As a wedding planner, creating a preferred wedding vendor list is one of the most important tasks you’ll undertake. While I’m not suggesting you create a “one size fits all” vendor list to hand out to your couples, I do know that your vendors can make or break the overall success of a wedding, so it’s important to carefully curate a list of professionals who align with your vision and values. But with so many options out there, how do you go about selecting the right ones?
In this article, I’m going to cover everything from researching and vetting vendors to building long-lasting relationships. Whether you’re a seasoned wedding planner looking to refresh your vendor list or a newbie just starting out, my goal here is to share tips and insights that will help you streamline the vendor selection process and ensure that each wedding you plan is nothing short of spectacular. Doesn’t that sound good?
The Importance of a Preferred Vendor List for Wedding Planners
A preferred vendor list is an essential tool for any wedding planner. It not only helps you streamline the planning process, but it also ensures that you have a team of trusted professionals who will deliver exceptional services to your clients. By curating a list of preferred vendors, you can save time and energy by working with professionals you know and trust.
Having a preferred vendor list also gives you a competitive edge in the wedding planning industry. When clients hire a wedding planner, they expect expertise and access to the best vendors in the business. By having a carefully curated list of preferred vendors, you can assure your clients that you have done the research and selected the most qualified professionals for their special day. Again – I’m not talking about handing your couples a list and telling them to choose. Obviously, they are paying you a lot of money to help find the perfect vendors for THEM. But this is an important tool in your wedding toolkit nonetheless!
How to Create a Preferred Vendor List
Creating a preferred vendor list requires careful research and vetting. You want to ensure that the vendors you choose not only meet your client’s expectations but also align with your own standards of excellence and VALUES. I’m big on values over here!
Here are some steps to help you create a preferred vendor list:
1. Establish criteria for inclusion on the list
To ensure that your preferred vendor list is truly exceptional, it’s important to establish clear criteria for inclusion. Consider factors such as experience, expertise, professionalism, responsiveness, and creativity. You may also want to consider factors such as diversity and inclusivity, as these are increasingly important to couples planning their weddings (and, in my opinion – should be to you too!). Be mindful of any biases or preferences you may have, and strive for inclusivity and diversity in your vendor selection process.
2. Researching and vetting potential vendors
The first step in creating a preferred vendor list is conducting thorough research. Start by asking for recommendations from other wedding planners or industry professionals. Attend wedding expos and events to meet vendors in person and see their work firsthand. Use online resources such as wedding directories and review websites to gather information about vendors in your area.
Once you have a list of potential vendors, it’s time to vet them. Look for vendors who have experience in the wedding industry and a proven track record of delivering exceptional services. Read reviews from past clients to get a sense of their professionalism and reliability. Schedule meetings or phone calls with potential vendors to discuss their services, pricing, and availability. Trust your instincts and only include vendors who give you confidence in their abilities.
3. Build relationships with preferred vendors
Once you have selected your preferred vendors, it’s important to build and maintain strong relationships with them. Regularly communicate with your vendors to stay updated on their availability and any changes to their services. Attend industry events and networking opportunities to connect with vendors and stay up to date with the latest trends and innovations in the wedding industry.
Building strong relationships with your preferred vendors will not only ensure smooth communication and collaboration but also lead to better results for your clients. When vendors feel valued and respected, they are more likely to go above and beyond to make each wedding a success.
My best advice for building relationships with preferred vendors? Approach these relationships from a place of “How can I help you?” and not of a “How can you help me?”. Trust me – experienced wedding pros can tell the difference.
4. Updating and maintaining your vendor list
Creating a preferred vendor list is not a one-time task. The wedding industry is constantly evolving, and new fabulous vendors are entering the market all the time (you might be one of them!). It’s important to regularly review and update your vendor list to ensure that you are offering the best options to your clients.
Set aside time each year to review your vendor list and evaluate whether any changes need to be made. Consider factors such as client feedback, vendor availability, and changes in the market. Remove any vendors who no longer meet your standards or have received negative feedback from clients. Add new vendors who have proven themselves to be exceptional in their field.
Booking Your Vendors on Your Preferred Vendor List
Once you’ve put the effort into creating your preferred vendor list, make sure you are communicating the value and benefits of working with preferred vendors to your clients will help them understand the importance of your selection process. By working with preferred vendors, your clients can save time, enjoy a seamless wedding experience, and even receive special perks and discounts in some cases (these are very vendor-dependent and should be offered and not asked for!).
Your clients will appreciate your expertise and the peace of mind that comes with working with trusted professionals. As a wedding planner, your recommendations hold a lot of weight with your couples. By carefully curating your preferred vendor list, you can ensure that each wedding day goes even better than you have planned.
Frequently Asked Questions About Having a Preferred Vendor List
Should you show your couples your preferred vendor list?
While you may consider sharing your preferred vendor list with your partial planning couples or event management couples (as a value add!), it shouldn’t be something you are sharing with your full wedding planning and design couples. After all, they are paying you a great deal of money to curate wedding vendors, especially for them. While you might have 10 photographers you love to work with, once you know your couple’s style and goals for wedding photographers, you should be able to present them with the top 1-3 best-fit options.
Remember, your preferred vendor list is a valuable resource, but it’s important to remain flexible and open to your clients’ preferences. While you may have a list of preferred vendors, ultimately, it’s the clients who have the final say. Be open to their suggestions and provide them with alternatives if they have a specific vendor in mind who is not on your list. Your role as a wedding planner is to guide and advise, but ultimately, the client’s satisfaction is paramount.
What do I do if a client insists on using a vendor not on my preferred list?
This depends on a few factors (like what service you were hired for!). Overall, you’ll want to respect their choice but also share your reasons for preferring certain vendors over others. You didn’t just add vendors to your list based on a Google search. Provide insights into your experience with your preferred vendors and explain how it benefits the overall wedding planning.
Are there potential conflicts of interest when recommending preferred vendors?
The priority should always be the client’s best interests and ensuring their wedding is a success. For example, charging vendors to be on your list can lead to a conflict of interest. The focus should be on quality, service, and experience, not financial gains.
What should I say to vendors who reach out and want to be included on the list?
The more successful you become, the more often this will happen! I recommend creating something like a Google form that potential new vendors can fill out if they are interested in being included. Then, you can vet them at your convenience (because otherwise, it can be quite disruptive in your day). You can even sync your form into something like an Asana project that can then house new vendors’ information, so you can have everything at your fingertips if you decide this vendor is the right fit for your brand!
Final Thoughts on Creating a Preferred Vendor List as a Wedding Planner
Having a preferred vendor list helps to ensure a cohesive and seamless wedding planning process. The longer you are in business, the more familiar these vendors will become with your working style, venue, and overall vision. You’ll want to build a network of professionals who also know how to collaborate effectively with each other, which will ultimately result in a well-coordinated and harmonious wedding day every single time. This level of familiarity and teamwork allows for a smoother planning process and reduces the chances of miscommunication or logistical issues on the wedding day.
While building a preferred vendor list can feel like an enormous undertaking when you are starting out, I also want to finish by saying that you don’t need to go from zero to one hundred in a day. While this article outlined the steps you should take to build out your list, some of this will happen organically the longer you are in business and that’s great too! Keep your eyes open for fresh talent in the industry, ask your favorite people who they are loving lately, and enjoy this part of the process!
And if you’re ready to take your wedding planning dreams to the next level, I want to invite you to check out my coaching program for wedding planners.
The Planner’s Playbook is your secret weapon for planning, designing, and coordinating high-end weddings like a pro. The doors to this program are open now for a limited time. Click here to learn more about The Planner’s Playbook!
Not ready for that? Then grab my free course on how to start your wedding planning business!
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You might see the highlight reel and think ending up here was always my plan all along but you’d be wrong.
Like any good career, there have been lots of pivots and hiccups, and lessons that had to be learned the hard way.
Not seen here? The time…
- I forgot to add chairs to a rental order and ended up footing the $2,000 bill
- A client sat across from me crying that I ruined her wedding because her parents table had a low centerpiece
- I had to borrow $4,000 from Grandma Vera to make payroll, because I didn’t pay attention to my numbers
- About a hundred “dream clients” hired a different planner than me and I felt like an absolute failure
- I cried in my car before a wedding because I was completely and totally overwhelmed with the amount of responsibility on my shoulders (OK, maybe I did this more than once)
- My seasonal launch of The Planner’s Playbook completely bombed and I felt like my entire business was falling apart
…and roughly 700 other moments I’ve chosen to leave off the highlight reel.
So if you’re at the messy, nothing’s-working stage right now? Just know that if you have been to one wedding in your life, you are starting with more experience than I had.
I’m getting ready to embark on an exciting new chapter that I cannot wait to share with you… it’s big, and scary, and I’m sure in another few years I’ll have a lot more lore to share… but in the meantime…
Cheers to all the ups and downs I’ve experienced over the last 19 years!
And a special thanks to the photographers who made a lot of this lore possible: @c10ike @allanzepedaphoto @stevedepino @withincreative @robertandkathleen @thebrandedbosslady 💜🫶🏼😘
I’ve come to realize that many of us want to have a village, but we don’t recognize that we have to be a villager first.
My friend carla @c10ike is one of those rare exceptions and I want to introduce you to her!
When I started my planning business, I had no contacts and no real idea what I was doing. I was so green it makes me laugh to look back on it now!
And somehow, I got lucky enough to be taken under the wing of this incredible woman who showed up for me then when I was a little baby business owner, and has kept showing up ever since in more ways than I could possibly count.
She’s taught me so much over the years, and I don’t mean in the traditional sense of teaching someone something. She simply lived her life, and I paid attention.
She modeled what it means to be a friend.
A sister.
A daughter.
A wife.
A mother.
A business owner.
A boss.
I learned generosity by watching her be generous.
Compassion, connection, leadership… none of it came from advice. All of it came from the way she carries herself and the way she treats the people around her.
She has taught me more than she will ever know by the sheer act of living loudly and joyfully in every corner of her life.
I am so lucky to call her my friend. So lucky to be one of the many, many people she has been a villager for.
Carla thank you for letting me grow up right beside you. I love you. 🤍
DAY ONE // WPI Spring Retreat 💜
This was our first real day together! The theme of this whole retreat was refinement, so we wasted no time getting into it on Day 1!
The women shuttled up to my home, walked through the gate to mimosas and the biggest hugs, and got their welcome totes filled with goodies I curated from female owned businesses that were mostly local!
Then we settled in, did some tapping to manifest all the answers we needed for the week, courtesy of our very own @ashley.peraino (who couldn’t join us this year, but was SO THOUGHTFUL to record a video for us!)
I opened with a talk on complexity, discernment, and self-trust (today’s podcast episode, BTW) simplifying your business and actually trusting yourself to lead what’s left.
From there the room took over. We had three incredible member gives: @c10ike on trusting your creative instincts, @ininkweddings on refining your creative POV, and @welldressedevents on generating real revenue through Google Ads (it’s giving… LEADS 😉).
In between we had small group discussions, hot conversations about where instinct and POV are out of sync, a homemade Caribbean lunch, and an afternoon of poolside snacks and conversation.
This is what the WPI room looks like. A talented group of women who came with one big business question and spent day one getting closer to the answer while having fun and getting their brains stretched!
All these gorgeous moments captured by our retreat photographer + my business bestie @c10ike 💜💜💜
Do it or delete it.
I said this recently to a coaching client, and now it’s sort of become our mantra inside WPI, because almost every business owner I know has a to-do list with 47 things on it (the same 47 things that were on last week’s list, and the week before that).
They don’t get done. They just travel from week to week collecting guilt, and that guilt somehow makes it even harder to get anything done at all.
After years of coaching women through this, you start to realize that most of those tasks don’t actually have dire consequences if they never happen. They just feel important because they’ve been living on your list rent-free for six months.
I want you to look at your to-do list right now and choose.
You do it… meaning you do it right now or at the very least put it on the calendar with a real deadline.
You delegate it… but only if it’s actually worth someone else’s time, not because you’ve been avoiding it and want to make it someone else’s problem.
Or you delete it… and I mean actually delete it, not shuffle it to a “someday” list where it will haunt you until 2027.
The guilt you feel about your undone tasks won’t go away if you magically “get more productive.” Instead I want you to see it for what it is: a list-curation problem.
What’s one thing you’re deleting today?
PS: I can confidently say these @aritzia sweatpants are 10/10
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