Tip for vendors

I plan on tipping 15% to our vendors, or our officiant though she’s my fiancé’s family and refuses to take money. Instead we got her a bottle of wine and a gift card to a restaurant.

*not our officiant though

View Quoted Comment See to me, 15% is A LOT for wedding tipping. That’d be over $500 for JUST our caterer. I don’t feel the need to tip anyone besides the hair and makeup artist and bar tenders.

I think hair/makeup and bartenders should be tipped 15-20% if the service earned it. Otherwise, I think a pre-set amount for photographer/DJ/officiant/etc. (maybe $50-$300 each, depending on their cost/service/amount of hours you booked them?) would probably be sufficient.

View Quoted Comment She said her venue already includes the tip. My DJ is only $400 so a 15% tip is only $60. You’re not tipping your photographer? 😳.


For our photographer/videographer we’re not doing 15% but for hair, makeup, and DJ we definitely are because that isn’t a huge tip to us.

Our venue has an all inclusive package that we signed up for. We were told that tips are included so I hadn’t planned on tipping. I’m paying for the makeup artist but my sister (MOH) & daughter (bridesmaid) will cover the tip.

View Quoted Comment Our photographer owns her business. We are getting her a gift instead of a tip. Even a 10% tip for her would be over $350.


I definitely don’t feel the need to tip our venue; though we are giving the venue coordinator a gift as well because she’s been so helpful.
The DJ is a family friend, so gift again.
Our caterer has a gratuity/service charge(it flips between then 2 wording so im taking it as that’s the tip)
Our decor person adds gratuity to her pricing.
I honestly don’t understand the point of tipping wedding vendors (besides HAMU because I normally tip my hair stylist). It’s not like their waitresses who are only getting $2.75 an hour who rely on tips.
If we tipped everyone 10% it be over 1k in tips; which to me is kinda ridiculous

View Quoted Comment So what are you giving your photographer if not at 15% tip?

View Quoted Comment Oh! But our bartender is getting a 15% (possibly 20% depending on the service given)

I am going to be using this as my guide for tipping. It doesn't suggest a % tip, more of a flat rate.

https://www.theknot.com/content/wedding-vendor-tipping-cheat-sheet

Here’s how we tipped...

Wedding Venue and Catering: $3k (they asked we not tip and make a donation to San Diego Zoo and Safari Park instead. All money goes back to the animals and research).

Rehearsal Venue and Catering: around $1000/18% before taxes and service charge (they also included a 25% service charge for “admin” fees that was around $2k)

Afterparty Venue and Catering: $700/20% of bill

Makeup and Hair Artists (both owned their own business, but brought assistants): $250 for each owner (20%)

Photographer (owner his business): $300 after the wedding and an additional $200 after photos and album delivery; $75 for his second shooter for the day.

Videographer (owned their own business): $200 after wedding and an additional $200 after video delivery

DJ (Worked for a company): $300

Electric Violinist (owned her own company): $100 since he only worked for 4 hours of the event.

Wedding Coordinator (owned her own company): we had set aside $500 for her, but she messed up a lot of things at our wedding and didn’t take responsibility so we didn’t tip her.

Guests Transportation: $200 ($50 per driver per way)

Wedding Party Transportation: included in cost but we tipped our drivers to the venue an additional $25 each

Delivery for rentals, cake, etc: $10-20 per delivery person

Just looked back to confirm— our rehearsal dinner was actually around $1500 of tips. Whoops.

View Quoted Comment Service charge usually isn’t a tip for the venue which I learned. Our venue is also our caterer so we will probably tip them as well.


And if you’re getting gifts then that fine that can take a place as a tip. You’re pretty much doing something for everyone so there’s the difference.

View Quoted Comment I will give both the photographer and videographer somewhere between $50-$100 each!

View Quoted Comment Well that’s cool!

View Quoted Comment They say service charge at one point in the contract and gratuity at another point. They haven’t been very helpful or get at communicating so honestly as of now; I don’t feel like the even deserve a tip

View Quoted Comment Well I don’t blame you 🤷🏾‍♀️. Hopefully the day of they’ll do an amazing job

Jamie Wolfer (wedding planner on youtube) did an amazing video on which vendors to tip and how much. I would definitely check her out! It was really helpful to hear it from a vendor perspective.

She also has a ton of other great wedding videos!

I would say it depends on the service... our catering staff weren’t fantastic, but we had a 30% service / gratuity fee in our contract so did not do additional tips.
$50 tip for our chauffeur.
Videographer and photographer both own their own studio; have not received our film/photos yet, so not sure, I would say it depends on how happy we are with the work. Make up/hair artist owns her own travel studio and said her fee included a tip; gave her a gift/ gift card of $80 value. Officiant is his own entity as well so we tipped 10%. Had 2 phone calls with him, he couldn’t make rehearsal due to short notice. I have read if they own their own business, tipping doesn’t have to be high because they made their own price anyway.

I tipped 15% for caterers and dj photobooth