What I've learned about wedding prices from working in the industry

A strange industry

When we shop for most goods, we usually rely on familiarity and transparency — we know roughly what an avocado should cost, and expect grocery stores to post their prices. Unlike most markets, wedding goods and services are most likely a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. Add in that many wedding vendors don't post prices on their websites and you start to see why wedding planning can involve so much stress: The familiarity and transparency we rely on for other purchases just isn't there.

I know a lot of wedding professionals. Many are wonderful people who do amazing work and have no intention of ripping anyone off. But we all work in an industry where price is this ambiguous thing that is rarely posted or talked about. So we do our best to find a fair price and not take advantage of the fact that this is usually a couple's first time shopping for this kind of stuff.

Wedding markup?

One fact that often startles the newly engaged is that vendors will charge more for a wedding than for other events, like corporate parties or family gatherings. On its face, this feels absurd: The same service should cost the same price.

But after a chat with my favorite wedding planner, who does lots of events, not just weddings, I realized that weddings are a whole different animal than these other parties. Many vendors use the term "high-touch" to describe the relationship with a wedding client. Unlike other parties, weddings are supposed to feel unique, personal, and completely seamlessly executed. It's a lot of effort and pressure for all those doing the legwork.

I feel this all the time. When the bride is walking down the aisle, I don't really have an option to mess up. There's no "take two." The stakes are high, and I have to perform perfectly or else face the fact that I missed a monumental moment in my clients' lives (thankfully that's yet to happen).

It's the same with editing a wedding film. I often have clients come back and ask me to cut in a shot of their "financially unstable aunt who flew all the way from Colorado and who would be devastated if she wasn't in the film." The personal nature of weddings make them likely to be more work than a typical party — and the price is going to reflect that.

The bad apples

I'm not ready to defend all vendors in the industry. The peculiar nature of this market gives vendors an opportunity to take advantage of the emotional and highly personal aspect of wedding planning and purchasing. This usually occurs in the form of extreme price-hiding tactics.

The common tactic used by some (not most) vendors is to stall when asked about pricing. This gives the vendor a chance to sell the couple on the service so they can fall in love with it before being brought back down to earth by the price, at which time they already feel that it's a must-have. A telling example from a wedding marketing blog:

I've seen vendors shamelessly yank on the emotions of two lovebirds, planting fears of regret if they don't splurge "just this once for the big day." This is the part of the industry that makes me sick. It's the part of the industry that is, in part, responsible for the fact that 40 percent of couples increase their budget during planning. It's manipulative and wrong and should be guarded against.

So what can you do?

It's simple: Ask for prices. Demand prices, in fact. As a vendor, it's never fun to get one-line emails that flatly say, in essence, "What are your prices?" I wish people had unlimited money so they could hire me for the artistry and quality of my work, not for how I fit into their budgets. But that's not the case. Budgets are real and should be respected through transparency. That's the only way we can take a hopelessly skewed market and slowly make it right.