I am a guy and had started planning my wedding 2 years in advance. As I had the privilege of time to source around for vendors, I thought it will be best for me to share on the common pitfalls and tricks of most vendors. I strongly believe that what I am about to share can help some couples avoid spending unnecessary money, misery and troubles while planning for their marriage. It is my experience and I am cool if you do not agree with what I say or share.
The things I am about to share are on Bridal Studio, Pre-Wedding Photography, JP and Banquet.
Before I start I would like you to think about the time he proposed. That moment of happiness and overwhelming joy is what prompt you to reply "Yes". It is supposed to be a journey of excitement and the start of a new chapter in life. Remember, the most important thing is to be happy together.
Here goes...
Bridal Studio:
First, I would like to share something that happened to me when I was in polytechnic to let couples have a little insight on what to expect from wedding industry. When I was 17 years old holding my girlfriend hand shopping around Plaza Singapura, I was approached by a bridal studio sales person. She told me to help her by spending 1 hour in the shop or her boss will think she isn't working hard enough. My movie doesn't start till 2 hours later and so I agreed. To my surprise, she asked me to put deposit to purchase a wedding package even though I told her I am only 17 years old. She told me not to let my girlfriend wait and I can put a deposit first and buy the whole package when I am ready to get married. Seriously?! She said she will give a huge discount to me and I am naïve enough to believe her. I rang up my mum and told her if I can deposit S$500 for a bridal package. Of course my mum refused. At that point of time I do not have S$500 so without my mum approval, I can't purchase the package. The sales person asked to speak to my mum which I refused to do so. I was only trying to help a sales person but ended up spending 2 hours in the bridal studio. There are 2 things here I want to highlight:
1) I have no idea why most bridal studios I visited advice couples to place a deposit with them first and continue shopping for their ideal vendor. I went to many wedding fairs and this is a common advice by most bridal studios. If I place S$500 deposit and decided not to pick that vendor, will they refund my deposit? Obviously NO! There is no reason for a couple to place a deposit if they are still shopping around. Why the rush? Take your time and pick a good bridal studio. If you feel the sales person is too pushy, back off and walk away from the shop. You need to work together as a team!
2) It is obvious that the sales person I met when I was 17 years old doesn't care about my happiness. What is important to her is sales and commission. Most of the vendors I met during wedding fairs told me that they are in this line because they like helping couples with their wedding. That they do not care about sales and despise those bridal studios who cheat couples by forcing them to sign up for expensive wedding package. They claimed that they are genuinely happy for us. I met 1 Taiwan bridal studio sales person who showed me his tattoo and claimed it is in memory of his wife and his wish is to help all couples in their wedding. After 1 hour of discussion, I decided against picking the Taiwan bridal studio because I do not have control over the photos taken in Taiwan. I was really touched by what he said about his late wife and do not think anyone will lie about it. Well, think again. After I told him my concern and my option not to pick his bridal studio, he told me to place a deposit first and think about it. I told him there is no point for me to place a deposit as they will not refund me if I decided not to choose them. He then started to become pushy and commented on almost all the other bridal studios in that wedding fair. He brought out more albums to show me and kept increasing the number of free photos. If the style of photography doesn't suit you, you can have 100 photos but yet only like 10. Pick the photographer that suit your taste. To make it even harder to leave the booth, his "manager" came and tag team on us. Even though we know we didn't want to pick them, it is really difficult to leave the booth abruptly or cut short the conversation. That man who loves his wife so dearly became a different person. In the end, it is all about sales than our happiness. Of course we didn't sign up the package as we insisted on not putting any deposits.
I would like to use my previous job experience in the bank to explain why a sales person will not genuinely be happy for you. I used to open business account for companies. Having your first business account set up is a huge step in life. It is the start of your own business. Similar to wedding, it is the start of a new chapter in life. There are 2 customers whom I served and I would like to share my feeling as a sales person. After sms-ing my customer to inform her that the account has been opened, my customer replied and told me she is very excited! She can't wait for business to start and she wants to quickly close her first deal! Well, I can't feel the excitement after reading the SMS as my job is done and I got my commission but I still replied "Yeah!. The other customer I met had his whole family and relatives at the place of our meeting. After I finished the forms, I told my customer that he will get his account ready in a day. The family members and relatives went around celebrating and congratulate the new boss of the family. It is almost like there is a new born baby in the family. Everyone came to me and shook my hand, thanking me for all my work. Again, I can't feel the excitement as my job is done and I got my commission. So do you think the sales person is genuinely happy for you? I doubt so. See the difference in attitude after you sign the package.
The way I choose bridal studio is based on photos. Do I like the way this photographer capture the image? Are the back drop nice? Are they popular? 1 of the photo studio caught my attention and I thought I can only engage them if I sign up with the ""exclusive" bridal studio. Turn out the sales person lied as I could had bought Ala Carte or engaged another bridal studio offering the photographer services. The bridal studio told me that they have a wide range of wedding gowns to choose from and so I thought it is a win-win situation. I placed my deposit and signed up for the package after months of searching. During gown selection, the bridal studio told me that there are a series of gown which are under "premium" range and doesn't include in the package. The gown consultant never fail to praise my girlfriend "you look slimmer today". Then she started to try and sell us more products such as rent another gown or engage make-up artist for a longer time. We thought it is unnecessary and told her we are not interested. So since she didn't get any new sales from us, she started to fasten the entire gown selection process. Not only she didn't allow us to select the gowns freely by restricting us to a few selections, she kept trying to force us to pick the gown she chose. She claimed that she knows the entire shop gowns and her choice is the best. When we are undecided on the gown and want to try again, she refuses to let us do so. The whole gown fitting experience felt like she just wanted us to quickly pick a gown and leave. No additional commission means no point to smile right? I am sure for those couples who bought a few more products from her during gown fitting, she will be full of smiles and the whole gown selection process will be a happy one. Before we exit the bridal studio, she asked us to consider engaging make-up artist and rent their car for the pre-wedding photo shoot. All these comes at a cost and we didn't purchase it because we were feeling stressed over the gown selection.
Pre-wedding photoshoot
When we need to select our pre-wedding photos, the photo consultant told us she is genuinely happy for us, she despise those who cheat their customers, she don't hard sell, I look cute, my girlfriend is so pretty, I love her so I will spend, it is once in a lifetime, S$10,000 for additional photos is worth it, there is no need to save the money and etc. Starting it sounds nice but towards the end it is the same. Each photo is S$100+ and a typical package offers 25 to 35 free photos. She advised to buy all photos at a cost of S$10,000+. Now think again:
If a wedding package cost S$5,000 and has typically 25 to 35 free photos with pre-wedding and actual day gown rental. And assuming you look nice in 35 out of 100 photos taken that day, look normal in 35 photos and look bad in the remaining 30 photos. Why don't you take the 35 nice photos for free and give up the 35 normal photos and 30 bad photos. Spend another S$5000 and get another 35 nice photos? Why pay S$10,000 for 100 photos when you only look nice in 35 of them?
S$10,000 (35 nice, 35 normal and 30 bad photos)
S$5000 + S$5000 (35 nice + 35 nice photos)
From the above, which is better?
We spent 4 hours trying to choose our photos and the supposedly caring photo consultant became pushy. She didn't give us time to choose 40 photos which we like and kept insisting we choose all 100 photos. Even when we say there are some photos we didn't like, she insist those photos to be added into the album to make it look complete. Hello! It is S$100+ per photo! Just to make it look nice?! Another common thing I hear from most vendors is they will use us as their models because we look nice and etc. So our photo consultant told us that we are photogenic and the company want to use us as their model, the photographer really like us and want our photos and a specialise team of photo-shop specialist will help us touch up the photos. I don't understand why we need to buy the photos for the bridal studio to use? If they want to use us as model, they can easily just use our photos. All softcopy is with them. Why must we pay more so they can use us as models? It doesn't make sense at all. To be honest, I was influenced by the photo consultant and nearly bought the package. Luckily my fiancée is aware of what is going on and stopped me. We are so disgusted by how people can act as if they care in front of us but actually they don't. We walked out of the bridal studio confused,and stressed. It affected us so much that both of us didn't sleep well for a few days because we kept thinking about it. How can a person lie about so many things and claimed it is for our good to pay S$10,000. Why does she insist that photos come in a series and although we don't like the photos, we should include it because it completes the whole series? Doesn't she know saving up S$10,000 is no easy task? I honestly feel that you will get better photos if you purchase 2 photography package than force yourself to buy 100 photos. Think about it. Of course if you are well-to-do and did as the photo consultant advised, you will have a happy photo consultant serving you. If she gets the commission she desire, what is there to be pissed about? When we told her we do not want to buy 100 photos, she started to sound pissed and impatient.
Now, I am fortunate that my fiancée understands me and we try to work as a team. I do hear a lot of stories about couples arguing about choosing of bridal studios or photos. Especially photos. If each photo is S$100+, this makes every decision an important one. If one party wants to buy more photos probably because the photo consultant had performed her magic and the other party doesn't, an argument will most probably start. I urge every couple to think again. A wedding is a joyful event and the most important thing is to be happy together. Wedding industry is full of vendors ready to get a huge profit out of "once in a lifetime" deal. If you have the resources, your wedding day will become the happiest day of your life. If you do not have the resources, there is a possibility that the vendors can make it the worst day of your life. Some couples even broke off while making such decision. Remember, working as a team and being happy is what matters. Whatever wedding industry vendors says, it is just because they want to gain something from you.
JP
I read many forum regarding JP red packet. Some may say it is a volunteering job and S$38 is good enough. Some gave S$88 as a token of appreciation. I feel that if it is a volunteering job, S$38 is good enough if we do not complain how the JP perform the session. If he didn't do a good job on your wedding day, remember that it is a volunteering job. I do not think JP will be genuinely happy for couples if we demand them to do a good job, entertain us, make us laugh and cry and pay them S$28 or S$38 red packet. They need to travel to the banquet location and ERP charges during weekends can be costly. If we can't even cover their cost to travel to the banquet and back home, will they be happy? If they are unhappy, do you think they will do a good job? Similarly, will we be happy if our friends attend our wedding and gave us S$38 red packet? Red packet by friends is also a freedom of choice. I am sure we will not be happy if our friends give us S$38 red packet. Personally, I will give S$88 or S$68
Banquet
Hotel wedding fair offers the best deal for banquet. Despite travelling around to meet a number of hotel consultants, it is always the wedding fair that offers more than what I had negotiated for. Remember to negotiate 30% of total attendees car park ticket, at least 1 free wine per table, 2 night bridal suite stay, 1 projector, and 2 barrels of beer.
