5 Questions You Should Ask Before A Vendor Consultation

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Five Time Saving Questions You Should Ask Before You Sit Down With Vendors For Your Wedding

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Friend, your time is precious! We don’t want to see you trek across town (or further!) only to figure out a vendor isn’t the right for you.

Before we dive in, let me preface this with why it’s kinda really important to find vendors you love. You are spending your precious time and money spread through various channels while planning a wedding. From your venue all the way to wedding favors. Some wedding professionals you will have minimal contact with and you may never even meet in person. But others, like your wedding photographer, you will be spending almost as much time - if not more - with your photographer than the person you’re marrying. *mind blown*

So, don’t you want to like those people? If I were in your shoes, I would totally want to vibe with those people! If you’re the kind of person who is easily stressed, maybe don’t hire a vendor who you feel like you need to be constantly checking in with?

Here’s the best thing you could look for when simply making a list of vendors to reach out to:

• How do they make you FEEL? When you’re scrolling through their social media or website, how is what you’re seeing/reading resonating with you? Do you feel like their personality is going to be a good match for your wedding? Notice what things draw you in and what repels you

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There is a dream wedding team for everyone at every single price point.

Find your style. Find your people.

That’s how you set the joyful tone of your wedding planning experience!

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Let’s go!

I came up with five essential questions you should ask before you sit down with anyone.

You will feel so good and empowered having this in your wedding planning toolkit.



Grab your notebook or open up your color coded excel spreadsheet if that’s your organizational jam - we are diving in:

Availability

Q: Is our wedding date available?

If they are booked, then move on to the next wedding professional on your list! You can always ask if they would refer you to someone in their creative community if you aren’t sure of who else to reach out to. George and I have a comprehensive list of industry professionals we’d trust with our own wedding day.

PRICING

Q: Can you email a copy of your pricing brochure?

Why sit down with an industry professional, fall in love with their work, their vibes, everything they have to offer only to find out they’re out of your budget?

Your time is valuable! Once you realize booking a dream vendor could be a reality of yours, the consultation with them will be much more productive if you get this game changing question out of the way first.

(Note: most vendors will have their starting prices or packages listed on their website. You might not even have to ask!)

Deal breaker

Ask something that could be a make or break for you.

This could be anything from they don’t serve the LBGTQ community, or they won’t give you printing rights, or they don’t travel further than an hour for weddings or if they are allergic to dogs and you’re planning on having your dog there for some of the wedding or they hate Harry Potter (I know! RIGHT?!).

You don’t want to be shocked on the day of your wedding that they won’t be able to serve you in the way you were envisioning.

Asking upfront is best for your client/vendor relationship.

PORTFOLIO

Q: May we see a few samples?

Websites are delicately curated with the best of the best from this person’s body of work.

Sometimes it can leave you wondering how the rest of that wedding day really went. Upon request, wedding professionals will let you peek at a full wedding gallery or a video or some kind of format that will allow you to get the whole story.

This is essential for seeing how someone will truly be there for you on your wedding day making your vision come to life. Some people need vendors who are pro-active and hands on, and some might like a vendor who is a fly on the wall.

While you’re at it… look at their reviews. Make note of the descriptive words their past couples used to describe their experience with them! Those are very telling in the best way possible

FACE TO FACE

Q: When are you available to meet?

Set a date! Your vendor will most likely be the one to find a swanky little spot for coffee, or maybe something a little stronger to sip on. However if you have a favorite spot or a favorite treat you’d like to indulge in let them know! It allows them to get a inkling of who you are as a couple.

Don’t have time to meet in person? Skype and FaceTime will allow you the chance for that in person connection!

Now that you have the questions to help find your dream vendors, we want to help you walk into your consultation with confidence and the feel-good vibes of one thousand beautiful land mermaids.

We created a list of our top question suggestions for each category of wedding industry professional. This is the list every couple intent on creating a dream vendor team should have. You will be spending a lot of time with these people over the course of your wedding planning experience. We truly believe you should not only like these people, but these should be people you want in your corner. You want vendors you can trust, confide in and be genuinely thrilled to see when they arrive on your wedding day. There is power in the client/vendor relationship :)

We’d love to see this toolkit in action.

Next time you’re at a consultation take a photo of your Eisley Education Question & Note Pages,
post it on your instastory, and tag @eisleyimages for a chance to win a Starbucks giftcard!

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For more feel-good tips, hang out with us on social media! We are serving piping hot wedding truths on our instagram page on the daily. We’d love to invite you to be part of the conversation!

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Eisley Images is a husband and wife wedding photography team for joyful couples who laugh loudly and love deeply. Christy and George live in Rhode Island with their half blind pug, Artie, and their hilarious and wickedly smart four year old, Emerson Eisley. When Christy isn’t photographing once-in-a-lifetime-loves, she can be found reading all the non-fiction books, listening to all the business podcasts, leading a group of creative entrepreneurs in the Rising Tide Society or dancing around her kitchen to songs she made up to tunes that already exist (the subjects of the songs are usually about Artie & Emmy).
To learn more about them visit their ‘about us’ page!