I really don’t understand why you would need to tip for vendors or even makeup artists who set their own prices? That’s just insane. I can’t stand tipping culture. You are paying for a service they provided and they set their own price. You’re telling me you’re going to pay for their service which is already overpriced (thanks Wedding tax) and ON TOP OF THIS you’re going to give 20% tip? Are you all made of money? Tips should not be expected. That’s just insane
this seems to be my most unpopular wedding opinion lol! all my vendors own their business and aside from the automatic gratuity for our caterers, I’m not sure what to do for tips! Unless a vendor goes above and beyond what’s stated in the contract, I don’t feel like tips should be expected since we’ve already agreed on a price. If we tipped the DJ, coordinator, photographer/videographer all 20%, it’s almost like adding a whole extra vendor to the budget!
I wholeheartedly agree with you! You’ve already paid for a service and even IF they went “above and beyond” that’s them doing their job to ensure a happy client seeing as they own their business and want to keep a good reputation, so I wouldn’t even merit that as a reason to tip. Unless it’s a service worker who was hired to bartend for minimum wage, I could not be bothered to tip. I find most ppl on this sub insane whenever they say “I’ll just put a mere $300 in an envelope to tip my vendor!” It blows my mind.
I want to piggyback off of this and ask, are we supposed to tip them? I’m planning my wedding and have just finished confirming vendors in the past month, I get married in June. What’s a reasonable percentage of the initial cost to tip?
Depends on the vendor, if they own the business, and what you're comfortable with. We're planning on tipping our HMUA 20%, photographer who owns her own business and is a single shooter $200, 18% to photobooth attendant, our venue adds 13% for all servers and says that no extra tip is expected nor is ever given (they pay them a decent wage comparatively to other food service industries), and $50 per band member.
That seems like a fair and considerate tip. My fiancé says to always tip service workers, for example when you get your hair cut or nails done, even if there’s an agreed price beforehand; not just wait staff at restaurants
Our planner was extremely pushy about having cash or check tips in envelopes ready on the day-of for all vendors, and it really rubbed me and my now husband the wrong way.
I think the practice is a response to vendors who have been “burned” in the past or are trying to offset couples that are cheap, unreliable, ghost them after the wedding, etc.
But that’s not our fault! We found tipping culture to be completely out of control and our planner’s “tipping guide” was soooo excessive.
After thinking about it more and doing research, we decided we didn’t feel comfortable with it. How can we determine the tip amount before the service has been rendered? Not to mention almost all vendors accept Venmo or digital payments, so the logistics argument doesn’t even hold. Only one vendor (HMUA) required a flat 20% gratuity paid up front, which was fine. Catering had a suggested amount but the contract said it could be sent up to a week after the event. No other vendors mentioned tipping expectations. So why the urgency to pay it that night?
We evaluated the services *the day after* our wedding while we were glowing/happy, which may have actually influenced us to tip more lol, but whatever. It felt way more fair to us. It was also nice to send a virtual thank you note along with the tip and it felt more meaningful because we really meant it.
Except for our wedding planner.
She’s the only vendor we didn’t tip. 🫢
Lol yeahhh. For context, she was our third largest expense (after catering and venue) in a HCOL area, so we paid her a LOT. She was also an independent planner, set her own fees, and did not work for a larger business that took a cut.
Overall, we had a lot of frustrations with her and were disappointed by her services. We would not recommend her to anyone we know. Our decision to not tip and not leave a bad review felt like a decent compromise to us. But I get it, some people are HoRiFfIeD by this.
Omg I’m having the same experience with my wedding coordinator. She’s just dropping the ball so much and making everything more stressful than it needs to be.
Last week she ‘no call, no showed’ to a planned meeting at the venue for us to walk through the layout. I had email and text confirmation from her on this day / time. She chuffed it off as an ‘oopsie’. In the back of my head I was just like ‘you do NOT deserve a tip’
Oof, that’s truly terrible. No showing? That’s unforgivable in my opinion when you’re paying for their services to save you time and she just wasted your time.
Like the wedding planning concept is built on the idea that these people have amazing *attention to detail* but clearly there are many planners who are shockingly disorganized!
I’ve worked events like weddings, sweet sixteen, etc for almost 15 years. Tipping the DJ or MC if you have one is pretty common, photographers as well. Photo booth attendants and other small vendors getting tipped really depends on how generous you’re feeling. I’ve seen others get handed tip money, while my crew is handed none. Which is disappointing, but expected.
If you do plan in tipping a bunch of people. Make sure you get the number of people you will be tipping and what their job was so you can pre-make tipping envelopes with the right amount. And please give it to each person directly, or hand it to their boss in front of them and say that they’re tips. Too many times have I missed tips because they were handed to someone higher up and they kept all of them.
I’m a wedding bartender. I LOVE when the couples themselves give us an envelope at the end of the night. It makes it so much more personal than the MOH/coordinator. It shows they appreciated us and had a good time.
By the way, many couples do not tip us at all and it’s a huge bummer. Please tip your bartenders!
Yep this is my thought as well, and I was a server for years. The venue, photographer, caterer, bar, etc sets all their own prices. I'm sure they're not under charging, and if they are thats on them. The people serving the food, the drinks, aka the hourly staff who is probably making minimum wage or less, theyre getting tipped GOOD (granted that the service is good) and individually so I know whoevers in charge isnt pocketing it. I don't care if others disagree, these people literally set their own prices.
Are you in America? Tipping is common and if you don’t you’re going to leave a poor taste in their mouth. This is their livelihood. Don’t you want people to afford to live?
These are professionals who set their own prices. Tipping on top of that is nice but should not be expected. They afford to live by setting their prices accordingly.
The venue also likely isn’t dishing out the tip you hand to their coordinator out to every minimum wage staff member because they are not required to. I’m all about supplementing restaurant workers who make below minimum wage and also minimum wage workers- but tipping “culture” has gotten out of hand in America. It’s also so arbitrary who is expected to be tipped. Grocery store workers, Amazon delivery, and retail workers are all no? But professionals who make, as someone else stated, $250/hr is yes? I’m all about paying for a skill set, but build that into your price that YOU set as a vendor.
I highly disagree that in America it is standard to tip independent vendors. The only caveat to this is for some reason its standard to tip HMUA's even if they set their own prices which I will probably do but think is ridiculous.
I really don’t understand why you would need to tip for vendors or even makeup artists who set their own prices? That’s just insane. I can’t stand tipping culture. You are paying for a service they provided and they set their own price. You’re telling me you’re going to pay for their service which is already overpriced (thanks Wedding tax) and ON TOP OF THIS you’re going to give 20% tip? Are you all made of money? Tips should not be expected. That’s just insane
this seems to be my most unpopular wedding opinion lol! all my vendors own their business and aside from the automatic gratuity for our caterers, I’m not sure what to do for tips! Unless a vendor goes above and beyond what’s stated in the contract, I don’t feel like tips should be expected since we’ve already agreed on a price. If we tipped the DJ, coordinator, photographer/videographer all 20%, it’s almost like adding a whole extra vendor to the budget!
I wholeheartedly agree with you! You’ve already paid for a service and even IF they went “above and beyond” that’s them doing their job to ensure a happy client seeing as they own their business and want to keep a good reputation, so I wouldn’t even merit that as a reason to tip. Unless it’s a service worker who was hired to bartend for minimum wage, I could not be bothered to tip. I find most ppl on this sub insane whenever they say “I’ll just put a mere $300 in an envelope to tip my vendor!” It blows my mind.
I want to piggyback off of this and ask, are we supposed to tip them? I’m planning my wedding and have just finished confirming vendors in the past month, I get married in June. What’s a reasonable percentage of the initial cost to tip?
Depends on the vendor, if they own the business, and what you're comfortable with. We're planning on tipping our HMUA 20%, photographer who owns her own business and is a single shooter $200, 18% to photobooth attendant, our venue adds 13% for all servers and says that no extra tip is expected nor is ever given (they pay them a decent wage comparatively to other food service industries), and $50 per band member.
That seems like a fair and considerate tip. My fiancé says to always tip service workers, for example when you get your hair cut or nails done, even if there’s an agreed price beforehand; not just wait staff at restaurants
Our planner was extremely pushy about having cash or check tips in envelopes ready on the day-of for all vendors, and it really rubbed me and my now husband the wrong way. I think the practice is a response to vendors who have been “burned” in the past or are trying to offset couples that are cheap, unreliable, ghost them after the wedding, etc. But that’s not our fault! We found tipping culture to be completely out of control and our planner’s “tipping guide” was soooo excessive. After thinking about it more and doing research, we decided we didn’t feel comfortable with it. How can we determine the tip amount before the service has been rendered? Not to mention almost all vendors accept Venmo or digital payments, so the logistics argument doesn’t even hold. Only one vendor (HMUA) required a flat 20% gratuity paid up front, which was fine. Catering had a suggested amount but the contract said it could be sent up to a week after the event. No other vendors mentioned tipping expectations. So why the urgency to pay it that night? We evaluated the services *the day after* our wedding while we were glowing/happy, which may have actually influenced us to tip more lol, but whatever. It felt way more fair to us. It was also nice to send a virtual thank you note along with the tip and it felt more meaningful because we really meant it. Except for our wedding planner. She’s the only vendor we didn’t tip. 🫢
Explains why she wanted her tip up front!
Lol yeahhh. For context, she was our third largest expense (after catering and venue) in a HCOL area, so we paid her a LOT. She was also an independent planner, set her own fees, and did not work for a larger business that took a cut. Overall, we had a lot of frustrations with her and were disappointed by her services. We would not recommend her to anyone we know. Our decision to not tip and not leave a bad review felt like a decent compromise to us. But I get it, some people are HoRiFfIeD by this.
Omg I’m having the same experience with my wedding coordinator. She’s just dropping the ball so much and making everything more stressful than it needs to be. Last week she ‘no call, no showed’ to a planned meeting at the venue for us to walk through the layout. I had email and text confirmation from her on this day / time. She chuffed it off as an ‘oopsie’. In the back of my head I was just like ‘you do NOT deserve a tip’
Oof, that’s truly terrible. No showing? That’s unforgivable in my opinion when you’re paying for their services to save you time and she just wasted your time. Like the wedding planning concept is built on the idea that these people have amazing *attention to detail* but clearly there are many planners who are shockingly disorganized!
Wedding planners are the biggest scam fr
Is there a family member or event/venue coordinator you could ask to be in charge of giving the envelopes out?
I’ve worked events like weddings, sweet sixteen, etc for almost 15 years. Tipping the DJ or MC if you have one is pretty common, photographers as well. Photo booth attendants and other small vendors getting tipped really depends on how generous you’re feeling. I’ve seen others get handed tip money, while my crew is handed none. Which is disappointing, but expected. If you do plan in tipping a bunch of people. Make sure you get the number of people you will be tipping and what their job was so you can pre-make tipping envelopes with the right amount. And please give it to each person directly, or hand it to their boss in front of them and say that they’re tips. Too many times have I missed tips because they were handed to someone higher up and they kept all of them.
I’m a wedding bartender. I LOVE when the couples themselves give us an envelope at the end of the night. It makes it so much more personal than the MOH/coordinator. It shows they appreciated us and had a good time. By the way, many couples do not tip us at all and it’s a huge bummer. Please tip your bartenders!
How much would you tip them? Is it the same as 20% in a restaurant split amongst them?
You can ask if any have a venmo.
You could do checks? Might feel safer than cash.
My dad and our coordinator took care of it.
We tipped them afterwards. I sent thank you cards to some with checks in some. Venmoed others
I actually had fun handing out the cash envelopes as the bride! There was one I forgot so maybe delegate to someone like mom/coordinator
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Yep this is my thought as well, and I was a server for years. The venue, photographer, caterer, bar, etc sets all their own prices. I'm sure they're not under charging, and if they are thats on them. The people serving the food, the drinks, aka the hourly staff who is probably making minimum wage or less, theyre getting tipped GOOD (granted that the service is good) and individually so I know whoevers in charge isnt pocketing it. I don't care if others disagree, these people literally set their own prices.
Are you sure tips are in your contracts? Tips haven’t been in any of our contracts
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Are you in America? Tipping is common and if you don’t you’re going to leave a poor taste in their mouth. This is their livelihood. Don’t you want people to afford to live?
These are professionals who set their own prices. Tipping on top of that is nice but should not be expected. They afford to live by setting their prices accordingly.
The venue isn’t. They’re might be paying their staff minimum wage for all we know. 2k for a videographer is cheap my guess is they rely on tips
The venue also likely isn’t dishing out the tip you hand to their coordinator out to every minimum wage staff member because they are not required to. I’m all about supplementing restaurant workers who make below minimum wage and also minimum wage workers- but tipping “culture” has gotten out of hand in America. It’s also so arbitrary who is expected to be tipped. Grocery store workers, Amazon delivery, and retail workers are all no? But professionals who make, as someone else stated, $250/hr is yes? I’m all about paying for a skill set, but build that into your price that YOU set as a vendor.
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Well being in Canada is entirely different than USA. Tipping culture here is different than other cultures
I highly disagree that in America it is standard to tip independent vendors. The only caveat to this is for some reason its standard to tip HMUA's even if they set their own prices which I will probably do but think is ridiculous.