Shopping for Vendors

I just booked my venue, but I'm only 10 months out from my wedding date! Did you research and book vendors one at a time (i.e. I was going to start with photo, then video, then hair/makeup, then DJ, florist), but it seems like this will take me forever! It also seems confusing to be looking into multiple vendor types at once....and my fiance is clueless about this stuff so he's not much help lol

My mom is considering doing all of the flowers and decorating herself, so she is busy researching that stuff, and she is going to help me in the dress search (got to get on that too!)...so that's really the only assistance I have.

Shopping for Vendors

We did all of our vendors separately but we were very lucky to have found them all in a month...I think if you do enough online research when you go to meet them that'll be the deciding factor for you! You can also ask vendors who they recommend...my DJ and photographer have worked together before (and both at my venue) so that was important to us!

Shopping for Vendors

We started in order of priority. Videography was researched before we even had a date, because I wanted to meet people and get pricing. Then photo because of engagement pictures. Then venue. That set the timeline. Church and Dress are next, with DJ in tow. Then I'll move onto flowers/decor/extras.

Somewhere in this mess I have to ask my bridal party to be my bridal party, send stds and invites...

Shopping for Vendors

Recommendations is definitely the name of the game. My FH worked for a photobooth company while he was unemployed, and we got so many recommendations from the owner for people that we were pleased with. We used a DJ (Brett from After Hours) at our engagement party that was recommended to us, and we are using him for our wedding also. Our photographer was recommended to us, and we're using her for the wedding also.

Venues usually hand out a list of recommended vendors, and that can be used as a starting point. Look them up on the internet, see how you feel about their work, and read their reviews. You can find pictures and videos of EVERYTHING on the internet, because all of these people want to advertise themselves. If you can't find any that you like, ask here, lol. Everyone here can provide names of vendors their happy with too!

Shopping for Vendors

We are doing one vendor at a time, but we have plenty of time so it's probably different for us. First we did church then venue then photo then video then hotel block (the rates we're going up soon) then dj... Next is flowers. I could definitely have had all the vendors booked by now if FH wasn't around to dial down my crazy lol

Shopping for Vendors

We just have limo left to do but did one vendor at a time. I went mostly off of recommendations did a lot of research before even meeting with them. This helped to narrow down the search and we basically knew what we wanted before any initial appointments.

Shopping for Vendors

I did one vendor at a time...
I typed up a kind of standard email stating when & where my wedding was, asking for pricing as well as their availability to meet. I then copied & pasted that same email to all vendors I was interested in and (very surprisingly, I thought!) not everyone got back to me! That helped me weed out vendors I didn't want to work with (including those with unprofessional responses including multiple spelling errors) and then I set up meetings from there.

At first, I felt the same way that FH was clueless on these things...but then I realized...I never planned a wedding either and I'm doing it! I gave him some specific tasks and he was able to talk to the cake & limo people just fine. :)

Re: Shopping for Vendors

I researched all the vendors I was interested in but limited myself to my top 3 for appointments. I just couldn't see going to dozens of vendors because it would get too crazy.

Shopping for Vendors

I booked my venue first. I researched all the recommended vendors and made appointments with ALL of them. Then from there we made our decisions and signed a bunch of contracts. The only vendor I did not research on was my photographer and videographer. My cousin used Glenmar Studio for her wedding and I had no doubts I wanted to use them to capture our wedding.