Contracts are a necessity in the wedding industry, particularly for photography.

Industry

Save the Date

In the wedding industry, there are only a few dates per year when weddings are likely to happen.

• Most brides want Saturday (52 in a year).
• Most brides do not want a holiday weekend. MLK, Passover, Easter, Mothers’ Day, Fathers’ Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s eve/day can eliminate anywhere from 7 to 11 weekends.
• Some local events can make that weekend a bad choice for your wedding date. After all, you probably don’t want your reception and the local prom in the same hotel on the same night. Area graduation weekends could affect your family’s ability to be at important events for everyone.
• Vendors take vacation and have family responsibilities, too.
• So, 52 Saturdays – 7 holidays – 2 family weekends  – 1 vendor day off = 42 weekends left.

In order to secure your date with any vendor, you need a contract so you are sure you have them on your date.

The vendor needs a contract because they can only take a certain number of weddings on any one date. They have to know if they are your final decision or not before they can turn away another couple.

Set the Standards

A contract is your written agreement to ensure everyone has full understanding of what the costs, services, and products are. The contract should repeat all that you discussed verbally. There should be no surprises.

For Photographers

Contracts are especially important for Photographers and other sole-proprietor vendors, because we can only take one wedding per date. A baker can bake multiple cakes and drop them off during each ceremony. A florist can arrange flowers for multiple weddings and deliver them to each ceremony venue. A photographer is there for you all day or weekend.

…and Planners

The same is true for Professional Planners. While they may have more than one wedding per day (with a staff of Professional Coordinators to be on site for each event), you still need all their services and prices in writing. That part of the industry is diverse and varied. Be sure you know what you are getting!

…and everyone else, too.

In all honesty, it’s just a good practice for all your wedding day services. It only adds clarity. And, if you happen upon a vendor who “doesn’t do contracts,” you’ll know to run fast and far away from them.

This weeks’ Wedding Wednesday tip is about inviting kids to weddings.

An Observation

At a recent networking event, we were part of this conversation:

Guy 1: We missed you at [a friend's] wedding. You missed a good time. It was a great meal and an open bar.

Guy 2: Yeah, we were invited, but what were we going to do with the kids on a Sunday night?

Guy 1: There were a few babies there, but kids weren’t invited. (With an implied “it was nice to go to an adult event where no kids were present”.)

Me: It’s actually really expensive to invite kids to weddings. Catering charges the same for them as they do for adults. It can be as much as 30% of the budget.

Guy 2: I never thought of that.

Guy 1: Me either. I never considered that.

Me: Yeah, the most recent average I heard was $37 per guest for a wedding reception.

Guys 1 & 2: [Clear look of shock on their faces....and them digressing into a conversation about the "extremely fiscally conservative" nature of their friend.]

The Stats

In the above conversation, I was simply quoting what I have heard. So, I did a little digging for real data.

Wedding budgets are different for every couple, of course, but thanks to our wedding magazines, we have some averages we can apply. However, almost no one would invite kids to the ceremony and not the reception. Furthermore, while receptions cost a lot more on the per-kid basis, we’ll use the whole wedding. However, if you want to apply the numbers to your real budget, then feel free to use the most conservative percentage we’ve found: 46%. Just consider each kid’s attendance .46 of the amount of your total budget.

Using averages

$27,000 Average Wedding in Austin

$27,000 is the average wedding cost in Austin, Texas

($26,984 to be more exact, but for simplicity, we’ll just add in the extra $16), average wedding cost

46% of the average wedding:

$12,420 for kids to attend the wedding. That’s a pretty big chunk of change just to guests who, for the most part, don’t want to be there, anyway.

More Specific Prices

Online published per-person meal prices in Austin, Texas (rounded up to the whole dollar, including real (not disposable) place settings.

$18 Chicken-Fried Steak

$39 several beef options

$50 hors d` oeuvres, two light courses, main course

average: $36

…without linens, extra tables & chairs, a larger venue to accommodate more people, etc.

The Etiquette

There is no reason for a couple to invite any one group of people that does not fit into the budget. Weddings are a very personal, and sometimes private, occasion. Weddings might be a social occasion, but they are sacred to the couple; there is no reason for a wedding to be “the” social occasion.

Inviting kids to your wedding is a big decision.

If your budget is tight or if your tastes are more elegant, excluding children might be a good choice. Still, we present both sides, so you can make the decision that is best for you.

Shopping for an engagement ring can be a scary process for guys. It’s the most important piece of jewelry they’ll ever buy and quite likely the most expensive, too.

Tacori not only makes beautiful rings, they also are good teachers about their products…with this lovely infographic that teaches about diamonds, their 4 C’s, and engagement rings.

We love all the great information they have shared!

• Is she The One for you? For always and forever?
• Do you spend your time away from her wishing you were together?
• Is every day with her better than the one before?

Then, it might be time to begin the planning to put a ring on it!

Engagement season runs mainly from Thanksgiving through Valentine’s. With all the holiday gatherings and family close by, it’s a convenient time to propose. If you are going to have a ring for her and still have enough cash to get through the rest of your gift-giving, you need to start planning, now.

You’ll be pleased to learn that “two months’ salary” is no longer the norm in the engagement ring industry.

next week: Budgeting for the Bling.

• Adobe’s Kuler site that helps you pick a color palette for any project. It can be really helpful with planning wedding or other party colors.
• It was down for a while, if if it’s back, Color Scheme Designer is great, too. It provides more options, a little more ease, and some flexibility. It’s actually made for websites, but could apply to print materials, living rooms, or even wardrobes.

Certainly, both have a place in the color world. The combination of features is sure to help you find just the perfect palette for your Big Day!

Newly-engaged couples have several initial tasks ahead of them as they embark on the journey of planning their wedding.

Announce your engagement.

Northern brides and grooms may find themselves the guests of honor at fairly formal engagement party. In the South, an engagement announcement runs in the society pages of the local newspaper. Tech-savvy brides and grooms will set up websites, Tweet their friends, and change their facebook statuses.

Parent meetings.

If your parents haven’t yet met, now is the time. Any help they are going to be during the planning process will go much more smoothly if they have met.

Select a wedding season.

Selecting a wedding date can depend on your ceremony and reception venues, and even your favorite planner/coordinator and photographer (most other vendors can handle more than one wedding on a day). For now, get an idea of what time of the year you’d like to get married and consider a window of ~6weeks while you shop for venues and your key vendors.

Guests.

Outline a rough guest list: 60 family members on his side, 30 on yours, 40 friends, a handful of his guy friends from work, a dozen or so from your job. The numbers need not be exact for now (but you might as well start a list for the rough count). But, having a general idea will help you narrow down ceremony and reception venues and may influence the style of wedding/reception you select. Be sure to consult with both sets of parents on this, too. And, be willing to stand your ground when things go too far. If your parents are going to invite all their colleagues and business associates to your wedding, be sure that they are helping you foot what will certainly be a heftier bar tab. Be sure, too, they they all have their own section or room at the reception. You’ll want to concentrate your attention on family and your friends.

Budget.

Establish a budget. There are many great tools for this. Find a tool that works for you. Involve all those who are contributing to the cost of the wedding. Parents always forget how expensive weddings are. (They know how much inflation has occurred since they got married, but they are still floored by the updated costs…every time.) If they are helping you pay for the wedding, you should show them some hard numbers. Your vendors can help you explain to them why things cost what they do.

Next, take your total budget and divide it by the number of months in your planning process minus 2. Put that much money into your wedding fund every month. The extra two months will give you a cushion to handle unforeseen expenses, last-minute splurges, or contributions from family that don’t quite work out like you’d hoped.

Here’s an example: You get engaged on Valentine’s Day and decide you want a May wedding the following year (14 months away) in Austin, Texas (average cost $26,722).
$26,722 / (14 – 2) = $2,226.83
is what you’ll need to put into your wedding account each month.

Then, in April and May of next year, you’ll have some breathing room in your budget and can splurge on a couples massage or that special thing you didn’t think you wanted early on, but now you really want.

Gown.

Once you have an idea of the season and the time of day for your wedding, shop for your wedding gown. Take two truly honest friends with you. There is a statistic floating around out there that something like 93% of all brides buy the first gown they tried on. The theory is that they can’t replace the feeling of seeing themselves in a bridal gown for the very first time. Consider your emotions and factor this in. Try a wide variety of dresses including styles you think aren’t quite you. You want to see a wide range of dress types. Ask your friends which dress looks the best on you and which one accentuates your best features. Do not fall for that “first dress” experience. After all, a savvy saleswoman has just put you in a dress just “this much” more than your budget…and with accessories, you’ll spend far more than you had planned.

The Expense of Weddings

It’s your big day. Many brides dream of their wedding day from the time they are little girls and have grand plans and elaborate fantasies of every detail. Sounds lavish, already, right? In addition, family can have expectations on the couple that translate into a more expensive event (like inviting all those third cousins you’ve never met).

Small or large, elegant or casual, hired out or DIY, weddings are expensive.

As professionals, we are quite aware of how expensive weddings can be. We are also embarrassed by any vendor in any sect of the industry who charges more than a fair price for their style/quality/product/service.

So, why, exactly, do wedding services cost more than those same services for other events?

Let’s be realistic and recognize that “wedding” items cost more than non-wedding items because no substitute will do.
My favorite example of this is flowers. If the flowers simply must be blush pink instead of rouge pink, your florist will be limited by availability of that shade in the very week of the event. After all, no one tells the roses when to grow or when to bloom. The florist will have to charge more to make sure can get those exact flowers–often from multiple growers who specialize in that breed/shade. The same flowers for another event, like a birthday party don’t need the essential color match that is important for wedding day.

Remember that good wedding professionals have good overhead and backups.
Ever wonder why you can get a wedding cake on Craig’s List for a lot less than the bakers charge? Well, in many cases, those bakers aren’t licensed, don’t use a separate commercial kitchen that is not in their home (a Health Department requirement in Texas), aren’t paying state sales taxes, etc. This kind of vendor may or may not still be in business by the time your wedding date rolls around. When you hire a real professional, part of what you pay for is their business insurance (to protect you and them at your event) and membership in their professional organizations (where they have go-to help should they fall ill the week of your wedding or encounter some sort of emergency.)

Good wedding professionals have indemnity insurance.
Should everything go terribly wrong when they deliver a product or service to you, they are financially covered. Photography is a great example of this. If the memory card used during your ceremony fails, causing a loss of the most-important images, my membership in Professional Photographers of America will cover the cost of having the card sent to the best data recovery money can buy. In every case I’ve ever known of, they have restored all the images. They even restored the data off a laptop that was melted beyond recognition in a fire. A non-PPA affiliated vendor might have to pass these charges on to the couple.

Good wedding vendors spend more time on your wedding.
As a rule, good vendors are going to give you far more bang for your buck. They are going to spend a lot more time on your event than a more affordable vendor. They are going to go over-the-top and above-and-beyond with ideas, service, and help. Good vendors are going to lead you to other good vendors. You get what you pay for; weddings are no exception.

Birds of a feather.
Wedding professionals associate with others like them. When you hire a professional planner or professional photographer, you are going to get leads to other vendors that match their style.

Good service comes with quality products.
And quality products are not cheap. You pay just a little more to get a lot more.

There are no do-overs.
Very little about a wedding can be “fixed” day-of or after-the-fact. (Yes, you can all get dressed up again and re-do the formal photography…like I offered once to a bride who was too ill to stand/pose for portraits. Bouquets can be divided when the flowers arrive with one missing. Etc.) Wedding professionals are going to take the extra time, effort, and expense necessary to create a plan A, B, C, and D. We take our vitamins, rest the night before your big day, set four alarms in case the first three fail, and have someone prepped on speed dial in case the worst happens to us on the best day of your life. This extra effort goes a long way in ensuring that your day will be just … As You Wish!

If you need more options, a little more ease, and a little flexibility, however, you might like Color Scheme Designer. It’s actually made for websites, but could apply to print materials, living rooms, or even wardrobes.

Certainly, both have a place in the color world. The combination of features is sure to help you find just the perfect palette for your Big Day!

“Bridal portraits are an opportunity to capture a bride at her best without the pressure guests waiting on a wedding reception.”

Source: TexasWeddings.com.

This is a fabulous way to visually articulate the style and look you want for your portrait session and couples perfectly with our request for images that is part of our Wedding Worksheet we use for all our clients.

We’ve been searching for a group just like this one for months. Joining was an easy decision because the group was so warm, friendly, and welcoming. The members are wonderfully talented professionals that span mostly the early stages of the wedding-planning process (planners/coordinators, venues, photographers). Every single one is collegial, respectful, and genuine.

It will be great to see the wonderful things this group can offer our professional development to improve our service to clients.