How far in advance did you pay off your vendors?

You could always put it in a savings account and gain interest on it. That's what we are doing. Also, get wedding insurance so you don't have to worry too much about them going out of business.

Get wedding insurance! That can help if something were to happen! I would love to have my vendors fully paid off in advance and not have to stress about it. You can always continue to save and just pay them when they require payment.

Except for my photographer, no one else requires payments until right before the wedding. It's just easier to make smaller payments along the way, than lump sums at the end.

@SSS we could but we just rather have it out of our reach

Wedding insurance is a good idea.

We made the deposits, have wedding insurance, and have established an account for the wedding. We have the wedding paid for already, but it remains in our CD until a month before the wedding, when we can cash it out with interest and make our payments.

Most of our vendors have a payment schedule built into the contract. Like our venue (which includes ceremony/reception/tips/catering) had us place an initial deposit when we signed the contract, a second payment due Feb 17th, then a headcount & final payment due 2 weeks before our date.

We are planning on saving it in the bank as long as possible so it gains interest. Even if it's only a hundred dollars of interest or so, I'll take it!

All of our money is in a savings account ready to go. We won't be paying anyone until they ask.

We have been transferring money into savings too and will have enough to pay everyone off in full about a month and half before the wedding. I don't want to worry about day of payments. Our caterer is the only one that we are paying 2 days before the wedding because they won't accept anything before that

My goal is to have everything paid off before the wedding as long as you have a contract with them you are good ! That way you don't have to worry about a ton of payments the day or week before I would rather just pay everything off when I can!

Thanks for the insight everyone, I think insurance may be the best option for us then.

We much rather pay things off as we go. I know a contract protects you but by the time you litigate that- the wedding may have come and gone- and meanwhile, we'd be short on money for a new vendor, to replace the one who sold out.

So far we have our venue paid in full (it was pretty expensive so we wanted to get that out of the way), our photographer is about 1/3 paid for, and we just put the deposit down on our DJ. Most of our vendors must be paid in full two weeks prior to our wedding. The nice thing about our venue is they do in-house catering. We will get billed after our wedding for our food ($30 per person), bartenders, security guard, and linens.

We arent paying anyone in advance just in case. Just deposits until the rest of the money is due.

If you plan on paying anything off early, get wedding insurance that way you are covered if something happens!

We just paid off our DJ, have been making payments on the photographer and venue. Everything else I'm basically just paying off as I book. The hair stylist won't be paid until the day of and the desserts aren't paid off yet but I'll probably do that before the wedding too. We do have wedding insurance so I don't see a problem with it. The last few weeks before the wedding are going to hectic enough so I don't want to forget a payment or forget my checkbook or something silly if I can just get it over ahead of time.

Not to hijack your post but who did everyone use for wedding insurance that includes vendors skipping out? How much did you pay?

Most of my big vendors have payment schedules so we kept money in savings account and paid on schedule. The only one i paid off early was photography because i just wanted it to be done.

I agree with signed sealed; put all this money into a savings account or a CD and don't touch it. At least you'll get a little bit of interest.

We require a 50% retainer and 50% one month before the ceremony, before the ceremony script is delivered.

OP, wedding insurance is def a good thing. But what you were saying about it being difficult to litigate through a contract right before the wedding is a good reason to keep the money in savings (in a special wedding account, if you have trouble keeping enough in savings) rather than paying early.

I paid my photographer in full up front, even though the contract said the second half of the payment was due the week before the wedding. The week before the wedding, I'm trying to contact them to check on details, and they won't respond to emails, and calls go straight to a non-set-up voicemail. I'm panicking, wondering if I'm going to have anyone to take pictures at my wedding. Having already paid the first photographer, I don't have money to pay a second one, and insurance would take a couple days, even if I could find someone available. It took a few days, but we finally were able to make contact with them (through other photographers who offered to shoot our wedding if the contracted photographer didn't show). However, that week of panic made me vow never to pay in full until the deadline!

Like a bunch of PP said, that money could be sitting in a savings account and earning you interest. Why would you want to forego that? It makes zero sense to me.

We paid them when it was due. My DH is an attorney, and he would not let me pay things off far before the due date because if they ran, we may not get all of our money back.

That being said, the entire wedding was paid off roughly 10 days before excluding day of expenses (hair, makeup, hotel).

We paid all the deposits and kept saving the rest. The final payments are due 2 weeks before the wedding for the venue and our DOC who is also making centerpieces and flower arrangements, we're also renting chair covers from her. Our DJ and transportation requires full payment the day of, and our photographers require the remaining payment when we pick up the print outs after the wedding.