Why you Should Meet Your Wedding Vendors Before You Book Them

Hello, hello, friends! We hope you’re having a great day! We’re popping in again today with another sneak peek – yay!! And also with an introduction to something that we’re going to be going more in depth in over the coming weeks: The Rivas Weddings Experience and what you can expect from us, starting with why you should meet your wedding vendors before you book them. Sounds sexy, right?! 

Okay, we’ll admit it, maybe not so sexy. 🙂 

TBH, one of the most frequent questions we get from new couples is how everything works and what to expect when. You know we’re all about giving you all of the information over here and want to make things as easy for you as we can. So, we figured we would start today at the beginning: why you should meet your wedding vendors before you book them. And honestly? That starts with something else: the contact form on their website.

To you, a wedding vendor’s contact form might be just that – an easy way to reach out to ask us about your wedding date. But to us? That contact form? Every single time one lands in our inbox it causes a whole ripple of effects. The first being a super-excited dance party, of course. 🙂 And no, we’re absolutely not kidding about that. It really, truly happens every single time. (At our house that dance party is accompanied with LOTS of corgi barking.) That’s just how excited your wedding vendors are to get to meet you and hear about your story! 

When it comes to that little form? The more information you can give the vendor you’re reaching out to the better. What should you include? Well, any required pieces, of course. We promise we’re not just asking for your phone number so we can prank call you. Sometimes we actually do need to get in contact with you before we get together for a meeting. 

And that little optional “message” box that a lot of us include? 

Friends. That little box? USE IT. That’s where you can give us the most information and detail about your wedding day that you can. Tell us your love story, how you met, where your first date was, what your dream wedding day looks like… you get the idea. 🙂  That little box really gives your wedding vendors a great view into who you are as a couple and what you really want your wedding day to look like. If we’re being 100% honest over here, when we receive a message from a new client with information in that little box? We get even more excited and already feel like we know you. Which automatically translates over to us being able to figure out how we can better serve you and customize our work for your big day. 

What happens after you submit your contact form? Every wedding vendor is different. But for us, specifically? 

The first step for us is always a face to face meeting. 

Yes, you should meet your wedding vendors before you book them. Pre-Coronavirus we would have gotten together in person for drinks or coffee. But now, we still love to meet with our clients virtually via Zoom or Google Meet (still with drinks or coffee). 🙂  We know, we know. You don’t really want to meet with a vendor you’re not set on, you’re really just after their prices before you figure out if you want to meet with them. 

But here’s the thing. If you’re just asking for a price list from the vendors you reach out to without giving them the chance to walk you through it in person? You’re doing yourself a big disservice, friend. Especially when it comes to vendors that you’re going to be working 1:1 with on a frequent basis over the course of your engagement. 

Why should you “waste” your time on a meeting with a wedding vendor that you’re not sure if you can afford or want to hire?

Well, to be honest? Because you can always look at that price list and know if you can afford your vendor and go ahead and hire them without meeting them. And just assume that you like everything on the price list that they’ve sent you. But then what happens when you finally meet them, and you can’t stand their personality? Or they make you anxious or nervous? Is that really how you want to spend your wedding day? Surrounded by vendors that you’re not 100% comfortable with?

And when you find out that allll of their clients get the exact same 10×10 black wedding album? Ugh. You’re not like all of their other couples at all. Your dream wedding album is gorgeous navy leather with your names in gold foil across the front that’s big enough to lie across two laps at once. Do you have to pay to upgrade? Are there other options or are you just stuck with the same thing everyone else has? Eeek. I sure hope not.

Friends. All of this is why you should meet your wedding vendors before you book them.

This, friends, is why the first meeting with vendors you’re considering hiring is so important. It gives you a chance to really get to know them as human beings. It gives you a chance to ask them all of the questions about all of the things, and to figure out if they’re someone that you might want to spend your wedding day with. Of course you’ll talk about pricing, and by meeting face to face you’ll actually get to see and touch all of the things that are on that price list. Maybe you don’t like the album that’s in your budget and want to see some other options. Maybe you think you only need 6 hours of coverage, but then learn that to realistically have everything you want covered you’ll need closer to 10. Again, another great reason for why you should meet your wedding vendors before you book them.

Invest in the time, friends. And your new family legacy. 

Meeting with couples also gives vendors a chance to figure out if we’re the right fit for you. To be honest, once in a while, we’ll meet with a couple who is dead-set on hiring us for their wedding day because of something that they’ve seen us do. But when we sit down to talk? One of us realizes that maybe we’re not the right fit for their day. Or that we’re not going to be able to make all of their wedding day dreams come true. 

And you know what? 

As hard of a realization as that is for us, that’s okay. We feel like we can speak for all wedding vendors when we say that we want you to have the very best team for your big day. And sometimes we’re just not a great fit for everyone. There’s nothing more heartbreaking for a wedding vendor than when someone hires you and you realize that you’re just not the right fit for their day, but that someone else really can make their wedding day dreams come true.  As sad as that makes us, that’s something that we would never be able to figure out via email. 

The point we’re trying to make here, is that meeting with your vendors before you book them should be a “must-do” on your wedding planning check list, friends. Don’t think of it as just another thing that you have to do, but as an investment in your wedding day to make sure that you get the exact team that you want. 🙂 

By the way, friends. Today we’re here to share Jocelyn and Austin’s Sneak Peek as well – WOO-HOO!!! 

We had an absolute BLAST with these two lovebirds and their two sweet pups last week at Wyandotte County Lake. We absolutely cannot wait to share more with you from their session! Family and friends – feel free to go ahead and pre-register to see their gallery as soon as it’s released in just a few short weeks! 

Jocelyn and Austin – thank you so much for letting us create your engagement photos – we’re so excited for you to see more so soon!!