Is it time for you to choose your wedding vendors? Your wedding vendors are such an important part of your big day, so it is crucial to make the right decisions on your wedding team! We can't wait to share our Rich & Kitch tips for choosing your wedding vendors in this post!
However, before you make your decisions, you & your fiancé will need to determine which wedding vendors are the most important to BOTH of you. If you need help deciding which wedding vendors to prioritize for your special day, download this FREE worksheet to rank your wedding vendors! This blog post shares 5 Rich & Kitch tips for prioritizing your wedding budget & vendors, so make sure you check it out, too!
The process for choosing your wedding vendors is a little different for a destination wedding in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico versus a local wedding in America, but we're sharing Rich & Kitch tips to help you & your significant other make the best decisions! These are the main takeaways to consider when choosing your wedding vendor team:
Pick your wedding venue
Research potential wedding vendor options
Prioritize which wedding vendors are the most important to you BOTH
Book your wedding vendors as early as possible
+ a bonus tip for destination weddings
1. DECIDE ON YOUR WEDDING VENUE FIRST BEFORE ANY OTHER VENDORS.
Deciding on your wedding venue first is important because you will need to tell your vendors your wedding date & location so they know what they are signing up for! Also, if your destination wedding venue is like ours, they will have an "approved vendors" list for you to choose wedding vendors from. If your venue has an approved vendor list, we highly recommend using their suggestions for a few reasons:
The vendors have been vetted by the resort so they are going to be amazing! (The resort shouldn't be recommending someone that isn't amazing, since it would look bad on their part)
The approved wedding vendors will be familiar with property which is helpful for a number of reasons: 1) they will know where the best lighting is at different times throughout the day to take pictures/videos, 2) they will know the best way to set up their equipment with the property’s layout, and 3) approved vendors will have likely worked together before – making the day go as smoothly as possible!
Once we decided to get married at Villa del Arco, part of their wedding package included our wedding coordinator & wedding officiant which was helpful. This limited our decision making & helped us stay within our budget. It also gave us confidence in their abilities since they are so familiar with the specific resort!
2. DO ONLINE RESEARCH ABOUT YOUR WEDDING VENDORS.
Whether you are working off of an approved wedding vendor list or not, we recommend that you do some research! Look at each wedding vendor’s website, Instagram, Facebook, Google search them, and read any reviews you can find on The Knot, Wedding Wire, etc. We really enjoyed reading about our vendors styles, and seeing their work of other couples ultimately helped us make our decisions. Also, when you initially reach out to your wedding vendors, make sure they are responsive to your emails. Or, if you prefer to do things over the phone, set up a call with them! You will be communicating with your wedding team for likely a year leading up to your wedding day, so if they aren't initially responsive, they might not be the easiest to work with, so you might want to consider another option.
3. PRIORITIZE WHICH WEDDING VENDORS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU BOTH.
As you are narrowing down which wedding vendors you want to work with, make a list with your partner about which vendors are the most important to you. Do you want to have the most amazing photos & videos you can look back on the rest of your life? Do you care more about the décor or how amazing the food will be? Rank these in order of priority while also keeping your budget in mind. Price may be an important factor when making your decisions, but don’t sacrifice quality for a cheaper option. If one vendor you really want is more expensive than your budget allows, we suggest getting that vendor! You will just need to get them for a shorter amount of time/smaller package option. Remember to download our FREE Rich & Kitch worksheet here to help you with this step in your wedding planning process!
4. BOOK YOUR WEDDING VENDORS AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE.
If you find a wedding vendor you love make sure you reach out to them right away! There will be more weddings in 2022 since there has been since 1984 so it's important to book your wedding vendors ASAP! For our destination wedding, we booked our vendors one year in advance, and luckily, everyone that we wanted had our wedding date available. As you are reviewing vendors, have backup options in case the vendor you want is already booked.
Also, while you are booking your vendors, make sure that there is a written contract in place & that you read/agree on all the terms. Most of our vendors wanted a 50% deposit to save the date, so it was really important that we agreed on everything before making that investment. We never had any issues with our contracts, but getting everything in writing can be helpful if issues do arise while planning your wedding. Having wedding vendor contracts in place gives you something to reference throughout the planning process, too.
5. DESTINATION WEDDING BONUS TIP: SCHEDULE A WEDDING PLANNING TRIP TO MEET YOUR VENDORS IN PERSON BEFORE YOUR WEDDING WEEK!
While we booked our vendors before our wedding planning trip, it was super helpful to meet them in person to get to know them more face-to-face and to talk about wedding day details. If you aren’t able to schedule a separate wedding planning trip, you will likely have to meet with your vendors before your wedding day. We did have some last minute meetings leading up to the wedding, but you won't want to dedicate too much time towards this since there will be a lot of things going on (like having fun in the sun with your family & friends!) Having a separate wedding planning trip was really helpful to start making our wedding vision become a reality, and who says no to going on an extra vacation?!
The best overall advice we can give to you as you choose your wedding vendors is that you & your significant other should be in agreement on your choices. If your parents are funding your wedding, let them have a say too, but ultimately it should be the choice of you & your partner. We can't stress enough the importance of a good wedding team to help guide you to your wedding day & all the memories your special day will create for you to cherish the rest of your lives!
& you know we highly recommend having a destination wedding, especially in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Our wedding team was top notch & we 100% recommend all of them. It was such an honor to work with them & if you’re getting married in Cabo, we hope you get the chance to work with them, too! They helped elevate our wedding day & the fact that we are still connected with them speaks to how they are amazing people in general. You can find links to their websites below!
Whether you are having a destination or local wedding, the best overall wedding planning advice Rich & Kitch can give you is to get as much done as early as possible! Also remember that your vendors are professionals, & this is what they do for a living, so trust their recommendations on what will work best for your special day!
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You can also check out the kitchensinkit wedding blog page & give me a follow on instagram @kitchensinkit for more Rich & Kitch wedding planning inspo!
