Payment timeline

It really depends on each vendor. If you haven't hired them yet, check out potential vendor websites; many will list it on their site.

Many vendors want a retainer to save the date, as once you have booked them, they turn away other potential clients. Then, many request final payment 4-6 weeks prior to the wedding. As a floral designer, I must do this to order vases and flowers. But, if I were an officiant or dj or MUA or another pro, I'd want final payment a minimum of a couple weeks prior to the wedding. I've had some clients bounce checks repeatedly right before the wedding date, and you can't believe how stressful that is. I don't think any bride and groom and vendor wants to work on payment on the day of the wedding!!!

And, by looking at websites, you can start to play with your budget numbers. Most florists, for example, have starting or average prices on their websites. You'll be able to calculate the average cost yourself - be sure to add tax and guess at a delivery fee.

Best wishes!!!

It really depends on the vendor. But most of mine have had a deposit in booking, as much as 50%, others have been a much smaller chunk.

Then the remainder is due about a month before the wedding. Some are split into two payments before the wedding one month out and a few days out.

Each of the vendors we are considering request 20% deposit and monthly payments due each month. We intend to make the final payments by November 2015.

Mine depended on the vendor. For example, I paid for my reception venue in three different increments (initial payment 1 year ahead, remainder of balance 6 months ahead, and then security deposit 1 1/2 months ahead). But a lot of my other vendors had just a small deposit (~$200) to hold the date. Then a final payment due day of, 2 weeks before, or 1 month ahead of the wedding

I made the deposits on all of my vendors, but none of them require any more money until final payments are due 1 month to 1 week before the wedding, so I had to sort of make my own payment plans. I plan to pay off all of my more expensive vendors early (venue, photog, etc.) and do final payments for all of the cheaper vendors at the very end. We really have no strategy. We just pay out as we get it.

Mine are very similar to Kirsten's- I believe all of mine required a deposit (most were 50% from what I remember, but there were a few $100/$200 deposits thrown in). Then most of the final payments are anywhere between 1 month and 1 week before the wedding.

I'm like KirstenMichelle, all of our vendors just wanted a deposit and final payment like 2 weeks before the wedding date. They were all willing to take payment in between so FH and I set a goal to pay off all major vendors by Christmas that way for 2015 we could focus on the small details and honeymoon payments. We have $2,607 to go. I'm super excited. We just made payments as we got the extra money from the various things do we. We started big and worked our way to the bigger stuff. It's like a credit card, once you get something paid off you are excited and ready for the next.

All of my vendors required 20% deposit. The photographer,videographer, and DJ (packaged deal) also require a payment 50% to be paid 6 months out and paid in full 1 month before the event. My venue doesn't require any other payment until 10 days before the wedding. Their policy is any payment is non-refundable, so we plan on just putting the money aside just in case things don't go as planned.

Most of my vendors required a small payment up front - the most was $340. Most require full payment 2 weeks before the wedding and some just by the day of. I don't want to be paying vendors day off so I will have it done by 2 weeks in advance except a couple such as the officiant and the ceremony musician or the day before. I am saving up and putting the money aside to pay for each thing. I hope to have the majority paid for by June and just have extra things that come up and maybe the honeymoon by that point. We want to do it all in cash and not have to use any credit as we don't want any debt from our wedding. I have enough student debt left to pay and we don't want anything more.

We just started with all of our payments and scheduling But so far what we have done is paid the required deposits for the venue and photographer. FH and I already live together and budget and pay bills together. So we just added monthly payments to our budget. We pay $300/month towards the venue and $200/ month towards the photographer (seeing as those are the most costly right now). Then that way we don't have these big payments in the end. Everything else we are paying in full. Note my venue is a package deal so they provide the invitations, cake, dinner/appetizers/drinks, flowers/décor, candy bar so I don't have separate payments for these things, they're all included in the price were paying for the venue.

Thank you. This is very helpful. My FH and I are almost paycheck-to-paycheck type people which is why the wedding is a year and a half away so we can save the ~$100 a month we have extra so this info will help us a lot when determining a budget, which will be hardly anything. Thank you again.

I'm going to echo the answer that it depends on the vendor. All of the vendors needed a deposit to hold the date - some of them it was a $ amount, others it was a % down. Most of them don't need the balance paid until close to the wedding date (4 weeks or sooner).

After all the initial deposits were made, I just made payments to myself. I have an awesome spreadsheet that tracked all of my incoming income, savings, and outlays. I adjusted daily as my banks account balances changed. At one point I had a mere $200 left over after the wedding, but then I returned a few things, and our catering costs came down after our final numbers and it's back up to a four digit number now. It was a lifesaver.

I had our venue set up monthly invoices so that we can pay it out over the next year. I will be asking the same thing for the DJ, catering company, and photographer if at all possible. My problem right now is I can't book our honeymoon for another month which takes away that much time to pay it out as little as possible. We did get a credit card that has travel rewards on it, so hopefully that will cover most of the honeymoon payments, and we are only asking for honeyfund donations instead of a traditional registry. Obviously that money won't come in until the day of the wedding, but at that point, everything will be paid for and we can put that back in our savings!