Vendor Selection: All you need to know

Vendors are key components of any event. And just like other kinds of event, vendors have the power to make or mar a wedding. This is why utmost prudency is required in choosing them. While an event planner’s role is indispensable to hiring professional and reliable vendors, these 8 tips will help you do well should you be planning your wedding without the services of a planner:

1. Start early: the earlier you start the better. 6 months ahead of your wedding is a good one. By booking vendors this early, you’re not only investing in peace of mind, you are also likely to get significant discounts. If you however, for any reason, are unable to start early, just start smartly, armed with these 7 tips.

2. Budget: Many people make the common mistake of contacting vendors without a budget in mind. And after “back and forth” conversations, they realise that they probably don’t like the vendor, or can’t afford them. You don’t have to make this mistake. Simply come up with an overall wedding budget, and allocate cost range to every vendor whose products/services is required. This will not only ease your vendor selection process, it will also help you get better deals.

3. Physical evidence or referral: The best way to ascertain the competence of any vendor is to inquire about them from previous client(s). This helps you get first-hand information about their products or services. It is also a great idea to ask for contact of any vendor whose products or services you find satisfactory at an event you are opportune to attend. This is a reliable approach of hiring the best of vendors.

4. Research: While you may not be able to source all your vendors via recommendation, online research is sure a great alternative. And Instagram in particular, has made it super easy to access a pool of vendors for a specific product/service. But caution must be exercised in this process as massive followership on a vendor’s IG page doesn’t guarantee quality product/service.

That said, here are two ways to optimize your vendor search on Instagram. The first is to follow credible wedding blogs. This allows you to check out tagged vendors on their posts and proceed therefrom. The second way is through hashtags. This will help you narrow down your options, and give you access to vendors around your wedding location. If you’d be having your wedding in Abeokuta for example, a hashtag search of #AbeokutaMUA will grant you access to a make-up vendor around you, and cut down cost on vendor transportation.

5. Verification/Background check: Whether you’re sourcing for vendor online or via a recommendation; you need to do a background check on them. There are different ways to do this, but my preferred way is through Instagram. Vendors usually tag previous clients on their page, so carefully select 3-4 clients from their page and ask them about this vendor’s competence and reliability via DM. Chatting up a stranger may not be your forte, but this method works 90% of the time, so it’s worth trying. If some don’t reply, chat others.

6. Negotiation, Contracts & Payment plans: It is not enough to checkout and select a prefer vendor, it is important to have a great deal. And to achieve this, you must negotiate from a place of power with your budget in mind. Never try to beg a vendor; this may cause them to offer sub-standard services eventually. Agree on a payment plan and make all agreement into a binding contract.

For payment plan; a 30%-40%-30% (30% as booking deposit, 40% intermediate payment and 30% after services has been rendered) plan works for us at Rightessential Events. You can tweak this to suit you. The whole point is to ensure a fraction of the vendor’s total charges is reserved, to be paid after the wedding.

This is not to encourage owing vendors as clients are expected to have all balances ready ahead of their wedding. This approach works well in Client-Planner-Vendor scenarios, as balances would have been paid to the planner before the wedding and planner pays the vendor upon satisfactory service delivery. This keeps everyone accountable.

7. Trial: There are some vendors you definitely need to have a trial with before a full hire. Make-up artist Hair stylist are top on this list. Most of them will ask for some kind of deposit before a trial, it is quite necessary.

All you do is try your best to cut down payment (to not more than 10% – 20% of total charge) and consider the fee as an investment in your happiness on the D-day. You may be able do a before-you-hire trial for vendors like caterer, band and DJ, by asking them ahead location for their next events and attend anonymously to check out their services (i.e. how a caterer’s food tastes, how coordinated her servers are, what a band sounds like, how a DJ grooves etc).

8.Vendor/event coordinator: This cannot be overemphasized. A vendor coordinator is responsible for organizing vendor meetings; which fosters synergy between vendors against the event day. If you were not able to hire a planner for full wedding planning, ensure to hire one for event coordination, or at least put someone in charge. This ensures your own peace of mind and overall happiness.

Pheeeeew! That was a long read. I am sure it was worth your time. Wishing you bliss as you count down.