Small weddings and vendors

Take a look at Thumbtack.com and Instagram. Most of their weddings they post are 50 people and under.

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Thank you!

Do photographers base their prices on size of wedding? I would think that wouldn't be too bad. But yeah, near me all of our venues have high F&B minimums for Saturday nights to attract big and lucratuve events. Any other night you could get a reasonable minimum. My cousin was married on a Sunday for this reason.

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Most base prices on the product and labor. The size of the guest list is irrelevant.

All inclusive venues are notorious for having 5 figure food and beverage minimums that must be met regardless of the day or guest count.

Wow - Thank you again, Michelle. I had no idea this site existed and I'm online all the time. I have prelims for a photographer.

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Makes sense for business, but I've worked in software where you have packages A, B and C. Why can't caterers (larger restaurants) do the same? Less effort, less cost for them - they can still earn a profit. I shouldn't have to pushed to a Sunday for business reasons. Just being selfish, I guess.

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Small guess list = much less labor and less product.

Yes, I ran into this while looking for a venue for 65 people. Most had a minimum 100-150 guests on Saturdays and 100 on Sundays, or a crazy food & beverage minimum. I found they were more willing to work with me if I considered a M-F wedding. I also found success with more nontraditional places such as inns, B&B's, restaurants, etc.

I havent had this problem, most wedding vendors are more than happy to just have work right now. I have also been reading reviews online and seeing if there are any about how the vendor handled other weddings during the pandemic

View Quoted Comment Also lower margins. My parents run a business that has an events component. More people means more alcohol and alcohol has great margins. Also you have the sunk cost of the venue mortgage so you want to be bringing in high revenue. They also probably want to use their labor to offer consistent hours to their employees through event season. Its a bummer for you, but from a business perspective, it makes total sense to me that they want to do big events over small events.

Have you looked at restaurants that have private rooms? They might have space perfect for that amount.

View Quoted Comment I second thumbtack!

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Thank you, Samantha. It was a challenge finding a venue - we went outside of town to a lovely historic mansion and were able to book.

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Doesn't seem that way here. Maybe you live in a smaller city? Not sure.

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Agreed! Thanks.

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We're going outside of town to a beautiful place, but I'm referring to caterers, photographers, etc. And, I don't think brides should be shut out of Saturday or Sunday's due lack of high revenue. That's just a crappy business model. Sorry, don't mean to be a downer but that's what it appears to be. Luckily on this thread, someone recommended thumbtack.

View Quoted Comment Completely agree, but hey it's all about money for them. I haven't experienced any issues booking vendors like DJ/photography/officiant because the price is the same no matter the size of the wedding. Where I've run into trouble is with pieces that scale with the size of the wedding like venue, catering, florist etc.

We had 15 guests at our destination wedding and 50 at our local reception. The only vendors we had issues with were venues—we switched to a weekday wedding for one, and the other just took us a while to find (with only a 25 guest minimum).