Is it bad to pay off Vendors 3 months before wedding date?

We paid our DJ, Videographer and Photographer off abut 3 months ago and just paid our venue off last week once I had the official head count. The only thing I have to pay for are the flowers (which I'm ordering Wednesday) and cemermony music and clean up at the church, which was requested to be paid for at the rehearsal. If you have any doubts about your vendors or about paying that far in advance, don't.

Why would you ever want to give up control of your money before you have too? Keep it in a savings account and don't touch it until it's due. Short Story: A girl friend of mine paid for her wedding dress and 5 BM dresses and waited for them to come in. A couple months later, the bridal store filed for bankrupcy and closed, basically, overnight with no warning. She lost all of her money and received no dresses. I know this is totally different from the vendors you mentioned, but still, things happen!

I always tell everyone if you have it pay it, you never know what could happen down the line and you dont wanna end up scrambling to find cash a month before the date

P.S to everyone who says what if the vendor bails. Most professional vendors have in the contract that you will be refunded.

Thanks everyone for your opinions. I'm going to take the chance and pay them off. I would rather do it now and not have to worry about it later.

A refund clause is great. However, there can still be issues. What if the vendor goes bankrupt? Or dies? Or simply refuses to refund you? Do you really want to sue them? Everybody has to weigh their own risks separately. To me, it's not worth it.

I'm paying mine off about a month early just because we have a lot of vendors and it is infinitely easier to get the ones that I can out now. I've waited a longer time than my antsy self wanted to though, for the "just in case the vendor bails" reason. It is a risk...but hey, so is having an outdoor wedding. You just have to decide which risks you're willing to take.

A lot of our vendors have it in their contracts that final payments are due in August (next month!!).

I feel like if the vendors get paid in full and they aren't honest business women/men, you may be in a lot of heartache when they don't show up to your wedding. All of my vendors are to be paid the day of the wedding. I think that's fair. They get a deposit, show up as contracted and get paid once they leave. Easy.

If you have a problem with tapping into your savings for the wedding, you can put that money in a jar or something and either keep it yourself or give to your parents to "hold until the wedding" for you? Out of sight out of mind.

It's funny that you guys think that a clause means "poof" money is returned to you immediately. You may be legally entitled to the money, but as someone else said, someone could go bankrupt, get sick, die, or just decide that he or she doesn't want to pay you. Sure you're legally entitled to the money and sure if you go to court, you'd win the suit. But that doesn't mean you'll actually receive it. The money has to be there to receive it.

I was legally entitled to my rent with my tenants. Gosh, there was a contract and everything. And...well....they just decided not to pay me and there was no magical money fairy who put that money in my account anyway because....they didn't have it lol. I went to court, won my case, and then....what do you know? They still didn't have the money to give to me so I never received it.

You have no idea what can happen. I would hope it's fairly rare, but I'd rather hedge my bets.

We paid off all of our vendors upfront. We didn't want to have any debt! I don't know if this is the norm, but that's what we wanted to do, and the vendors were okay with it, so we did! =)

Some vendors I paid in full already (cake baker, DOC, florist), but other I have not because there is some flexibility in changing the contract up until the date of the wedding-such as the caterer and the bartending service. If our numbers change then the price changes and I would rather pay just what we owe vs. overpaying.

My DJ and MUAH person are being paid the day of the wedding

I have been paying off as we go but I'm not paying anyone completely off until the contract says to. I'm like Monica SC our final guest count will dictate how much we actually pay in the end and right now I have no idea how many guests are attending.

I wouldn't, for the reasons already stated.

It's just like how my husband gave our last tenant the full damage deposit early and then she didn't return one of the keys.