Tipping vendors

I would tip the officiant if you’ve had visits with him and you are having a personalized ceremony.

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We will be tipping the officiant. The reason is because we took premarital classes with him (no cost for us). He will be traveling over an hour to our wedding, as well. So, if he is traveling from out of town or has had multiple meetings, tip a bit more.

You tip anyone who provides you with a service.

How much do you tip?

View Quoted Comment This is the part that we are struggling with too. We are already paying these vendors which I’m sure that their prices have extra money for them already. We were thinking just an extra 50 bucks. We don’t want to look like we are cheap but All of my vendors are a one person business so they already are getting all the money.

I've read that it's not necessary to tip someone if they are the actual business owner. The reasoning behind this being that, if the person is not the business owner, they're not making much money off of what you're actually paying for the service, hence the tip. However if they do own the business, they're already profiting off of whatever you're paying and a tip is not necessary. I'm not sure how true this is and I'm sure there are regional differences as well. We plan on tipping all vendors roughly 20% with the exception of waitstaff, who we'll probably tip a flat rate.

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I agree with this.

You do not tip anyone who includes gratuity in their invoice.

Commonly people do not tip business owners, as they set their own price. If you really like them, you should ask what website they might want you to give a good review.

Dont not tip anyone who already includes gratituity or service fee in the pricing.
Our venue already adds sales tax and 18% gratituity into the overall amount. So they wont be given tips- we also wont be giving tips to the dj or bartenders. The djs and bartenders are a package rate deal and are being paid from the money we are paying. The only people i think we will be tipping will be my uncle who will be officiating and our photographer

I feel the same. I mean the vendors are all getting the money. I am paying them thousands of dollars. And tipping was never a thought until I heard people talking about it here. And my cousin mentioned it to me once. I can’t believe i have to dish out even more money for tipping ugh

Also in my DJ package he requires a meal to be severed to him. Which is fine but that’s another $45 for me plus now a tip. This is getting expensive lol. My DJ is almost $2,000 to begin with. The photographer I will probably tip because she did my engagement photos for free. The venue will not be tipped but I will tip the bartender probably because they’re keeping the bar open later for us. I’m not sure if I tip my officiant or not

View Quoted Comment It adds up so fast! I am all for tipping when needed but when all of my vendors are getting all the money I am paying anyways....it’s hard to decide to tip or not. But if your DJ requires a meal... I wouldn’t tip him and call his meal a tip especially because of the price of your meal. But it’s so hard to know what is right versus wrong! Lol

Exactly. I think I’m skipping the tip for DJ and I will tip my photographer and bartenders. I also have a violinist and officiant but idk if I should tip. They’re only there for 30 minutes

If our friend wasn't already our officiant, I probably wouldn't tip them as they're only going to be be there just for the ceremony. But if they need to pay for parking or tolls, then it wouldn't hurt to offset some of this cost for them.

We're only tipping our DJ and photographer as they work for themselves and will be with us all night. I believe our venue's servers and bartenders work on tips as if they were working in a normal restaurant setting. (But I may need to double check on that).