Weddingbee Blog

I’ve been planning events as a career (corporate and non-profit events…this whole wedding thing is new!) for quite some time, and there are definitely skills that I have learned in the events business that have helped me a ton in my initial wedding planning. Decent contract negotiation skills and not being afraid to ask for a deal are the only reasons I haven’t felt like I’m getting completely and utterly screwed over by the American wedding machine that we all know and love have to put up with.

I think the bottom line is this: If it’s a reasonable request and won’t insult the vendor…ask. If the asking is done in a respectable way, the worst thing that can happen is that the vendor will say no. I am still early in the wedding planning process, but I’ve already had this pay off a couple of times.

• Hotel - The hotel I was looking at booking for out-of-town guests indicated there was a $4.00 charge to deliver bags to guest rooms and a $2.00 charge for guests to pick them at the front desk. While not a huge deal, I don’t want to pay that. That money could be used for things to go INSIDE the OOT bags. I e-mailed my sales rep, telling her that I understood the charge for delivering the bag to the room, but I had never heard of a fee for just leaving them at the front desk and wondered if there was any way that could be waived. She was new to that hotel and agreed that she was also surprised when she learned of the charge. She waived the charge and said she would simply plead for forgiveness. SCORE!
• DJ - OK, so you know that I still don’t have a DJ. However, I interviewed two that were $100 apart from each other on price. During the interview with the more expensive DJ, I mentioned that I was interviewing another DJ that was slightly less expensive. When I asked if he would be willing to meet the other DJ’s price, he immediately agreed. Sweet.
• Rehearsal Dinner Venue - I’m still scoping out some options for the rehearsal dinner, but one of the restaurants I am looking at has a $500 room rental for their private event space…ridiculous! I asked the catering manager if there was any way the rental could be eliminated or reduced, and she agreed to knock down the price $100. Seriously. All I had to do was ask.

A hundred dollars here, a hundred dollars there…it adds up, and why pay for something if you don’t have to?? The key is to negotiate these things BEFORE you book the vendor ’cause once you’ve signed on the dotted line, you completely lose leverage in the negotiation game. Also, the vendors are most likely working off their standard, run-of-the-mill contract, so anything out of the ordinary that you’ve talked about (reduced price, add-ons) needs to be added in.

Did you get any discounts just for asking?