You’ve asked and we’ve answered! Welcome to your weekly column ‘Planning Your Happily Ever After’ with wedding consultant Shikima Hinds.

Wedding vendors are typically there for you from the moment you book and confirm their services. The challenge faced by quite a few couples is keeping them happy and fully engaged until you depart on your honeymoon.

From tipping to providing vendor meals, here are some tips to help you build good relationships with your suppliers.

Be considerate about their time.

While you might be up at 1:00 am thinking about some aspect of your wedding, it’s probably not a good time for you to be texting your vendors. Talk to your vendors about what their regular working hours are and stick to texting or calling them during those times. Your vendor sees you as a priority, but do remember that they also have other clients who require their services and many have other responsibilities at home. Don’t always expect replies within five minutes, but trust that, as professionals, your suppliers will reply to you in a timely manner. From the get-go, you should both agree on your preferred communication channel, whether that’s emails or messaging apps, to facilitate seamless communication.

Keep texts short!

With that said, texting too much information, for example your wedding day timeline or your photo shot list, is just not plausible. It’s too easy to delete a message and lose all that information. Short messages are always preferred, eg a message to set up a phone call. Leave longer messages for e-mails or a scheduled phone call.

Have faith in your vendors

Your suppliers are seasoned professionals who will make every detail of your wedding beautiful. Trust and listen to their suggestions, many are experts in their field. It’s great that you have a vision! Your suppliers will always ask you about what you want and will certainly try to achieve what you’ve imagined. However, it would also be much appreciated when you trust and believe in their talents and expertise.

Feed your wedding vendors

We’re about to clear up any confusion on this topic once and for all. Feeding your wedding vendors is an absolute MUST! Many of the professionals you have hired will put in a long, labour-intensive day. One of the most thoughtful and kindest things you can do to say thanks is to simply feed them if they have been working all day and working throughout the actual wedding.

Say thank you!

A handwritten, personal thank-you card for each wedding vendor is an excellent way to let each vendor know that you appreciate them.

Leave them a tip

Of course, one of the simplest ways to thank your wedding vendors is to give them a tip. Tips are not mandatory, but they are encouraged. When you are configuring your wedding budget, you may want to consider factoring in an estimation of gratuities and tips for service-based vendors.

Share their work and give a review

One of the most thoughtful ways to thank your wedding vendors is to share with others the reasons you loved them so much! If you have friends or family who will be getting married, recommend your favourite vendors to them. Word-of-mouth is huge for the wedding industry.