Simple Tips for Wedding Catering and Rentals

Rentals from Power of Love Rentals, Venue and catering by Coopers Hall, Photo by Crystal Genes Photography

There's a simple trap I see a lot of nearlyweds falling into in the early phases of the planning, and that's when it comes to the right time to lock in rentals and catering. There's a stress about needing to come up with the perfect proposal to secure them as a vendor, otherwise you'll potentially miss out on exactly what you want for your big day. I'm here to help alleviate that pain point and offer some advice. Here are some tips on wedding rentals and catering, specifically when it's time to lock them in.

Let me reiterate the main objective here: you DO NOT NEED a perfect proposal to secure either a rental or catering vendor for your wedding. There are some things you do need, certainly, but the "perfect" proposal isn't helping you at this stage, where fine tuning before putting down a deposit is likely to put you into anxiety panic mode.

Trying to fine tune every detail causes two problems. The first and biggest is that you simply don't know all your details yet. You're in the stage of the process where you need to lock in a vendor, and this early on there will inevitably be details that evolve or become more clear over time, so you need to let go of the stress of figuring out every detail down to the tiniest asterisk on a contract right this very second.

Rentals from Power of Love Rentals, Venue and catering by Coopers Hall, Photo by Crystal Genes Photography

Second, ironically, if you drag your heels and fine tune everything, you DO run the risk of losing that vendor. They're running a business and if they're good (and that's why you want them), then their schedule will get booked up. I don't say this to rush anyone but just to emphasize how stressing about small details loses sight of the big picture.

So then, what do you do? When do you start sharing a proposal? The answer for both rental and catering vendors comes down to a different question, and that's "how are you feeling about them?" What does the overall proposal look like, is the price looking good? Is the price something you feel like you can come down on or finesse, or is the vendor's minimum pricing too high? If you're feeling overall happy with the big details and get the vibe that there's some flexibility on the smaller details, it's time to start locking them in. Remember, you can fine tune throughout the process, but if you try and fine tune before you even have a proposal to share, then you're fine tuning the wind and, GIRL, it's gonna change.

Rentals from Power of Love Rentals, Venue and catering by Coopers Hall, Photo by Crystal Genes Photography

For rentals, I always say to over order on some things. That means to order for your full maximum guest count plus vendors. You can't play around with rental vendors because you need to be certain they can accommodate even your largest possible guestlist. Thankfully, you can always scale things back and drop what you don't need later. Better to know you don't need something and nix it from the itinerary than be stuck scrambling to add something you didn't account for.

The opposite is true with catering, where my advise is to under promise since there's usually a minimum guaranteed count. Know what that guaranteed minimum is because it's what you'll be expected to pay no matter what your guest count ends up being. Luckily, in the world of catering, you can increase what you need later.

Another great part about many catering vendors is that they're fine with the fine tuning that happens after the contract is signed. Maybe you want to add dessert service or coffee and tea, that's usually totally fine to start updating as you're working with the vendor. You can sometimes change your package entirely, saying, "We did a tasting and actually we want to go with the chicken over the tuna" or something like that. Happens all the time.

Both rental and catering vendors will definitely have a deadline in your contract for when you need to deliver final headcount numbers and quantity of goods and all that, so be sure you look over your contract and know when they need those details solidified. That's the point where you lock it in and make sure everything is covered. Depending on the vendor, you'll find the deadline to be four-to-two weeks out from your wedding date, and even in some cases like for a tent it'll be a week-to-72 hours from your date. It all depends though, so read those contracts to avoid any surprises.

Rentals from Power of Love Rentals, Venue and catering by Coopers Hall, Photo by Crystal Genes Photography

I always say this: go with your gut feeling on the overall proposal. It's OK to decide back and forth on some aspects, but work with your vendor early on, asking things like, "this is out of our budget but is there anything we can do to lower it?" Treat them like the partners you want them to be and you'll be delighted how smooth things can go much of the time. Clarifying those major topics (you don't want to get stuck paying for something you can't afford, for example) is a lot different than deciding on every teeny tiny detail before you put down the deposit.

Of course, you're not going this alone. Part of my role as the wedding planner is to help you through these decisions and talk through your gut feelings, offering advice and guidance on when to make a choice or when to keep pondering. Let's get your wedding planned! If you're looking to get started, let's talk. I'm excited to make your wedding fun and special, so drop me a line and we'll get planning!

Happy Wedding Planning,

Andy <3