Tipping etiquette

I’ve heard people say you don’t have to tip vendors who own their own businesses. However, we believe in tipping for great service, so we will be tipping all our vendors who do a great job for us! I don’t plan to tip the photographer until after we receive our photos though- I could never understand why you would tip somebody before you even receive the product to determine the quality of it

View Quoted Comment Right. I just feel especially for our photographer he’s already very expensive. My fiancé and I are strong believers in tipping. Haircuts, dinners out, parking garages etc. we always tip. But the reason is that at these places, they don’t get 100% of what we paid for the service. In this instance these vendors are not sharing what I’m spending with anyone else. To then be expected to give you extra seems crazy to me

I wonder about this also because our photographer and DJ own their own business. The DJ is very sweet and gave us a dance lesson as part of our package, so I am pleased with service so far. However, her fee is a fraction of what yours is. Because your fee is on the very high end, I would not tip on top of it.

View Quoted Comment Yeah and that’s just day of + after wedding services. We also chose to do an engagement session with him which is costing another $500 on top of that

Dang girl! Yeah that’s a lot of extra money! We’re kinda doing the same thing, but I don’t think we are tipping our caterer, cake baker, florist, or photographer! We will tip the bartenders and probably the DJ…but beyond that I don’t think it’s necessary or expected? But maybe I’m wrong! That’s just what we tentatively planned on doing

View Quoted Comment Exactly! Our DJ even owns his business. My fiancé said that he’ll probably give like $100 to all our vendors as a tip if we really feel like they went above and beyond especially considering they are taking 100% of the profits we’re paying them so this is even more generous I feel. Our videographer is the only one attached to a larger corporation and not the owner of the business

Don’t tip anyone the day of the wedding. Wait until after the honeymoon when you have an objective mindset to assess everyone’s performance. Then you tip only those who went above and beyond the call of duty. Whether they own a business or not is irrelevant. You do not reward no shows, bad or mediocre service with tips. Everyone should get an honest review on an objective site such as Google which is more accurate than WW.