Truths that Brides Should Know Before Wedding Planning
Hi, my name is Joshua and I’m a wedding filmmaker, my wife Carole (and better half, lol), she’s a wedding photographer and together we are Wedding Photography and Films.
If you follow us on a regular basis, then you know that I’m also a wedding expert with years of collecting various pieces of data from couples just like yourself.
Today, I want to share with you a few truths about the wedding industry that you need to know and that honestly, many vendors don’t want you to know.
Keep the Emotion out of It
If you can, while planning a wedding, keep your emotion out of the process.
Trust me, it’s harder than it seems, I mean when you start looking at a vendor category, you’re going to be hit up with all sorts of marketing, media and sales, keeping emotion out of the decision making process will greatly help you book vendors that you want in your budget rather than overspending on one that evokes an emotion but really isn’t any better than their competition.
See, when you’re emotional, you WILL spend more than if you weren’t.
Don’t get me wrong, you want to be excited about the vendors that you hire or that awesome wedding dress you’re going to purchase, but if you let emotions drive your decisions, then you will most likely regret the decision.
Couples that purchase off emotion, tend to overspend roughly 35% more than if they made the purchase with emotions on the sideline.
Emotion vs Logic
While 35% doesn’t seem like much, for every $1,000, that’s $350.
Back in October 2018, I asked 783 couples through social media if they found two competing vendors with the same services, same level of expertise and the only differences were that one invokes an emotion, one had a price of $1,500 and one had a price of $2,640, which would you choose.
63% said they choose the higher priced option because of the “feeling” that they get from the vendor, the 35% said they choose the cheaper vendor if they were identical and 3% said they weren’t sure and would need more information before deciding.
Paying Extra Based on Emotion
The same sort of thing happens when you purchase a car at a dealership. Car companies try their best to produce an emotion so that the emotion helps drive the overall sale of the new vehicle rather than logic.
Emotions can be produced by what is said, the visuals on how they come across or perhaps the experience that they provide.
If it makes you feel good, chances are you will be willing to pay MORE for that product or service, even if it’s the same thing but cheaper and doesn’t invoke an emotion right away.
The bottom line here, try to keep your emotions sidelined until after you make a wedding purchase or book a vendor, TRUST me when I say it’ll help save you some money and not hurt your pocketbook.
Wedding Vendors don’t like me stating that but it’s true. In the advertising world, there are tow ways for you to make a purchase, with your wallet or with your heart.
The same applies to the wedding industry too, many people offer sales, discounts, value-added services and great overall experiences.
Yes, you want all of that if you can get it, but people use emotion to help drive sales all the time, it’s just something to think about when selecting the right vendors for your wedding.
Your Wedding Day isn’t really Yours
The truth is, the day that you picked as a wedding day, it’s most likely not just yours. In fact, depending on where you live, hundreds or thousands of other couples are getting married on the same day.
Take Virginia for example, according to the Department of Vital Records, in 2017, 54,000 couples got married in the state.
Divide that by 52 weeks in a year and the average number of couples getting married on a given weekend is 1,038.
That’s 1,038 venues of all types, 1,038 wedding officiant’s, 1,038 wedding photographer’s, florist, videographers, wedding dresses, well, you get the idea here.
Sure, some weekends were way more popular than others and some weekends have very little couples getting married, think the wedding off-season, but just know that many couples are also sharing your wedding day.
I know, bummer, right?
Well, there is some good and some bad that comes along with that and let me explain.
See, there are a ton of others out there looking at the same wedding vendors as you are, so when you want book someone, you need to do a couple things, ask if they do a pencil hold for a few days or book with them as soon as possible.
The best thing to do is see if they do an automatic pencil hold if possible.
This allows you to look at their work, step back and ask questions, read reviews, connect with the vendors and to decide if they’re right for your wedding day.
We for example, offer couples a 7-day pencil hold so they can ask questions, watch past work we’ve done and to help figure out if what I offer aligns with them and their budgets.
You want to decide within a few days’ time, usually, when you are talking with that vendor, chances are, so are others.
That’s the bad thing about the wedding industry, booking isn’t an easy thing to do if you live in a populated region like Washington, DC.
The good thing about this problem is that you have an advantage on other couples, but only if you work with vendors when the timing is best.
So, when is the best timing on areas that have what are known in the wedding industry as having an “off-season”?
Usually, during the months of December and January are best.
More times than none, vendors will offer a small discount and even if they don’t, they’re hungry for bookings, especially those that operate full-time.
Most couples tend to book in the spring or fall time and it doesn’t matter when the wedding is, it’s just a natural time to go through the wedding booking process.
As a vendor, I’ve found that couples that tend to book with me in the winter months often have a much better handle on their budgets and seem to make decisions based off things like quality rather than price.
A Secret to Your Wedding Budget
If you are one of the nearly two million couples that will get married this year here in the United States, it really doesn’t matter if you have a backyard wedding or a $140,000 one, you ALL have this in common, a wedding budget.
But I want to give you a couple of secrets about the budget that most will not tell you.
First, you have the ability to adjust it as needed without expanding it, this is what I mean.
Let’s say for example that you have a $20,000 budget.
Within that budget you really, really-REALLY want to hire a wedding photographer, but you just don’t have it in the budget to afford one.
What do you do?
Well, you choose less costly vendors, instead of spending X on a vendor, maybe you cut that cost by 10% and choose someone else.
Maybe instead of buying a $1,600 wedding dress, you buy one for $1,100 instead.
You and only you have the power to adjust things like that but the most powerful cost cutting part is the wedding guest list.
The more guests you have at a wedding, the MORE expensive it will cost you.
Normally, it’s not the venue cost but rather the catering cost that gets you when it comes to spending the most money.
Here’s an example, let’s say a good wedding venue will run you about $5,000.
Catering that includes the cost of beer, wine and wedding cake will run you about $30 a person. For 100 people that’s $3,000.
Catering Cost based on Guest Count
But add 50 more and it suddenly becomes $4,500, near the price of your venue. For 200 guests, you’re spending more than the venue cost all together at a rough cost of $6,000.
And let’s be real for a moment, $30 a person is cheap.
I’ve seen venues that cost a mere $1,500 BUT you must use the catering company that owns the venue and it’s $80 a plate! At 100 guests, you’re spending $8,000 on food and just $1,500 on the venue. Not recommended in my view.
Price is NOT the Factor You Should Decide On
One thing that I will tell you is that if price is the number one thing that you’re looking at when making a decide about a vendor, you’re doing it wrong.
Three Keys to Finding the Right Wedding Vendor
Look at just about any social media wedding group and you will find a slue of vendors offering amazing pricing on something they offer.
And honestly, it’s a great price.
BUT, most times, price is just one of three things you need to look at, the other two are quality and experience.
Together, these make up the factors that you need to hire one of us on and this is how you do it.
First, find the vendors in your budget and include those that are 10-15% outside the budget too.
From there, you should have a good list that you can work down from.
Next, look at their experience. This is usually found on their website and more times than any, found on the about us page. They have x number of years working in the industry or they’ve done X number of weddings in their career.
What you want to look for are those that have a good number of weddings they’ve done under their belt. Also, reviews on Google and Wedding Wire come into play here, try to see what others have to say about the vendor and try to work with ones with a 4-5-star rating.
That should give you the ability to take the first round of vendors and cut them in half or more.
Finally, look at their quality.
Do they offer products or services that are in line with your vision or wedding day? They should.
If not, mark them off the list. You want to look for great quality and something that you’ll be happy with in the long run too.
You may still have a few vendors on the list by now but those are the ones that you will want to further narrow it down. Connect with them and ask them questions about what they have to offer, various services and compare them among each other to help make the best decision possible.
You’ll find that there are many vendors of a select category that are very low in price, average in price and very high in price.
My rule of thumb for vendors, stick with vendors that are average in price if you can, those are the ones that will offer the best price to experience to quality.
Another Secret with Vendors and Regions
One thing that couples rarely think of or do in practice is considering vendors in nearby regions next to their own. Many times, you will find that neighboring regions will have similar quality vendors at less expensive costs, it all depends on where you live.
Let me give you a great example.
Many couples that live in northern Virginia will tend to hire me compared to someone closer to home because it is cheaper to hire me, even with a travel fee, than it is to hire a competitor that operates there.
Many times, couples can get me for less than half the cost of videographers in the region but at the same quality and experience.
And that’s the point.
If you live in a region where prices tend to be high within the wedding industry, consider looking at a neighboring marketplace for similar vendors.
You can save a good amount of money by booking vendors in other regions.
Couples that choose this route for wedding planning can save an average of about 20% of the entire wedding, I know, we’re THAT vendor that gets hired across Virginia, the Carolina’s, Tennessee and Kentucky and the Mid-Atlantic.
Hire Part-Time Instead of Full Time to Save Money
Years ago, when I was a full-time wedding videographer, I NEEDED lots of work to keep me and my brand going.
I was very happy filming weddings, but man, did I have a lot of work on my plate when I did.
To give you an idea of some of the things I had to pay for, they included:
• Studio Space (rent)
• Two part-time employees
• Lots of marketing costs (wedding shows, magazines ads, online ads)
• Lots of camera gear for all the weddings, corporate work and projects
I was making roughly $240,000 a year which is amazing amount of money, but I also had a LOT of expenses too.
And that’s the point I’m making here, as a full-time wedding vendor, I NEEDED your money in order to live.
Full-Time Expenses
Today, as a part time vendor and wedding expert, we still need your money, but for a MUCH different reason.
It’s more of a side gig where the money made is in addition to my full-time job. Carole is much the same way, she’s my counter part to the business and does wedding photos, but she also has a corporate life too.
So, why does this matter to you, the couple getting married?
Good question.
As a part time wedding vendor, I’m much more likely to spend more time with you as a client, more likely to give you a better price and more likely to give you a better experience.
That’s because part time vendors don’t have as many clients to support and therefore can give equally as good work, sometimes better than a full-time vendor.
Years ago, when I was running full time, I would have disagreed about that but now that I only take on 15 clients a year, I clearly see the advantages.
Most wedding vendors again would disagree with that, they’re in the market to get as much money as they can from you, I’m not.
See, I offer my services at what I consider a fair rate, enough to pay for my gear, make a bit to have for fun and some to invest.
Anyway, considering a part time wedding vendor is many times better and cheaper than hiring full-time one.
Well, there you have it, some great wedding truths that you should be aware of when wedding planning. Many competitors and other vendors will frown at the sorts of things that I explain to couples just like you, well, I’m not in business for them, we’re in business to make good wedding photos and films and to help couples have the BEST experience they can with regards to their wedding day.
Cheers ~
