Choosing Your Wedding Vendors
Tablescape designed by our talented bride featuring Trader Joe’s flowers and rentals from Got You Covered Rentals
Congratulations!! You got engaged!! Choosing to spend your life with the person you love most is hands down one of the best decisions you can make as a human, and we are SO excited for you to embark on this journey! Now that the excitement has settled a bit, you’re probably in the stage of beginning to make wedding plans, and part of making those plans includes choosing your wedding vendors!
Now if you’re like most couples, you’ve likely never done this before, and are looking for all the advice you can get when it comes to planning your day. We’ve been there too, and it’s a great spot to be in! Now that we’ve done this for our own wedding, and have helped a number of our own couples make plans for their wedding days, we’re here to share with you some of our favorite tips when it comes to choosing your wedding vendors.
Wedding reception design by our talented bride, Mary Ferris, and brought to life by Over the Moon Events. Rattan light rentals from Flowers by Kim and tent by All About Events.
Bessy the Foto Bus and Pearl the Foto Camper make the cutest addition to a wedding reception, and owner Dez is the best person to work with!
Prioritize What’s Important
Now unless you’re a rockstar or Patrick Mahomes, you’re probably working on a budget to plan your wedding. The good news is there are ways to make sure you can still have what is important to you without draining your savings account! Our first step when it comes to choosing your wedding vendors is to set your budget (Excel mayyyy just become your best friend here!!).
Once you have determined how much money you’re willing to spend on your best day ever, sit down together and decide what is most important to you when it comes to wedding vendors. For us it was a photographer because, well, duh, and a coordinator, because we didn’t want to have to think about little details leading up to and on the day of the wedding, we just wanted to enjoy the fact that we were getting married, surrounded by everyone we love!
Another factor we considered here (and one we highly recommend thinking about before you contact anyone) is how many people you a) want to have at your wedding and b) can afford to have at your wedding. The more guests present, the more you will be spending on food, rentals, and table decorations to name a few. We love people, and we wanted a ton to be there, so that was our third priority!
Once we had our priority vendors indicated, we really weighed the importance of other vendors and details: we didn’t need a fancy dinner, tablescape, or venue. The size of our guest list eliminated quite a few options across the board for us, so that helped narrow it down, but we were able to work within our budget to afford the vendors who were most important, while saving on other vendors who weren’t as important to us!
This beautiful boho fall wedding bouquet was designed by In Full Bloom!
Our bride, Kelsey, DIY’d all the stunning modern decor for her Grace Maralyn Estate Wedding.
2. Choose Vendors You Get Along With!
Our next favorite tip when it comes to choosing your wedding vendors is to select vendors who you get along with! We talk about this all the time, but these are the people who you’ll be spending the most time talking to leading up to your wedding day, and maybe even on the wedding day! (Shameless plug for the fact that of all the people at your wedding, the one you absolutely will spend the most time with is your photographer, choose wisely!!!!)
Here is where we have to say it: even if they’re at the top of the Google search page, have a million 5 star reviews, and everyone and their mother in your area seems to use them, does not mean they’re automatically the best wedding vendor for you!!!!!!!!! They may be top tier, but if you find yourself unable to get along well with them (and realistically see yourself working together to plan that piece of your wedding day stress free!!), you don’t have to choose them.
Together sit down and talk to all of your potential wedding vendors. Have real conversations with them, learn about who they are and why they do what they do! Take your time with this step, don’t just book people to check a box off your list. You will find the best wedding vendors for you, make it a fun little scavenger hunt to do together!!!
As a photographer, I had my list of the people I wanted to shoot our wedding long before we were engaged, solely based on their work. This all changed one morning when I walked into my gym and after a grueling 6am boot camp, and met Stefanie. She, like me, was exhausted, but we hit it off immediately. All previous notions and bets were off. I called Joseph (we literally were not even engaged yet y’all) and told him I found our photographer. I am not the girliest of girls, so there were just some aspects of the traditional wedding day I was not at all excited about. Stef was with me on that level (and was also hilarious), and I knew if there was any one person I was going to spend the entirety of my wedding day with, it was gonna be her. Hello lovely couple, choose the wedding vendors who leave you saying just that!!!! We promise you won’t regret it :)
The barn at Swallow Creek Ranch was transformed into this stunning reception space by Parsons Events!
Our bride, Amy, found this stunning lace fall wedding dress at LUV Bridal in Los Angeles.
3. Let Yourselves Have Fun With This!!!!!!!
Queue your 3rd grade PE teacher explaining the rules to a new game and having the “last and most important rule” be to HAVE FUN!!!!!!!! Ok y’all but for real, you have to keep this in mind. This is the best day of your life we’re talking about! You’ll never go through a season of being engaged again!!! There’s gonna be a day far off in the distant future when you’re gonna look back on this season, and I hope for you it was stress free :)
Every couple has different stressors, but here are some of the most common ones we hear about: other people trying to influence decisions, trying to carry all the work & weight on your shoulders, and getting too lost in the irrelevant details. We’ll address those for ya!
When you’re choosing your wedding vendors, try your best not to let others influence your decisions. We know this can be tricky. If you’re not the one footing the bill, whoever is will likely try to have some skin in the decision making game. Or you may have a friend who’s done the whole wedding thing before try to influence you to hire all of their vendors because they’re trying to be helpful. Please remember this is ultimately your day, and that these decisions are yours to make! There are ways to politely ask people to respect your vision and decisions, while having them be influential in other ways!
On the flip side of this situation is you trying to carry all the weight of wedding planning on your shoulders. If you are not a wedding planner, there is a solid chance this is not your forte, and you have a million other things on your plate too. Asking for help is ok!!! There are humans out there whose sole job it is to help you with wedding things, and you likely have someone in your circle who is also excellent at this kind of thing, or has room in their schedule to narrow decoration options down for you to choose from! Utilize your community, there are so many people willing to help you!
Lastly, we find a lot of our couples & friends getting lost in the irrelevant details of a wedding day. Remember when we suggested creating a priority list of the things you were willing to spend more or less money on? Keep that list by your side throughout the planning process. Honestly, if table decor is meaningless to you, it will probably also not matter much to your guests! Don’t spend hours scouring Pinterest and every plant store in your region to find the perfect leaf for your tablescape. Believe us when we say it will not matter in a few months!
So make this season fun! Make touring venues or tasting cakes a date! Celebrate the little wins like booking your florist together! Wedding planning does not have to be a drag. The most important thing is to remember why you’re doing this. It’s about marrying the love of your life, not creating the next best event anyone’s ever seen! Keep all these things in mind when choosing your wedding vendors, and we guarantee this experience will be a whole lot less stressful for you!
And now comes that time when we have to say it, if you’re planning your wedding and are looking for advice, help, support, or maybe a photographer, we are one email (or DM) away! We LOVE serving others, bottom line, and our contact lines are always open. Like we’ve said, we’ve done this thing on both sides of the spectrum a few times, and we are here to walk through it with you!!! Inquire below to get that conversation started :) We’ll talk soon!
Hey pals! We’re Katie & Joseph, a husband & wife team, and Arizona wedding photographers.
We are big fans of documenting wedding days in an unposed, raw, genuine, and honest way that allows our couples to maximize their experience on their day while also receiving a gallery full of stunning images that communicate how it felt to be there.
Though we’re based in Phoenix, we’ll travel anywhere (like our second home of SLO!) for a good love story (and dance party). We invite you to follow the links below to learn more about us and our services, and to get in contact with us!
