5 steps Avoiding Bad Wedding Vendors

I was at a wedding recently. I go to weddings a lot. In fact, you could kind of say I’m a professional wedding guest.

Sort of. Actually I’m a live wedding artist. I attend and draw caricatures at 20-30 weddings per year. So, this particular event I was at a wedding in Louisiana setting up to draw caricatures.

This was no two-bit rinky-dink wedding. There were 10 bridesmaids. 10 groomsmen. A DJ station. A 360 degree Photo Booth. Any myself - a caricature artist. The venue itself was probably about an 8-10k rental.

Yet, as I was setting up, I saw a guy dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. See the photo.

A DJ in a Polo Shirt at a Very Posh Wedding

At first I thought wait - is this guy working the wedding? Maybe he’s the AV guy. He was messing around with some wires and such. well, i thought, he must be going to go change.

I shrugged it off and went back to setting up my stand.

I was dressed as always in my black wraparound wedding gig dress and once I was done it was time to change from my slip-on shoes to my glittery wedding heels. Put on my earrings and necklace. One last trip to the bathroom before the wedding party started their march down the aisle to check my hair and makeup. Ok. Alls good.

I went back out to the reception hall and the guy in the striped shirt was gone. So I figured he was the av guy like I’d thought.

Imagine my horror a little later when this guy shows up - dressed in the same striped shirt and jeans - as the DJ!

I was horrified. Every other wedding dj I’d ever seen wore at least a shirt and tie. Many wear tuxes. I’d never seen one so dressed down for a WEDDING.

Not only that but later I was drawing people and his daughter sat in my chair. I know because she told me. She was supposed to be manning the Photo Booth but it was dead.

So instead of enticing people to get in line for her station, she waited in my line for at least half an hour (time the bride was paying for her to be doing the photo booth), and took the place of wedding guests who could have gotten drawn.

Again I was horrified.

As a wedding vendor I don’t even eat the brides food. That food is expensive and unless I’m there at a wedding all day (which does happen) I don’t ask for a plate. Even then I will ask for a vendor plate so that I don’t cause the bride more expense.

At that same wedding I saw the wedding planner acting rather unprofessionally as well so I wasn’t too surprised. I won’t get into it but many of the details I’d come to expect from a higher caliber wedding were missing form this particular wedding.

Additionally the wedding planner had helpers but they were all standing around doing nothing as the wedding planner shouted across the room to the VIPs where to go to get pictures taken. Repeatedly.

I wasn’t surprised then that she had allowed such an unprofessional dj. She should have made him go change. I would have if I’d been the planner. He was a blot on the whole wedding. He was center stage literally. I was embarasssed for the bride who hired him

But the planner didn’t seem to notice or care.

I hadn’t been hired by the wedding planner but by the MOB- the mother of the bride - who saw me at another wedding.

But most of the other vendors were probably procured by the wedding planner.

Either that or they had found him on the knot.

I’ll give him this, at least he played the brides list of music. But he didn’t do anything else. He didn’t announce anything except the entrance of the bride and groom and the exit.

There was no announcement for the dances, for the cake, or for anything else. I don’t know if there was anything else because I was busy drawing but if there was he didn’t announce it, I didn’t know about it and neither did anyone else.

I was genuinely horrified.

So how can you avoid having this happen at your wedding?

There’s a few ways to make sure the entertainers you pick for your wedding are good ones.

1. Watch them in action at another event. At weddings fir example, DJ’s they should be not just playing music but getting people on the dance floor, announcing the wedding things, playing the music that’s he’s been told to play or improvising well.

By contrast

I was at another wedding last month where the bride didn’t care what music was played so the dj imporivsed and came up with a great entrance song for the bride and groom who were having a rustic themed wedding - “she thinks my tractors sexy”. It was funny and appropriate and the bride was happy. Which is all that Matters.

1. The second way to know a great dj or other entertainer is from reviews. Of course you know this already. But the problem with reviews is they can be doctored.

For example the knot and

wedding wire (and their

affiliates such as the bash and

the bump) have been accused

of taking down reviews by

many brides online.

You can do a simple experiment yourself and go look up 5 random vendors on the knot.

Look up their star rating there. Then go search elsewhere online and you will often find that they have a lower rating elsewhere. Sometimes much lower.

That’s because the knot is pay to play. Their vendors pay to be listed there and they wouldn’t get much business if they had a lot of bad reviews. All the vendor has to do is complain to the knot /wedding wore and they will take down the bad reviews.

Which is very deceitful and false and it’s why I’m on a mission to keep any bride from falling for it and hiring a guy like that dj in the striped shirt.

The moral: look them up all over online. Don’t trust just one site.

I personally have a 5 star rating from ALL of my actual verified customers. ALL of them.

That’s because I believe in providing the best service. It’s the most important day of your life after all.

So.

On to #3

Don’t necessarily trust your wedding planner.

I’m sure that plenty of wedding planners are honest people. But some do get kickbacks from venues and vendors for hiring them.

Reputable vendors don’t play that way and we rely on our reputation alone.

One bride online was talking about how her wedding planner kept pushing a particular venue even though it said right on the brochure that there wasn’t enough room for her sized event.

That there’s a red flag, folks. You can have 🚩 red flags in more than intimate relationships!

Finally

4. Gather your own reviews.

Treat this like a job interview. Because it is!

What would a star interviewer do? They would track the source of the reviews.

When I can, I like to show where my reviews came from for jsut htis reason,

For Example:

Review from Zola

Your prospective entertainer may have a bunch of quotes on his or her website - but the only way to know if they’re real is to interview some of the brides they worked with yourself.

I know I know - who has time for that? But on the other hand, who has several thousand dollars to throw away on a rotten vendor?

So narrow it down first. Get 3 of your favorite prospective entertainers. Then ask them for the references of actual brides.

Then call them and interview them! You’ll likely learn a lot. Pay attention to the details. Take notes.

And remember to trust your gut!