You’re engaged - YAY! He juuuust put a ring on it and BOOM… literally, everyone you know wants to know when and where it’s all going down. Even the calmest of couples can start to feel the imminent pressure of wedding planning closing in on them. Finding the right team to make it all happen can mean the difference between bridezilla and bridechilla. Where do you even start? There are thousands of wedding vendors to choose from and not all are created equally.
At Flutter Social, we carefully vet wedding vendors before we invite them to share their real weddings, making it our job to screen for the best of the best. Here are five things we’ve learned along the way to help take the stress out of finding and booking your wedding dream team so you can enjoy your big day and the process:
1. See what wedding vendors your friends used.
Your wedding means some major purchases. We rely on our friends for recommendations on the best restaurants or where to vacation so we definitely want their trusted opinion when it comes to something as critical as what wedding vendors to work with. It’s like this, “Who did you use? Show me their work… I need to see if they captured ‘you’.”
2. Ask your wedding vendors who they like to work with.
Often your team of Wedding Professionals won’t be together in the same place until the day of your wedding. True professionals can work with anyone (or this is where a Wedding Planner really pays off – discussion for another day) but it helps if you hire wedding vendors that have professional history with one another. You don’t want to worry about introducing the Photographer to the Videographer when you should be sipping champagne and getting ready with your tribe. Wedding professionals have a unique perspective that you won’t have as a couple. They know what it’s like to work with the other team members you are hiring so they know who they jive well with and who excels at what. It just makes sense to tap into this industry knowledge and assemble a team of “Friendors.”
3. Review current, REAL weddings of your potential vendors.
Editorials are great for inspiration but the controlled environment of a styled shoot is very different than the hustle and bustle on your wedding day. You want to review the work of your potential vendors within the context of a real wedding. Real weddings provide you with examples of what your wedding professionals can execute when they are dealing with an actual budget and covering an event at full scale. It will also give you an idea of how well each element lasted through the day. You’ll want to see images and video that showcase an entire wedding so you get the full picture of what your vendors are capable of; again, single images are great for inspo but you’ll want as much context as possible when making a booking decision.
4. Check references.
You are dropping a lot of money for your wedding and there is a major service component with each wedding vendor you work with. So, yeah…. you need to hear from those who have gone before you. If a wedding vendor isn’t a trusted referral from a friend, get a list of past clients to contact, scour social media comments or check online reviews; it is worth it. Get a sense of what their level of customer service was like before during and after the event as well as the quality of the product they delivered. We always like to ask, “Would you hire this professional again? Tell us why or why not.”
5. Make sure you vibe with your wedding team.
Your wedding day is a celebration of who you are as a couple. You are bringing together all the people you love to bear witness to your love. The wedding vendors you hire are creating a personalized experience so you want to make sure that they understand what is important to you.
Jot down a list of what your priorities are and make sure you work with vendors that share your core values. If you keep this list as your true north, it will make decision making easier. Maybe supporting your local community is important to you then seek out Caterers who practice farm to table sustainability. Are you are passionate about diversity and inclusion? Hire Vendors that believe #loveislove and service all couples. If you are as fired up as we are that women still make 80 cents on the dollar to their male counterparts then make sure you give your money to wedding professionals that are operating under equal pay for equal work… and there are a lot of kick-ass female Entrepreneurs you can support in the Wedding biz. Bottom line, you are entrusting these professionals to tell your story so make sure you are aligned with what’s important to you.
Feeling stuck? Find out how Flutter Social's Virtual Wedding Planners can help plan your big day, whether you're just getting started, need help tying up loose ends or something in between.
Love this post and so informative. I always enjoy connecting couples with my favorite people who are insanely talented in the area!
@carlyfullerphoto you are what we’d call a “super connector”