Planning Advice – Finding Your Suppliers
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Posted in Planning Advice
You’ve set a budget, chosen the date and booked your venue. So what’s next? As part of our Planning Advice series we look at some of the different suppliers you may need to hire for your wedding, and offer some of our top tips on how to go about finding the perfect service providers for your wedding day.
There are lots of different suppliers involved in a wedding. All of them play an important role on the day, so it’s worth making sure you’ve found the right ones for you. Some of the suppliers you may need to hire include:
- Caterer
- Photographer
- Videographer
- Transport
- Florist
- Entertainment
- Cake designer
- Hairdresser/make-up artist
- Crèche
It can seem a little daunting when you first look at your list of suppliers to find, but the process will be much less stressful if you create an order of importance. I always recommend first finding suppliers that only take one booking a day, as they will have more limited availability. These include your photographer, videographer, transport and entertainment.
Finding Your Suppliers and Creating a Shortlist
Before you start any in-depth research into suppliers, have a think about what you want for your wedding. For example, do you want vintage transport or something more modern? Are you looking for a particular type of cuisine for your wedding catering? Answering some simple questions like these will help you to focus your searches and find suppliers more easily.
Personal recommendations are a great way of finding wedding suppliers, and you have added reassurance that they will do a great job. However, remember that your wedding is personal to you and it’s important that you feel comfortable with your suppliers. This is particularly important for your photographer and videographer – the photographer that your sister hired 12 months ago may not suit your personality, so explore other avenues as well. Online supplier directories, planning forums, wedding blogs, wedding fairs and wedding magazines are all excellent sources of information.
Use supplier websites and make telephone calls to find out essential information and create a shortlist of those suppliers that you would like to meet in person. By doing plenty of ‘desk research’ initially you can avoid wasting your time meeting suppliers that aren’t going to be suitable. Find out about the type of service they offer and their prices to make sure they meet your initial requirements. For example, there’s no point meeting a cake designer that doesn’t make chocolate cakes if this is what you want, or a photographer that is way over your budget.
Once you’ve obtained some basic information you’re in a position to draw up a shortlist of suppliers you would like to meet. Aim to meet with 2-3 suppliers for each area – any more than this and you run the risk of being overloaded and becoming confused. We’ll be looking in more detail at the type of questions you should be asking prospective suppliers over the coming weeks, but generally you should ask about their experience and the type of work they do. Also make sure that they have public liability insurance, and be sure to sign a contract when you make a booking.
Managing Your Suppliers
All of your suppliers will have different dates by when they require payments and information, so you need to stay organised to avoid missing anything important. You will find it much easier to do this if you have all the information you need in one place.
Set up a spreadsheet that contains all the information you need for each supplier, such as contact information (i.e. address, phone number, e-mail address), the date they were hired, details of the initial deposit (i.e. payment date and amount), dates and amounts for additional/final payments, and details of the booking (e.g. menu for caterers, number of floral arrangements for florist) plus any special instructions.
As soon as you book a supplier add them to your spreadsheet, and update the information regularly throughout the planning period to help you keep track of payments. Make sure you let your suppliers know of any changes to your plans to ensure things run smoothly on the day. This is particularly important if you change the timing of the day (e.g. your ceremony is going to be starting 30 minutes earlier than originally planned) or you need to change the wedding date or venue.
For further planning advice and professional tools to help you organise your wedding day, including supplier management spreadsheets, please take a look at our DIY Wedding Planning Package . If you would like more hands-on assistance with your wedding arrangements, please check out our services page to see how we can help you.
Next month: Finding Your Wedding Photographer
Photo Credits:
Flowers:
Dandelion Ranch
Cars: one of my own!
