Venue recommended suppliers

The vast major­ity of wed­ding venues rec­om­mend sup­pli­ers with the very best of inten­tions. I think it’s a great way of find­ing reli­able and high qual­ity sup­pli­ers for your wed­ding, from florists to sta­tion­ers, toast­mas­ters and bands.

But — always ask your venue how they choose which sup­pli­ers to recommend.

Why?

A great wed­ding venue will have expe­ri­enced and devoted staff. They’ll have a net­work of con­tacts in the local wed­ding mar­ket, florists who’ve come to dec­o­rate the venue and pho­tog­ra­phers who they’ve built up a gen­uine rela­tion­ship with. It’s a bril­liant way to find sup­pli­ers who you can trust and who are well known in your area.

A few wed­ding venues com­pile a list of rec­om­mended sup­pli­ers which they may hand out in a brochure when you book the venue for your wed­ding. It’s not nec­es­sar­ily a bad thing, but I’d advise you to ask your venue’s co-ordinator if the sup­pli­ers have paid to be in there.

I’ve had calls from a cou­ple of venues local to me, they’ve seen my web­site and thought it was nice (blah, blah), they’re putting together a list of rec­om­mended sup­pli­ers and would I like to be in it — for £200. The one I remem­ber was Shrigley Hall — I don’t know if they still do it. I said no: it doesn’t feel right that these rec­om­men­da­tions are paid for. (Feel free to use the com­ment form below if you dis­agree, I’d be inter­ested to hear what you think about this.)