Wedding Blog

I met a bunch of wonderful brides from California, Indianapolis, Arizona and Colorado this past week during my webinars. As usual, they had some fantastic questions for me.

Lisa, from California asked: I know wedding vendors take deposits when you book them. Do I need to plan on having 50 percent of my overall budget available now to pay them?

This is an excellent question. Many of you who are planning your weddings are very focused on your budget and not going into debt. Bravo! That is the best plan. Coming up with large sums of money for deposits, however, can be difficult especially if you aren’t planning to use credit cards. Here was my advice for Lisa:

Lisa is planning her wedding for June of 2010, so she has plenty of time to spread out payments. In order to avoid having to layout a full fifty percent of her overall budget right now, I advised her to contract the vendors who can only do one event on her wedding day… her location, her photographer, and her entertainment. Those vendors, once they are booked, they are gone. Vendors like florists, invitation companies, pastry chefs and gown salons, can do more than one wedding in a day, so it isn’t as urgent to contract them immediately and pay deposits.

I encourage all of you to be upfront with vendors regarding your feelings on payments. Shop for all of your vendors early. If you like one of them, but you are not able to make a full 50 percent deposit right away, tell them you need to work out some sort of payment arrangement. Suggest that you give them a small payment to hold the date and then a larger payment in sixty days. You may also mention that you are trying to stagger all of your vendors’ payments so you don’t have to empty your bank account entirely.

Be aware that not all vendors will go for it, but if you have listed your priorities, you will know which vendors you are willing to let go if they won’t work with you versus those that you will have to figure out a way to pay right away.

If you would like more information on planning your wedding budget check out this article on PerfectWeddingGuide.com If you have any questions or comments on this or any other wedding-related topic, please leave a post for me here or email me at susan.southerland@pwg.com.

Have a wonderful weekend. I understand that I am being taken on a grand adventure. It’s a surprise. I will report back next week when I return on Wednesday. My regular blog will be here Monday and Tuesday, so you won’t miss me while I’m gone.

Your partner in perfect planning,

Susan