Who do you tip at your reception venue?

Our contract had a service fee and gratuity for wait staff and the coordinator. If your day of coordinator goes above and beyond it’s okay to tip them as well. Our bar tender had his own ip jar and we tipped him a little extra.


We also tipped our photographer & DJ $100 each and $50 for our photo booth attendant.

Our venue has a 20% service fee, which I had assumed would go towards the wait staff. However, upon checking, none of that fee goes to them! So we will be tipping the wait staff on top of that. I would check with your venue and have them explain exactly what your service fee goes towards.
I will not be tipping our coordinator since she is an employee of the venue (and hasn’t really done a thing with coordinating or planning thus far). If I had hired a coordinator, I would have definitely tipped them though. If your coordinator comes with your venue, you can tip them if you’d like (especially if they go above and beyond for you). We will definitely be tipping our officiant, photographer, videographer, musicians and florist. I don’t think most people tip their florist, but ours has been so amazing that I feel I want to.

Always wait until after the wedding to tip in case you find service isn’t to your liking. My day-of coordinator said she has seen 50/50. Some brides tipping and others not tipping at all. She said it was completely up to us.


For photographers, videographers, and florists though, those services are generally not tipped and they’re not expecting it.

We were very generous with our tipping and tipped everyone including valet and bartender who were receiving tips from guests 20 percent. All of our vendors were outstanding and our reception was 10 hours so how could we not?

We are having a open bar a attendant that is with our caterer we will have them serving them. So he will pay them out of what we give him

The service fee does not include gratuities. We tipped servers $30 each, bartender 20%, and the venue coordinator (as well as DJ and videographer).

Thank you all for the replies. Very helpful. Sounds like every venue is different. So I just asked the sales director and she said the service charge goes to the wages of the servers. So I will be having extra cash on hand!