We know what you need: Pros. The caterer, photographer, florist and band to make your wedding fabulous. Here, advice you need to hire pros like a pro.
Like me, many brides have stories to tell about how their hired professionals failed to deliver the products or services promised. But what most of us later confess is that it may have been partly our fault: We didn't ask enough questions, check out references, read or require a contract, or we were afraid to tell the hired help exactly what we wanted.
If on the day of your wedding, your mother-in-law should come to you and say, "I don't want you to get upset, but... " you're pretty much guaranteed to get upset, right? That's what happened on my wedding day, when my mother-in-law, with a panicked look on her face, informed me that my videographer was about to be rushed to the hospital because of chest pains. Thankfully, he's okay, but his sudden exit left me video-less. His wife, who doubled as his assistant, agreed to stay behind, which was awfully nice of her, considering her husband was being carted off in an ambulance. But the fact was, she barely knew how to turn on the camera.
Because I had been a guest at more than 30 weddings, I thought I was qualified to plan my own. The professionals I hired for my wedding in October, 1998, from the catering hall to the band, I had either seen in action or had received good recommendations for. But I neglected to ask some appropriate questions. For example, I should have asked my videographer if he worked with a qualified assistant, just in case he got the flu or broke his arm the day before the wedding.
Planning experts say that many common wedding snafus can be averted if the pending nuptials are looked at less as the most special day of your life and more as a business deal. Although you're quite naturally feeling emotional, you have to be dispassionate about such things as contracts and negotiations with vendors. You're in love with your wedding-day dream; they're doing business as usual. "The contract is the only source of recourse you have should something go wrong," says Deborah McCoy, wedding consultant in Boca Raton, Florida, and author of Weddings From A to Z (Hay House, Inc., 2000).
Besides demanding comprehensive and binding contracts, always ask to speak with former clients. But beware: Professionals will obviously give you the names of their most satisfied clients, so when you call them, go beyond the standard "were you happy" questions.
"Ask them things like, 'Is there one thing that could have been better or that you would have liked done differently?" says Kathleen Kennedy, a former caterer and author of Priceless Weddings for Under $5,000 (Clarkson Potter, 2000).
But even the most careful check can't guarantee a perfectly smooth wedding day. The best you can do is to be super-savvy when it comes to hiring top-notch professionals. Here, our best how-to advice.
Food, Glorious Food:
Catering Considerations
When choosing a caterer or catering hall, focus first on the menu. You may love the location, but if the food isn't to your taste, it's not worth it. Also, find out what the chef's strengths are. "If he specializes in Spanish tacos and you like Spanish tacos, I would go with that," says Kennedy.
The best caterers will help you decide on appropriate meal choices for your guests, as well as let you sample the food. If you're working with a catering hall that has a restaurant counterpart, eat there a few times prior to your wedding. After you've agreed on the menu, ask if you can view a wedding in progress. (Some caterers won't allow it.) At the least, notes Tracey Martin, a wedding consultant and the banquet coordinator at The Virginia, a Cape May, New Jersey, hotel, "You should be able to see the room set up for a wedding to get an idea of how it looks."
Martin also recommends that you investigate the quality of the products to be supplied by the caterer. "If they offer a 'champagne toast,' they should specify in the contract the brand of champagne," she says.
If you're torn between hiring a full-service catering hall or a separate reception facility for which you'll hire an outside caterer, there are a few things you should take into consideration. A caterer supplies the food, but you'll need to spell out what else-tables, chairs, linens-he or she includes. "Ask if the caterer provides tables and chairs, or if you have to go to an outside party-rental company," says Martin.
If you will have to rent items on your own, ask the caterer or facility manager for a company they've worked with in the past. "I wouldn't recommend cold-calling an equipment-rental place," says Polly Flint, co-owner of St. Augustine Weddings and Special Events in St. Augustine, Florida. Some rental companies, she notes, may not be familiar with your reception space or stock equipment you're looking for.
If you do book a full-service catering hall, don't assume everything is included. Ask if there are additional fees for linens (it may cost extra for colored linens as opposed to standard white), valet parking or attendants for the coat check, bar and bathrooms.
Finally, ask to see proof that a caterer or catering hall is licensed with the city and state health departments, says Kennedy. It's also important that the facility maintains liability insurance, which will compensate guests who suffer physical or other injury, such as food poisoning.
Picture This!
Your Photographer and Videographer
Before hiring a photographer or videographer, always ask to see photos and videos these professionals have taken. Come armed with a list of questions. "Ask the videographer, 'How long have you been in business? What are your areas of expertise? Will you be the one who will shoot my wedding? Will the camera be running start to finish?'" notes McCoy.
Steve Wernick, director of media relations for the Wedding & Event Videographers Association (WEVA), an international group, suggests you ask whether the videographer uses the latest digital equipment, which doesn't require those bright, obtrusive lights that older camera set-ups do. Also, some videographers like to claim that purchasing the unedited tape is a good deal because you can have it at the end of the reception. Instead, ask for a fully edited version, with the option to purchase the raw footage as well.
When looking for a photographer, find one who suits your style. "There is the sort of wedding-reporter or journalistic style, in which the event is documented with posed and candid shots from start to finish," says Flint. "More and more popular now is artistic candid photography, in which the photographer shoots only a handful of posed pictures. The rest are more fluid and fun pictures." Imagine, for example, a shot of a half-eaten piece of wedding cake on the table, your flower girl dozing in her chair at the end of the night, the expression on the face of your friend who caught the bouquet.
Photographers often offer package deals, which usually include your album, parents' albums and several prints of varying sizes. Get descriptions of packages in writing and question the cost of extra prints. You don't want to have to pay $100 each for extra 8x10 prints because your package only includes four and you end up needing five.
Aside from package costs and hours worked, your contracts should include: how many photographers and/or assistants will be there on the day; how many cameras/video cameras will be on site should one break; and the date proofs and tapes will be delivered, says McCoy.
Play On!
Hiring a Tunemaster
For many brides and grooms, making the choice between hiring a band or DJ comes down to cost. Although bands are more expensive - expect one to start at $2,500 - some say you can't beat live entertainment. The benefit of having a DJ is that you'll hear the songs' original versions.
Question your band or DJ about whether they play "continuous music," which is exactly what it sounds like-the music never stops, says Barry Herman, president of New Jersey-based Barry Herman Entertainment, which represents bands and DJs. During breaks and while your guests are eating dinner, the DJ should have a CD playing, or at least one musician should be playing.
The contract should also include the names of the lead singers or DJs who will be present at your wedding, your wedding song, the tunes to which you'll dance with your parents and the band members' or DJ's attire.
Herman says it's wise to meet with the bandleader or DJ several weeks prior to the wedding to run through all the details. "We'll spend 45 minutes to an hour discussing the wedding, start to finish," he says. Make sure the bandleader or DJ can pronounce the names he or she will have to announce, if any, as well as how you and your new husband will want your names read out.
Blooming Lovely:
Hiring Your Florist
When choosing flowers for your wedding, decide first how much you want to spend, says Flint. If you want to save a few bucks, request seasonal flowers. But whether they are carnations or roses, make sure you are specific about the types of flowers that you want in each arrangement. "You can't just say, 'I want seasonal flowers.' You may not like what's seasonal," adds Flint. Also, ask to see samples of each arrangement prior to your wedding day. Make sure your florist knows your color scheme-bring photos of your dress and attendants' dresses or swatches, if you have them.
Once you've chosen the types of flowers, make up a checklist of the different arrangements you'll want. Besides bouquets, corsages, boutonnieres and centerpieces, you may want flowers for your ceremony site and arrangements for the cocktail hour, the table where seating cards will be set up, etc.
It's important to hire a florist who is willing to work with you and take the time to list in the contract each type of flower to be used in arrangements. Also specify the times and locations for day-of-the-wedding floral deliveries. You'll want to put your florist in contact with your catering hall manager, so that he or she can get directions-you don't want flowers going astray!
Lastly, don't be tempted to use small retail shops that may not be equipped with the staff, material or floral expertise to handle a wedding, says Stephanie Pither, president of Bouquet Wedding Consultants in Chicago. "A retail shop's specialty is sending out arrangements that are meant to last a week-like for Mother's Day or Valentine's Day. These look their full-bloom best on the fifth or sixth day," she notes. "But special-events florists know they have a six-hour window of time to work with, during which their flowers need to be the most beautiful."
Perfect Timing:
Whom to Hire When
The best wedding professionals, from the caterer to the band, often have full calendars. For this reason, it's never too early to start planning your wedding.
- After responding "yes" to your
husband-to-be, the first order of business is to draw up a guest list. It's especially important to have this list, or at least the rough number of guests you'll invite, handy when booking the location for the ceremony and reception. Some catering halls require a guaranteed number of people, while others have a cap on how many can be accommodated.
- Next, figure out where the
ceremony will take place and lock in a date. After becoming engaged in December 1997, I called my church to schedule a date for October 1998. The receptionist who answered the phone chuckled at my request-there were no Saturdays available until the following June. Apparently, churches book up quickly too. If you're not getting married in a house of worship, make sure you also arrange for someone to officiate the ceremony.
- With the ceremony secured,
immediately start looking for a reception site and/or caterer. But don't stop there: At the same time, you should be looking for a band or DJ. Wedding consultants frequently make it a practice to book the reception spot and the entertainment within days of each other. "While other pros can serve several clients per day, once a good band or DJ is booked, they're booked," points out wedding consultant and author Deborah McCoy.
- Next step: Find a photographer and
videographer. These professionals also book up fast, especially photographers known for their distinct style or artistic flair. Polly Flint, a Florida-based wedding planner, recommends hiring photographers and videographers within a few weeks of choosing your location.
- Your last stop should be booking
your florist and transportation. Depending on the length of your engagement, these pros can be booked anywhere from six months to six weeks prior to your wedding. Planners say that it's fine to start interviewing different florists once you've hired your other professionals. But you shouldn't choose floral arrangements until other details, like the color of the bridesmaid dresses, have been finalized.
DOUBLE CHECKING
If you really want to go the extra mile to insure that all the professionals you are considering hiring (or have already booked) are reliable, contact the Better Business Bureau. Its website, www.BBB.org, will hook you up with your local BBB branch-there are 50-and allow you to check online reliability reports that state whether a complaint was filed against a business and, if so, how it was resolved. You can also query the Chamber of Commerce in the area where the reception will take place to ask if your hired professionals are members in good standing of the local business community.
ROLL WITH IT
It should have been a very special moment for Lyn and John when their officiant said, "I introduce to you, for the first time as husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. John Phillips." Except their last name is Mettler. "At the end, he just forgot our name and made one up," says Lyn, who got married last October on Jekyll Island, Georgia. "Everybody's jaw dropped at first, then they just started laughing."
By this point on their wedding day, the couple was able to join in on the laughter. Prior to this mishap, the hotel ran out of beds for their wedding guests, the wrong instruments were played at the ceremony and a scheduled brunch turned into lunch. "Something is apt to go wrong at everyone's wedding, so I guess you have to expect that and laugh about it," says Lyn philosophically.
Even if you've put your hired professionals through a rigorous query session and nailed down every detail of their contract, last-minute, beyond-your-control dilemmas are bound to rear their disruptive heads. Tracey Martin, a New Jersey-based wedding consultant, had to keep a stiff upper lip when she called a month before her September wedding to make sure the outdoor ceremony site-a gazebo on the beach in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey-could be used for her rehearsal. Using the gazebo for the rehearsal was fine but, town officials told her nonchalantly, there would be a parade, complete with donkeys and camels, making its ways past her ceremony site on the wedding day! And that wasn't all - during her rescheduled indoor ceremony, her cake cracked and the top layer slid to the floor during the cocktail hour.
Kathleen Kennedy, a former caterer and author of Priceless Weddings for Under $5,000 (Clarkson Potter, 2000), says the best way to avoid panicking over a last-minute dilemma is to appoint a trustworthy person-anyone from a hired planner to your maid of honor - to deal with the professionals on your wedding day. It also doesn't hurt to have a back-up plan. "If you've hired a band, check out a DJ as sort of a backup," says Polly Flint. While you obviously can't have a DJ on standby without paying full price, you might call around a week or so before the wedding to see if anyone is available on short notice.
And if something does go wrong that can't be fixed, Flint says, "Roll with it. You still have the love of your life. That's what it's all supposed to be about, anyway."
*Reprinted from Spring/Summer 2003
