Questions about tipping

I’ve heard this about photographers who own their own business as well. Personally, I will still be tipping our photographer. She also did our engagement photos, and I tipped her (very well!) at that point also. For me, photography is a very important aspect of our wedding experience, so I want to make sure I take care of our photographer and tip her for her amazing services. You bring up a good point about second shooters though. I know our photographer will have a second shooter AND an assistant. I’m wondering if we are expected to tip the assistant. And if so, what is an appropriate tip.


As far as the catering goes, I would suggest reaching out to your venue. Our venue is also providing catering and bar, and charging a 23% service charge on both services. I reached out to the venue and was informed that the charge is NOT gratuity. So we will need to tip our caterers, wait and bar staff additionally.

Hi!! We tipped our photographer/owner. We did not tip the venue beyond the included 20% gratuity in our contract. Here is a chart I had made based on tipping research I found on various internet searches. Hope this helps ❤️

Yup, we still tipped all our vendors who owned their own companies.


In regards to photographer, we tipped him $500 and his second shooter $100. We paid $7k (before taxes and tip) for our photographer so our tip was less than the standard 20% we tipped those who go didn’t own their own business.

Only tip for service that goes above and beyond the call of duty. But do not tip anyone the day of the wedding because you are not able to objectively assess their performance while you are on cloud 9. Wait till you come back from the honeymoon to assess their performance to give appropriate tips and write reviews online.

Do not tip for bad service/no shows or simply doing their job with nothing to show for it.

I also heard about how if someone owns the business you don't have to tip. For me if I'm doing business with the owner I don't usually tip them. I'm not sure what to tip, but I have a wedding planner and in it, it has a page about what you should tip. When I get home I take a picture of the page and post it in the comments.

View Quoted Comment Agree with this.

In terms of tipping, we plan to tip the following vendors only: bartenders, catering staff (gratuity is included, but will leave extra), hair and makeup team, drivers, valet attendants, and maybe the harpist and violinist. We do not plan on tipping DJs, photographers, florist, cake baker, wedding planners, or anyone else who is considered a professional, sets their own fee for their service, and keeps the entire fee for themselves. Tipping should be reserved for minimum wage employees or those who pay commission to someone else, not for a vendor who charges thousands for their services. There is a lot of misinformation being spread about this online, as these tipping etiquette articles are written mainly by vendors. The act of tipping is intended for low wage earners in the service industry who otherwise wouldn’t make a livable hourly wage.

Definitely wait a week or two after the wedding to evaluate how each vendor did. Don't tip them on the actual wedding day