's time, because what if you go in and the place is above your budget? Your time and the vendors time has been wasted. Most places that I looked into did not have their price on the website listed, but I was given the info either by email or by phone call. I would say that if you are meeting resistance when talking to them you should tell them that you want to determine if this particular venue is within your budget to see if you should bother with a visit or not.

madamerwin · March 2016

Agree with PP's - once you have a guest list set, fond a venue that can accommodate them.

As for venues being reluctant to share their pricing - I ran into that online, but when I called or emailed, no one hesitated to give me that info. If you speak to them via phone or email and they still won't tell you, honestly I would just tell them that you will not be able to visit in-person without knowing the cost, and then thank them for their time. I would be pretty surprised if they didn't give you the pricing if you take that strategy.

Once you have the venue booked (and therefore the date), move on to whatever is most important to you - for us, we knew who we wanted to hire as photographer, so we did that next. Then we moved on to caterer.

My advice is to focus on one vendor at a time if you are feeling overwhelmed, and then book them as soon as you are sure of your choices.

ahoywedding · March 2016

Agree with PP's...guest list first (rough, at least) then venues. Our venue has several required vendors, and then also provided us a list of other vendors who have done weddings there previously. We also made a priority list of things that are important to us, and are focusing on one at a time, in that order. I googled prices for a few, shared the info with FI, and we both narrowed down the options to 2-3 to actually meet with.

CharmedPam · March 2016

With the OOT's I had, the most important thing for me was onsite lodging. Or affordable hotels nearby but I didn't want to deal with shuttles, but I found the perfect location that had it all, within my budget, onsite lodging, premium bar and apparently great food (doing the taste testing in May). After our guest list/budget was set - We picked the venue first, and I honestly only had ONE person tell me they could only give me pricing in person. Face to face. Since I'm doing this all OOT, they quickly went bye bye.

MandTFebruary62011 · March 2016

Knottie1455736470 said:

Thank you everyone for your response! Majority of these venues/vendors don't publish their cost or availability. I've found them extremely reluctant to share their cost over the phone/email. Which is really frustrating. Do you've any suggestions on how to get around it, without having to go and see all of them?

In my experience, if a vendor is hesitant to share their cost, it's because they cost a lot! I remember looking up one photographer a friend recommended and all it said in huge letters on their (very beautiful) site was "Photography is an investment" Once I actually found out the price I understood it was an investment I was not willing to make!

Use your venue's preferred vendors to start your list, but know those may be more expensive in some cases. Make sure your venue doesn't have restrictions - I'm getting married in a historical landmark so any photographer has to carry additional insurance if we want pictures inside the building. Definitely ask for reviews. Once you're contacting someone they really should be willing and ready to tell you the price range right away... if a vendor wasn't willing to tell me how much they charged I'd be moving on really quick. If you're shady about cost, what else are you going to be shady about?

Also I made a spreadsheet as well that included extras each vendor included to help me compare. Our photographer is expensive because that's one of the important things for us. But he's less expensive when you include all of what I get with that price that I would have to pay extra for with someone else. So don't forget to take those details into account!

SP29 · March 2016

Agree with venue first.

Then Photographer, DJ, Florist, Baker.

Yes, many vendors do not list prices online, but they *should* give you a quote if you call.

I would have an idea of your guest list, an idea of the date, and call and ask for a quote, "I am planning a wedding for June 2017, can you provide me a quote for 150 guests/ X hours/ what packages do you offer/ what do your packages start at?".

Probably the toughest vendor I found was florists, as when I would call and ask for a price, they would often say, well I can't give you one unless we know what kind of bouquet we're making. Which I get, but at the same time, I just wanted to know if I could afford them or not! I ended up asking, "What price point do your bouquets start at? What is the average price?" and that helped.

I started looking up vendors online. Many will list their packages, even if a price doesn't go with it. I then started making phone calls to the promising ones to get a quote. I then narrowed it down to 3 of each vendor and made appointments with those. From there, we chose and signed the contract.

If your wedding venue is a place that regularly hosts weddings, they often have vendor recommendations, you can start there. I also asked friends who had been married if they recommended any particular vendors.

How do you short list your vendors?

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