Vendor Tipping

20%-25% of their cost each. Its all vendors that provide any service, ie hmua, photographer, etc.
You don’t have to tip the wait staff or the bartender IF the venue includes them in their cost on your total. But if you were to hire a private bartender then yes you would tip them. You would also tip them if there aren’t additional fees in your contract for them. Even if they were terrible, I would still suggest tipping certain people 20 to 25 bucks like your photographer, because they still have work to do when they’re editing your photos and you really don’t want to upset them at that point when you haven’t even received their finished product.

Not 20 to 25 bucks******* I meant 20 to 25%

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How do you know if its included in additional fees? What is it called just gratuity? and do we tip our venue?

Do not tip anyone the day of the wedding. Wait until after you return from your honeymoon so you can assess every vendor objectively. You aren’t able to do that while the wedding is taking place. Only tip those who went above and beyond with stellar service. You don’t tip no shows, bad service, or simply doing their job.

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You don’t tip the venue. A gratuity is an automatic tip. You don’t tip on top of that. You can ask for a break down of fees.

View Quoted Comment Yes, sometimes it will out right say gratuity. Unless you see another charge that you’re unfamiliar with, sometimes they list it as a different name but you could definitely ask your venue. When I initially looked at my venue I asked them if I’m responsible for tipping/feeding waitstaff and bartenders and they said absolutely not it’s all included in the separate fee and they feed their employees themselves. You don’t tip your venue though! Just DJ or band, photographer, hmua, florist, limo service, any dress steaming service. Some ppl tip their day of coordinator if they are hired separately from the venue.

We tipped my HMU day of, since she did a wonderful job and the results of her work were evident.


We waited to tip our photographer until we got our photos, and also sent her and her assistant a gift from our honeymoon.
We didn’t tip our musician because she specifically said not to, and grat for our servers was included in our venue fees. My FIL tipped the bartender super super generously at the start of the night.
I didn’t tip my florist because she was super late, the florals were soaked and not at all what I had requested.