Tipping etiquette

We didn't tip. American culture of tipping is skewed. You're already paying for a service and on top of that paying extra because social norms say you have to? Most of our vendors had a service charge or some type of tip included, so no tips from us.

We tipped all of our vendors. They all went above and beyond and we were so thrilled with what they did. They have to keep their prices competitive with other photographers, makeup artists, etc. so we planned their tip into our budget from the get-go.


If they didn’t do a great job though, we would have just paid what we owed without a tip.
As for the open bar - After the wedding, the venue gave us the invoice for how much we still owed (from the drinks) on top of what we paid already and then we tipped them accordingly. They didn’t have tip jars.

Hi Staci! Do you have an estimate for your open bar costs? (number of guests x open bar cost per person) I'd use that estimate to tip off of, or you can ask your venue for a final invoice after the wedding!

View Quoted Comment Agree with this.


It’s not your guests’ responsibility to tip. Caterers include an automatic non negotiable gratuity which is a tip. There is no reason to tip on top of that.
You also should not tip the day of because you are not in an objective mindset to assess how vendors performed. That is why it is suggested to wait until after the honeymoon to assess the vendors and tip them based on if they went above and beyond the call of duty. A vendor who doesn’t show, has bad service or just shows up to do their job with nothing special to offer don’t get a tip.

Bartenders should not have tip jars, that puts guests on the spot. You guys should be tipping the bartender. Does your all-inclusive already have a "service fee" or tip built in?

The bartenders shouldn't have tip jars out; that indicates to guests that they should tip, and it's not the guests' job to tip your event staff, it's your job.

View Quoted Comment

No tip is built in for any of our vendors. We are planning to tip everyone, and we have a percent amount for each vendor but the only one we were confused about was the bartenders because they don't have a fixed price like any other vendor. We do have a price amount per guest but tipping 20% on that price is ridiculous. It's almost $4,000, which was why I was wondering what everyone else did for open bar service and the tipping after.

Besides the egregiously backwards vision of the American gratuity system, the wedding industry has extremely inflated pricing. Vendors generally automatically apply a generous service fee percentage to your final bill, so I wouldn't worry about tipping. (Double check your contracts and keep the pricing of how much you're already paying them in mind). The only few you may want to consider are independent contractors, such as transportation or musicians.