Tipping

I think it's pretty customary to tip the day of the event and most people I know had cash tips divided out and on hand at the reception to give out. Unless anyone makes really horrible errors or otherwise derails your event I think planning on 15-20% tip to give the day of is what I would recommend.

People will pressure you to tip before the service is performed or the day of when you are cloud 9 and can't objectively determine if they legitimately earned the tip. Ideally you should wait till you come back from the honeymoon to assess the services provided. Then you give tips only to those who went above and beyond the call of duty. Contrary to popular belief, you should never tip anyone for bad service, no shows or just showing up. It should not done be done differently. Giving a tip the day of for bad/mediocre service tells the vendor "thank you for treating us badly, please go do it to someone else".

Also, a vendor can be great during planning and horrible the day of and vice versa and are still given a large tip because they are told they must no matter what.

The time frame after the honeymoon when you assess services to dispense appropriate tips is also ideal for writing your vendor reviews and submitting them to Yelp. Unlike WW which has a reputation on the forums for deleting any honest reviews under 5 stars, Yelp and GoogleMaps do not.

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Yeah thats what i was thinking too. I am goign to be so happy and overwhelmed on the day off that i want to evaluate the work after the fact to tip properly because i also will not tip if things are not to the standard at which it should be. I have heard stories from other brides about how things went wrong with their vendors the day off and they tipped them prior and regretted it.

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Yes and even with the regret, they still tell future brides to tip early because that is 'how weddings are done'.

View Quoted Comment I didn’t know WW deletes bad reviews. Makes sense though as I haven’t come across many negative reviews.

It's up to your discretion. I've heard people doing both options. I plan to have thank you cards with the suggested tip amount inside and give them to one of the groomsmen to give the vendors the day of (AFTER their services are performed). If any vendors make any horrible mistakes or don't meet my expectations, I have no problem with stepping aside for 30 seconds to reduce the tip amount. My FH and I have a catering business and know how the service world is, so we're always decent tippers and don't feel the need to sit down and fully evaluate the entire night to determine if a vendor earned 20% over 10%. After my honeymoon the only thing I want to deal with is thank you cards, not contacting vendors to give them a tip.

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I own and operate a chain of restaurants so i am very familiar with the service industry as well. I typically am a very good tipper unless there is a huge mess up. i currently have 20% set aside for each vendor but my gut has that feeling lol. I'm sure everything will go well and there will be no problems but every once in awhile the anxiety creeps up on me. But i do like your idea. Thank you for your input

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Gotcha! I personally don't see tipping wedding vendors any differently than tipping any other vendor/employee outside of weddings. If a waitress at a restaurant isn't the best, I still give a tip, just not as much as if they went out of their way for me. Same thing when I go to a hair salon. I think it all depends on if you think you'll be confident with making tipping decisions on the spot or if you need some time to look back and think about it.

We planned to tip day of but there was just so much going on, so we ended up mailing tips and thank you cards. But, I made sure they knew this was going to happen/that I hadn’t forgotten to show them some love— I made sure with everyone before we parted ways that I had their mailing address and could send them something.
Tipping day of is advantageous because it does allow you to know what everyone got what was intended for them, and because tips are very best in cash and it’s not so secure to mail cash.

I think this is personal preference. I do know most tip the day of their wedding. My husband and I tipped our bartender, caterer and DJ towards the end of our wedding. We gave the envelopes with the tips in them to my father-in-law and he handed out the tips before the end of the night so my husband and I would not have to worry about it. Our venue coordinator was amazing so my husband and I wanted to do something special for her. A few days after our wedding and our out-of-town guests left, we sent her a huge edible arrangement thanking her and her staff for everything they did for us. When we got our "sneak peak" photos from our photographer, I went back up to the venue to show her and took the cash tips for her and her staff as well. Our venue coordinator was the best and did so much for us! I was so glad I got to go back to our venue and sit-down with her and talk after our wedding.

I did some tips that day and others after I received my final product. I divided cash up into small envelopes with vendors names. I gave them to my dad and he distributed them at the end of the night.

I think you tip when you pay the vendors. I’m going to give my planner a gift card because she did awesome. There was never a no with regard to any requests. Everything is a yes.

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You had the same experience that I am having. My planner was awesome and went way over her job for us. The club was deep cleaned and she is allowing me to use many things at no extra charge. I was wondering what to do for her after the big day. Now I know. Thank you for sharing your experience. She is getting a spa card.

We prepared all of our tips for the day of the wedding. We had them ready in individual envelopes and our DOC distributed them to our various vendors

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Hi Michelle, I am in the service industry as well (hotel GM with large banquet space and outlets), and I always think it is a good idea to tip. However, like you, I do agree that it may be best for us to wait a few days or so to make sure we aren't just on cloud 9. Although, I likely will have cash divided up so that if the FH is insistent, okay, great here you go. But most of my vendors I have venmo'd them money so at least I can send them the appropriate tip that way as well! Good luck!!

View Quoted Comment Hi Nicole. I appreciate the tips. My fiancé and I are both former service industry workers & always over tip regardless of quality of service. The same is true for the majority of guests that will be there so I know the bartenders and servers will be taken care of. With that being said, our venue has a 25% tip built in to the price . Is that standard for most halls and you tip 20% on top of that. And is 20% standard tip for Dj, Photog etc.. I’m always nervous about under tipping and everyone I talk to has a different suggestion/opinion on best way to go about tipping. Any additional input is appreciated 🤍

View Quoted Comment Hi Gina, industry standard is 18%-25%, that is typically divided by the banquet staff members and sometimes the catering/sales manager. I think if you have a few people who went above and beyond it’s always nice to tip them a little extra. If the gratuity charged for even is say $1200 but it ends up being divided by 15 people, sometimes the gratuity is not much. But also keep in mind they do get hourly pay as well in most places. Some pay server pay but some pay $7+ and hour.


20% is standard for additional vendors but only if they go above and beyond. Hope this helps.

Https://youtu.be/Wkzj9zo_wUw

This video was helpful for me,

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Am I correct when people are saying that you need to tip 20% above the gratuity already being charged for all the services? That seems excessive! Also, is that 20% of the total bill, which includes venue, additional tables, etc. or only the cost of the food? I am so confused.