Negotiating with vendors

It depends on the service, for catering for example you may not be able to negotiate PP prices but you can try to negotiate for extra add ons.

Photographers will often times have some ala carte options for clients who do not need full time or a second photographer. It really depends on the situation as well.

We negotiated in a way with our photographer. He had several packages, but there were things we wanted from different packages so he created one for us. We just asked him, can you put this together? And he agreed at a price point that worked for us.

That's tough, because it is a fine line between negotiating and insulting someone. You can ask about customizing packages to get a lower price, but asking for a lower price outright is just insulting to someone you'd like to provide you with good service.

If you're willing to have the package or service bid customized, it never hurts to ask, just be flexible. I'd rather be given the opportunity to make something work for you than just have you bail.

A lot of pricing is fixed, but you can talk to subtract options to get a better price. I would recommend not haggling and trying to get the prices down. If a vendor is out of your price range, then look for others.

I wouldn't call what I did negotiating. I just point blank asked my venue "what's the lowest price you can give me without taking away any food?"

Makeup was the other one. She said her prices and I emailed back thanking her for the information but it was a little out of my budget. She emailed back and asked my budget and matched it.

There's nothing wrong with knowing your budget and asking a vendor if they'd match it. But don't insult them either!

I was able to do the same with our photographer. We liked 1 package but I said we didn't need certain things (a 2nd location, engagement shoot) so he took off a few hundred for us! Every little bit helps!

I negotiated everything! But I paid all my vendors in full upfront so they were able to give a little bit of a discount.

As long as you let them know its a little bit over budget and explain what you're willing to do without. A lot of the times the high prices are high because its labor intensive and there's not much negotiating with that.

I was able to drop $100 off my photography package because I don't need any prints. I also have copy rights to my pics so when we finally move I can buy my large prints. I also searched online and found a coupon for 1 free parent album if I mentioned Wending Wire.

I'm currently writing an email to my florist to ask him what areas can bring down the price. I want to work with him because he made me feel comfortable and I know I can approach him with my questions.

This might help.

http://www.prymetymeentertainment.net/pryme-tyme-entertainment-negotiating-with-wedding-vendors/

My first reaction is this; how would you feel if your employer wanted to negotiate with you for your salary? Miffed, right?

Your'e in prime time, this year; you may find that there aren't a lot of vendors with that date open; four of my six people have been booked for months.....

The most useful answer is 'what can you do without?" We have cut our prices a bit across the board because we rarely meet with anyone in person; our couples do Skype, Face Time and Google hang...it works well for everyone and we have shaved a bit off the prices. Maybe you don't need 10 hours of photography or a hand written ceremony. Those considerations can bring your pricing down.

The flip side of that is this; pros have only so many days they can work in season, and have an expectation of what they will make on a given day. They may not be willing do to less work on a day that they could potentially do more, and that is the chance you take if you have a specific person you really, really want to use.

If you want to negotiate the price, you have to be willing to forgo services. You can always ask a vendor if the price could be lowered at all by taking x, y, and z out of their package price. But also be prepared for them to say no! You're also paying for their time. If you are getting married on a Saturday in peak wedding season then they could be booking with a client who will give them more business.

I'm going to ask the venue if they can lower the PP cake cutting fee. It just seems like an add-on tactic to pull even more money away from me. We'll see how it goes.

Negotiating in this case sounds more like haggling, like what my dad embarrassingly does at a restaurant when he wants a sandwich for $2 instead of $5.

I assume vendor prices are pretty fixed, although may have wiggle room for what they could offer you for certain prices (ie, a beef option instead of just chicken, or something like that). You can also tell people what your budget is and if they choose to lower their prices, great, but I wouldn't outright ask for it.

We were able to get our venue to slightly lower the minimum they required. We modeled out how much the hotel would get in revenue from the number of out of town guests (yes guest room revenue is separate from events/catering) but our coordinator was able to make the case to her manager and it worked. She also gave us three suites for two nights each and helped us merge two catering packages together to optimize what we wanted and keep the costs low. We probably saved a few thousand because of how great our coordinator was with working with us.

We also got a great photography package by doing the same. Stated what exactly we wanted and what price we were willing to pay (always say a little lower than you actually budget) and through the back and forth we settled in the middle.

I was able to negotiate cake, videographer and DJ/MC. I basically told them what my budget is and they were able to match to my budget even though their normal price is a bit higher.

I second Celia! I don't mind working within someone's budget but I'm not going to adjust my pricing for them without them adjusting what they're receiving for that amount.

We negotiated a bit but wish we could have on other aspects. Very glad what we did negotiate though since we've literally saved thousands so far.

1. Venue - There was no negotiating on the venue or food for the package we wanted. However, they usually require we valet and require we get rentals. Since we have about 50 guests, some are staying over for the entire weekend, and most are carpooling, they are fine with us having self parking. Saved us hundreds there and saved our guests from having to tip - a pet peeve of mine since I very rarely carry cash on me and it's usually a 'surprise' it's valet parking situation. Our rentals also ended up being included (with some limitations) since we have a small enough guest list and they had enough rentals. We don't have as many linen color options (but can always bring our own in) and we can only do tables of 10 (when we wanted 8) but I will gladly take that for a savings of $2,500 by avoiding a third party. Biggest advantage we had for this - keeping our guest list small.

2. Dj/Photo/Video - Combined package/same company. We booked one of the best in the region (5 stars for hundreds of reviews on every major review site) and got about a 40% discount and the travel fee waived. They are about 2 hours from our venue so the travel fee was a great free item. As for the 40% (I think it was a little more about it's around there) we got that due to a few methods. a) We booked in 2015 for a 2017 wedding, b) We were very honest with them about budget constraints, c) We researched the bejesus out of our options and were upfront with our vendor about what we were quoted, d) Signed the contract within a certain timeframe to lock in the price, e) Agreed to not move the wedding date to a different month, and f) Removed some of the items from our packets such as a monogramed lighting for our venue which would look weird in our barn anyways. We could have gotten an additional 10% discount if we had paid the entire amount upfront. However, we aren't wealthy and there was no way we could do that. In this case the biggest negotiation tool we had was complete honesty. It helped that those in the company are great, understanding people.

3. Flowers - Although we haven't signed contracts for this yet, the florists have been able to negotiate a little. I'm team babys breath but was open to other flowers as well which helped. I told them I would only want local, in season flowers and that I genuinely don't care about the flowers - they just had to be white. Both of which were honest. I wouldn't even want flowers if it wasn't for having something for the bridesmaids to hold when walking down the aisle. The florist finalists are ones that seem to be the most honest. They took my budget and picked flowers that matched the budget rather than overselling. We also might just go pick up the flowers since it would just be six bouquets and MAYBE 5 small centerpieces. This saves delivery related expenses. Every florist seemed to be open to this idea. Biggest tools we used here - not caring about the type of flowers, being honest, and not expecting lily of the valley flowers on a baby's breath budget.

So I would recommend being honest, telling them your budget, and simply asking.