🤑 Discussing Payments With Your Wedding Vendors

Discussing Payments With Your Wedding Vendors

I’m going to be covering basically payments, deposits, and final payments.

And so I want to talk about a few things when it comes to the payments. And I want to put this disclaimer out there that I am not a lawyer. I do not practice law. If you want legal advice, please contact a lawyer.

All I’m doing is giving my opinion and my thoughts on the subject today. So with that being said, let’s go ahead and get right into it. We’re going to talk about, like I said, the payments. So when you reach out to a vendor and you feel like you want to use them for your wedding, then chances are you’re going to enter into some sort of a contract.

Hopefully, it’s going to be a written contract. Now, I will say this. If you have a friend who does any of the wedding services that you need, still make sure that you have a contract, a written contract, so that you have a meeting of the minds.

Now, I won’t call it a sit-down because of the inclement negative implications. Let’s think of it as a meeting of minds. It. You have a verbal contract. Or they say, no, I got this, or I got you, and I’ll take care of everything.

There’s really no meeting of the minds. There’s really nothing written that’s solidified as to what they’re going to be providing and what you should expect. So please make sure you have a written contract no matter what.

Both parties sign this written contract, and. You can trust me. See, here’s a signed document testifying that I promise not to pull it away. I guess if you have a signed document in your possession, you can’t go wrong.

To enter into a contract with a vendor, you basically need two things. You need a contract and consideration. Are you telling us to be considerate? You misstate the term, Ellen. Consideration, when used in a legal sense, has nothing to do with courtesy.

Consideration is the fancy legal term for some sort of gain from the vendor. It could be a deposit, it could be a coupon, it could be anything like that. But consideration is typically a payment. It’s typically money.

Consideration means something that is exchanged for something else. For example, when I exchange my dollar bill for a bottle of soda, I am accepting an offer made by the owner of a vending machine. He promised to deliver me a soda if I put the correct money in the slot.

The consideration is. Typically a deposit. And when you pay your deposit, you are telling them that I will be utilizing your services for a future date. In this instance, the default position for a deposit is that a deposit is non-refundable.

Let me say that again. The default it is understood by both parties that a deposit is non-refundable unless it states specifically on the contract that the deposit is refundable. There are some vendors who would put something in the contract where the deposit is refundable within three days or the deposit is refundable up until a certain point.

If it states that on the contract, then the deposit is refundable. If it doesn’t say anything about whether the deposit is refundable or non-refundable, then the default I want to say I’m going to use this with a grain of salt because I’m not a lawyer, but in the eyes of the law, a deposit is non-refundable unless it states it on there.

So if you put your money down today and change your mind tomorrow, your deposit is non-refundable. A deposit is by default, non-refundable. The second part that I want to talk about is the payment schedule or final payment.

When you look at your contract and please, when you have a written contract, please look at the contract again. Please make sure you read your contract. Make sure you read it and understand it. If you have any questions, ask the questions before you sign the contract.

You know exactly what the situation is. Just because your mom comes later and says, this is a really ridiculous situation, doesn’t mean you get to not be bound by your contract. Oh, in the contract you’ll see some sort of payment schedule.

So the payment schedule will be the terms identified in the agreement between you and that vendor. So please read your contract and understand what the payment schedule is going to be. Some vendors might have a payment schedule that states that you make your deposit and then the remaining balance is due a certain period prior to the wedding.

For us, for instance, 45 days prior to the wedding, the remaining balance is due. So you basically have two payments to make the initial payment for the deposit and then the second payment for the remaining balance.

So most places, like the venue, for instance, they’ll have a larger price tag. And so they might adjust their payment schedule or have a payment schedule that has smaller bite-sized chunks. Instead of, let’s say your venue costs $50,000, say, for example, and you pay a $10,000 deposit to secure the date, and then two or three months before the wedding, you owe $40,000.

That’s a pretty big price tag. And so a lot of venues, what they do is they break it down so that it’s easier for them to get paid and for you to make payments. So your payment schedule might be an initial $10,000 deposit.

Then let’s say a third is due nine months prior, and then another third is due six months prior, and then the final third is due three months prior or two months prior. So that way, instead of making a $10,000 payment and then $40,000, well, you can break it down.

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So just an easier bill to get paid. But regardless, make sure you read your contract and understand your payment schedule. I’m not a lawyer. I’m going to say this again, but your payment schedule is.

Part of your contract and if you miss this payment schedule then technically you would be in breach of contract and then the terms of those breach would end up coming into play. So you don’t want to do that.

So please read your contract and understand what your payment schedule is and then obviously don’t miss that payment schedule. And the last thing that I want to talk about, I want to cover is something of happens infrequently but enough for me to remember it, because I pretty much remember every time it happens.

Usually about every six or eight months, we’ll have a client who will say something to the fact that they don’t want to pay the remaining balance until the night of the event because they want to make sure that we’re going to show up.

That’s what I want to talk about. Just real quick. Again, I am not an attorney, I don’t practice law, but I want to give you my opinion or my take on this specific situation. And first and foremost is you would have entered into some sort of contract with the vendor and in our case we have a remaining balance due of 45 days prior to the wedding and this will be in part of our contract.

So to then change it at a later date is something that really can’t be done, at least in my humble opinion of the law. Because you have a contract that both parties have signed and the only way to change it now is to have both parties sign a new.

A contract or an addendum to the contract, stating that if the vendor doesn’t agree, then again, in my opinion, then that would be a breach of the contract. And so you don’t want to do that because then you open yourself up to all.

For sorts of other ramifications that the vendor could possibly have remedy for. All right? So number two is more logistical than legal and it deals with if your vendor does decide, let’s say your vendor decides that, hey, I will go ahead and allow you to pay me the night of the event.

Well, typically the vendor will then want cash because every other method can be challenged or disputed. You can cancel a check, you can dispute a credit card charge, et cetera. Or let’s say that the credit card doesn’t go through.

And then with cash, the thing that you look at with that is if it’s $1,000, let’s say for an example, then you’re going to have to figure out how to get this money in advance. You can’t do it the day of the wedding because you have other things going on.

So then you’ll have to plan to either pull the money out of the ATM or go to the bank and get this money. And usually $1,000 in an ATM is more than one time, one day. You can’t just pull out $1,000 in a day.

Normally it’s a $300 limit. So then you have to go three, four times to be able to pull out this money. So let’s say you don’t have time to do that or you forget one day or whatever. So you don’t have the money.

Let’s say for whatever reason, it’s now the day of the event. Your vendor has shown up and now they want to get paid and you don’t have the funds. For whatever reason, you weren’t able to pull out the money from the ATM.

You didn’t have time to go to the bank. You give them a credit card and they actually have something where they can process it on their phone. And so they do a swipe and the card doesn’t go through. And of course you give them a check and then they tell you, I won’t accept the check because you can cancel that check.

So now your vendor is in a difficult situation because they basically have to tell you on the day of your they’re not going to be able to do your event because you now breach the second time with the contract.

The first time when changing it to now pay the day of the event. And the second time now that you’re supposed to pay this money, you don’t have the money. Offer acceptance, new contract, that’s what this is.

And then. By not paying. And so then they’re in a difficult situation to tell you, I’m not going to do whatever service that you hired me for. And then, of course, everyone around is upset with this vendor because they’re refusing the service, even though they are the ones that are actually kind of getting screwed over because you’re supposed to pay them prior to you didn’t do it.

Now you want to pay them the day of and you can’t do it. And so now they have to tell you no. And then everyone and your mom are upset with them and it’s not their fault. And then the third thing that I want to talk about, this will be my last, is let’s say, for instance, me.

Let’s just use me for an example so I don’t throw anybody else, let’s say, out of my in my 15 years of being in business. Actually 16. One time I didn’t show up, just one. If I didn’t show up at your wedding, would you be quiet about that situation?

Would you just sit there and just kind of grin and bear it and not say anything to anybody? This is a rhetorical question because obviously you’re not here with me while I’m recording this, but the answer is no.

The answer is if someone was to not show up on my wedding day, I would make sure that the world would know about it. Some people might go a little bit further than others, but chances are if this person didn’t show up, there’s going to be a ding somewhere in history where a client or a former client will have said something negative about them in some capacity.

So when you’re doing your research, those are some things that obviously a red flag that you would look for right away. If you see someone has not showed up, for one. Events, then, yeah, that might be a time to discuss it with them.

That, hey, I want to make sure you show up to my event. So this is the reason. But if you go through my review, if you go through my Google reviews or wedding wire or the Knot reviews, you might see instances where a client might have had a difference of opinion of capacity.

But the one thing you won’t see is that we didn’t show up at any time in our 16 years of being in business. So then there should be no reason to hold the money hostage, because our track record for 16 years is that we show up.

If you have a vendor that doesn’t have that track record, then the time to discuss would be when you’re doing your research on it, not when it’s time for them to follow the letter of their contract anyway.

So that’s the last thing I wanted to talk about, is that the reputation should dictate that you don’t have to hold the money hostage. So those are the things that I want to talk about. Today we covered the deposit.

Whether the deposit is refundable or non-refundable is going to be in the contract. And again, if it’s not written that the deposit is refundable, then the default is that it’s non-refundable. Then we talked about the payment schedule, and following whatever the vendor’s payment schedule is going to be your course of action.

The last thing I wanted to cover is making your payments on the day of the advantage. Usually just a recipe for disaster to even try it, unless it specifically says in the contract that you can’t then just go ahead and follow their payment schedule and make your final payment.

It’s due instead of waiting until the end.

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