How to Make Final Confirmations with Your Vendors
You guys. This episode is muy importante. Haven't pressed play yet? I'll tell you why you should. Your wedding is a giant labyrinth of details, last minute RSVP changes and last minute choices will make what you initially told your vendors outdated, and they need to be up to date about ALL of the wedding things.
Basically planning your own wedding transforms you into a boss, in charge of a mini-tulle and copper covered industry. You now have 'employees' (not in the legal sense of course, this is just a regular Josey tangent). You have people who are looking to you for you to tell them, a) what you need and b) how they are to provide it for you. Without the final confirmation you may find yourself
short 4 table linens
with a room layout that can't accommodate your expected guest count
with the wrong song for your ceremony processional
having to do the first dance with your dad that you agreed you'd forgoe
having to cut your own wedding cake and serve it
toasting with water instead of champagne
running out of ice before cocktail hour ends
To be frank, without your final confirmations you, your wedding guests, your mom and dads, your officiant, your wedding vendors, you naggy Aunt Helen, confused on all fronts. ALL of the fronts.
WHEN DO I MAKE FINAL CONFIRMATIONS?
Yes, it's true, that things will continue to change as the countdown ticks closer to zero, however, there are specific tactics of decision that can encourage your wedding plans to remain unchanged. Plan to have all RSVPs returned 1 month before your wedding, giving the flip floppers 2 weeks to have some last minute change that alters their attendance response for your wedding. This means that at 2 weeks out you will know, for certain, your guest count, which means you'll know your meal count, chair count, table count, program count, place cards can be ordered, linens confirmed, favors finished.
1-2 weeks out is when I call all of the vendors and ensure that the plans have been properly communicated.
DO I HAVE TO CALL MY WEDDING VENDORS?
You don't have to do anything you don't want to, you are your own person. However, if you are also a smart person, you will call them. You might have your wedding vendor call them, but verbally confirmed they will be. This is my personal preference and it serves me right, I know it will serve you just as good... well... right...?
There are just SO many variables with your wedding, like who is providing which linens for which tables that go where? Is the caterer providing the water station or the bartenders and who is bringing the cups? If your caterer isn't baking the cake, are they cutting it? Serving it? With their plates and napkins? And on which table? What about coffee? What about a water station after the caterer leaves?
HOW DO I ENSURE EVERYTHING THAT NEEDS TO BE CONFIRMED, IS?
This one is tough, honestly, because I truly believe you can plan your own wedding if you want to (and have some experience planning things!).
BUT (and it's a big but) in order to ensure that everything is confirmed that needs to be confirmed, you need to have a professional by your side. Someone who understands the ins and outs and ups and downs and lefts and rights and wrongs of a wedding day. Someone who is an expert, a wedding planner.
CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF A CONFIRMATION?
Surely! Check out this blog post: How to Confirm Your Wedding Vendors like a Pro, to read a sample confirmation call, but remember what I just said, hire an expert. Because your wedding is unique, it has its own quirks and its own variables.
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P.S. Header Photo by Alyssa Lee Photography of Champagne Press Stationery