Vendors

We separated photos and video as we couldn’t afford the videographer our photographers usually work with. We’re not having any uplighting since we’re completely outdoors.

View Quoted Comment Great idea! Thank you!

Everyone of our vendors is all individually but referred to by other vendors. Our photographer had worked with our florist a lot and our glorying was referred to us from our caterer. We ended up getting some word of mouth referral because you know so and so discounts which helped. It’s better to have a persons name instead of google or an app when the vendor asked how you found them!

View Quoted Comment Word of mouth is good for sure! My venue had a list of preferred vendors I’m sort of stating with them and comparing prices. Several vendors offered a discount when referred by the venue but not all. The struggle is real!

I combined photo booth with dj!

My venue took care of catering. The only other thing I combined was lighting and DJ since my DJ offered a discount— I didn’t really have a preference for lighting.


Everything else, I had chosen based on the style/vibe I was looking for. I even went as far as having three rental companies. Lol. I think it’s much more expensive doing it that way so if you don’t have too much preference on things, definitely see if they package deals. Like photobooth through your photographer.

I also combined photo booth with DJ! But the rest is all separate. I found all my vendors searching through the wedding wire vendor lookup tool

View Quoted Comment That’s what I’m looking at also! A lot of vendors around me offer spend more save more options. One reason I’m leaving towards combining services.

View Quoted Comment Yes, a lot of my vendors offer spend more save more options so I’m looking at combining photography, videography, DJ, photo booth and uplighting.

View Quoted Comment That’s a good idea. I do still need a ton of things. Thanks for the tip!

View Quoted Comment Yea for me I did find two separate vendors and it would have been cheaper but only so much cheaper so it felt like less of a headache for me to deal with less people

View Quoted Comment Oh yeah, if you can do a lot of them through one company— do it that way! That way you’re only dealing with one point of contact instead of multiple ones.


With just my wedding ceremony and reception (not including the other events we hosted that weekend), we ended up with 17 vendors. Which meant 17 points of contact. Haha

View Quoted Comment Makes total sense

View Quoted Comment Omg! Girl bless your heart! I need a Xanax thinking about that lol!

I combined my DJ, up lighting, lawn games and photographer. The DJ/photographer were a husband wife team, he does the DJing and she does photography with a second shooter. We get 10 free up lights with the DJ and my venue also offers uplighting so we are covered. My venue also offers a cake with the package as well as floral centerpieces from a local florist, so I guess we are essentially combining those vendors as well. It’s saving us a LOT of money vs. doing everything separately, and the DJ/photographer combination works really well because we only had to put down one down payment for both, and they offered all of the games my FH wanted.

View Quoted Comment That’s great! Multiple things completed by one vendor! Get it girl!

Hi, and welcome!

It all depends on what you want, and what's in your area.

For instance, a lot of people hire a venue and their caterer separately. Where we live, that was MUCH more expensive than hiring an all in one.

The biggest piece of advice any of us can give you in this area is: research, research, research. Use the "vendors" search function above liberally. Cross reference it to The Knot, to Google, to Yelp...

And bug your friends who got married where you are getting married. (We grabbed our DJ from our friends' wedding, because we had so much fun on their dance floor.) They will have SO MUCH information for you!

I did a little of both, depending on my research. Everything started there, as I had never planned a wedding before, and knew nothing about what was available, and at what cost. So, I ended up with a venue that does the catering and bar, as well as all tables, chairs, place settings, ceremony and reception in one place. Then I got my DJ, and turns out that he offers packages with a photo booth and uplighting, so I got those through him. Originally, I wanted to get photography and videography together, but my research didn't find many photographers that also had videography. When I saw the cost of videography alone, I decided maybe it wasn't a priority, and I scratched it. Well, fate intervened there. I wasn't able to stay with my original photographer after we decided on a Covid-19 postponement, so I was on the look out for another one. One of the first ones that caught my interest was a company that does both photography and videography! omg, so I think I've found my new vendor!

Funny how things work out. You just have to research the options for your area, and figure out what's best for what kind of wedding you want. Prioritize what's most important for you and FH. It will help in your research to think about what's most important to you. For us, it's Food, Music, and People. So we are putting more of our budget to those 3 things. When I say people, I mean we want our guests to have a great experience, and we want to share the fun with them!

View Quoted Comment Thank you!! So far from what I’ve been researching it seems most vendors offer multiple services with a book more save more option. Referrals from friends is a wonderful idea! I have been trying that but I started planning way later than most brides do and so far all the friend referrals are already booked

View Quoted Comment Congratulations on your new vendor!! Yay!! My venue is quite similar. They have a chapel for the ceremony, they do the catering and bar tending, they also will do chair covers, and place settings. So much goes into planning a wedding! I have seriously considered eloping a lot lol!!