Getting Good Recommendations for Wedding Professionals

Your wedding is a special day and you deserve the best customer service possible!

• Remember that you’re not getting customer service until you are a customer
  Until you sign a contract or write a check, your vendor is still in the “courting” stage of your business relationship. Your calls will be answered quickly and the person answering the telephone will certainly be polite. (As a side note, if you do not receive excellent pre-customer service, please do not even think about hiring them! If they’re not adept and ready to serve you before you become a customer, they will not change once they have your money!) The real test comes after the check has been written or the credit card has been charged. Some vendors suddenly stop returning phone calls in a timely fashion, or they might not be quite so sweet on the telephone when it comes to answering your questions. The way to avoid this is to get recommendations from those who have gone before!


• How do you get recommendations?
  Ask everyone you know who has been married in the past year or two. If they were married much before that, some companies will have gone out of business or will have been taken over by new management, so their customer service policies might have changed. People love to talk about their weddings, so don’t worry about appearing nosy or intrusive. Simply ask who they used for their flowers (or wedding entertainment, or for catering) and then ask how happy they were with the service. You want enthusiastic answers; a simple, “oh, it was fine,” does not indicate that the vendor went above and beyond for that particular bride and groom, and it may mean that they won’t for you, either.


• What about after you have recommendations in hand?
  Now it’s time to interview the service providers. Remember, you’re the one hiring them, so feel free to ask whatever questions you’d like. Be alert for signs that the service provider might be overwhelmed or not as professional as you might think. For example, if the place of business is messy or unkempt, or if the service provider keeps you waiting more than a few minutes despite an appointment, these may be signs that she’ll be as lackadaisical when it comes to your special day. Follow your gut instinct and make sure that you have a rapport with the professional.