Tipping Vendors: The When + How

No we aren’t talking cow-tipping (which I’ve never actually done but I watched once in high school. Cross my heart promise.) but giving that sweet moo-la to those vendors who gave you butterflies. It’s a highly argued about topic, so it’s best to step on the sensitive side. 

When SHOULD you tip a vendor? 

Short answer: anytime they’ve served you well. 

Longer answer: it’s extremely personal and varies from business to business. And even then, sometimes you should tip even when you don’t actually want to. 

As a general rule, anytime you hire a service, it’s a good idea to tip the provider. How much? Well that’s up to you. I like to follow the Dave Ramsey rule and try to always tip 15-20% when we eat at restaurants. For your wedding day though, I recommend $100-200 based on the amount of time the service professional is with you on your wedding day. Also, be sure to tip your bartenders, even if they have tip jars out! 

(Note: I have never expected a tip from any of my clients, but any tip I get usually goes towards our family Disney trips!) 

Which Vendors are you required to tip?

Truthfully none of them, but etiquette tells us that’s considered rude. Personally, I’d love to believe that we all had the means to tip everyone, as they all do a TON of work on wedding days. Unfortunately for most of us, this isn’t the case. Instead I like to divide vendors into a set of categories based on their services. 

High Priority is anyone who’s present on your wedding day, even for a short amount of time. They’re likely those who do deliveries, setup/teardown, and those who are providing food, entertainment or another service. 

These include:

• Bartenders
• DJ/Entertainment
• Catering
• Photography*
• Videography*
• Coordination
• Baker/Desserts
• Florists
• Venue/Serving Staff

*I’ve recently seen a trend where coordinators are recommending withholding tips from your photographers or videographers until you’ve received the final product. I discourage this for a few reasons: 1) tipping on the wedding day is for the wedding day service, not for the entire service unless you’re tipping a total of 15-20% of the whole bill. 2) tipping on the wedding day encourages your vendor to go home and get those sneak peeks up quickly. Your wedding is less likely to be tossed on the “to edit” pile and forgotten about. And 3) it’s kind of a “neener-neener, you don’t get a tip until you finish” attitude. This is probably just a personal pet peeve for me, but this is the type of behavior I expect from my toddlers. (Note: I do understand that this attitude comes from the coordinators history of being burned by photographers in the past, however, that is not a good excuse for assuming all photographers are like this. I highly recommend vetting photographers with other clients, and not basing your photographer on price alone. 

Middle priority are the vendors who provide you an offsite service. You should plan to tip these vendors when they provide you the service. This includes: 

Low priority vendors are unlikely to be able to accept tips as they’re mostly retail vendors. These include Etsy shops (though if you’ve ordered a highly customized item, you might be able to ask for a Venmo QR Code), Jewelers (excluding private designers), Amazon, Online Retailers, Dress Shops (unless privately owned!) and other places you might order items for your wedding day from. 

Keep in mind, none of this means one vendor is less worthy of a tip than another! I highly recommend prioritizing tips for all your vendors, even if it’s a small amount (under $50) or a small gift with a handwritten note.