You are NOT an orange!

I hate having to write about this but it comes up time and time again….

I keep hearing from wedding professionals that they have been approached by venues and other planners for a ‘commission”, a ‘referral fee’ or the less polite…kickback…

What exactly does that mean? To us as wedding professionals it means that these people are trying to make additional money on your wedding by squeezing more money out of the people they refer you to…

A venue or planner might get 10% or more from the florist, band, photographer and other wedding professionals to give out their name…

In the end you pay more – they’re not able to take the 10% out of their package after paying their expenses, staff and materials costs to they have to raise your price…

WE DON’T PLAY LIKE THAT! {as a matter of fact most of Philly – thankfully doesn’t}, you’ll actually find that in those rare cases where someone offers us a referral fee- we ask that they pass it on to the bride and groom as a discount to the normal package…

I find that most wedding professionals don’t like having to pay these fees in order to get a referral… they stand by the quality of their work, the relationships they have built with other professionals and being referred to clients because they will do the best job for them on their budget- NOT because they are the person who pays us the biggest referral fee.

So, if you are checking out planners ask if they accept referral fees {and why- ’cause you’re paying them good money!}, and also ask your venue of they charge the people they recommend a referral fee…because if they do you might be paying 10% or more higher than if you were working with them in another venue.

The Queen of Hearts Wedding Consultants runs a wedding planning business where we refer couples to the best wedding professionals based on the quality of their work, their personalities, the product they offer and thier  competitive pricing – NOT a juice bar!

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Ok, I’ve been MIA from blogging for too long….

We’ve been a little busy {all kinds of new fun coming in 2010}… took a little vacation and getting ready for the holidays…

So forgive me for starting off with this RANT….

This email is to see if you have a travel agent working for you and your business.  Our offer to you is to give you up to $100 credit every time you refer a client to us and they book their honeymoon or any other trip with us.  Your credit can add up and you could eventually travel for free anywhere in the world! 

If you are a wedding professional looking to work with us and our clients- PLEASE don’t start our relationship by sending us a letter like this….

A: We don’t accept referral fees – our clients pay us well for referring them to wedding professionals based on who might be a good fit for thier budget, and personality, wedding style… not to people becasue they send us a referral fee.

B: If you are accustom to paying a referral fee we ask that you pass it on to our clients {it not only saves them money but makes us look good too}…

I’m thinking the point that has me the most frustrated is that this was the best this travel agent could come up with!

You could have started with telling me how long you’ve been in business, what area you might specialize in, some of the great resorts you work with that might be a good fit for our clients….

Tell me anything about you… son’t start with the fact that you’ll pay me to send you clients…

It makes us both look cheap…DELETE, DELETE, DELETE

End of  RANT….

More blogging to catch up on…..

Most of my colleagues know I have a few pet peeves….

Pre-setting coffee cups for a formal reception would be one…..

Guests who leave dirty plates and glasses on the sweetheart table while talking to the bride and groom would be another (leaving them on a food display REALLY makes me crazy).

However, number one on my list has to be using the word VENDOR….. we’ve eliminated it from our vocabulary!

Unless you are booking a hot dog cart, or buying pashminas from a sidewalk seller – you are NOT working with vendors …

At The Queen of Hearts Wedding Consultants – we refer our couples to Wedding Professionals… we’ve met each and everyone, seen their work, tasted their food, visited their venue and know their pricing and personalities….

Wedding Professionals are trained professionals and artists who are not hobbiest, they use professional equipment, and attend seminars to constantly continue their education….

We pre-screen each Wedding Professional and match them to each couple’s specific likes, dislikes, needs and budget….

We call it the three P’s – Price, Product and Personality…

If you’ve been referred to a ‘vendor’ …… be careful, ya might get a hot dog cart!

 Rebecca Druckenmiller

I just got an email from Ryan Estes last night with a photo he took at a recent wedding of ours and after opening it and taking a look it really reminds me how important teamwork is in this line of work…

There I am on the left, and then Karen (fellow QOH Wedding Day Director and assistant for the evening), and next to her, Shoshanna and Erin (our oh so fabulous QOH interns). 

I had just finished briefing the team when Ryan snapped this shot.  Making sure everyone is on the same page is so important and having the extra hands makes everything run so much more smoothly. 

Mark is a firm believer that we should never be running a wedding solo and I’m thankful for this outlook because I can trust that if something comes up I will always have a few extra hands on deck to help remedy the issue. 

We also appreciate the importance of working together with our fellow wedding professionals.  A team effort will always produce better results. 

The night will only be successful if we are all successful in working together to get the job done. 

I’m consistently communicating with ALL of the nights professionals to ensure we all know what’s coming up next or what still needs to get done. 

They too are sure to give me a heads up if they notice any issues throughout the night or need adjustments made to the timeline to make special accommodations.  

 

 

I wanted to share with you my preferred vendor list…

#1 – The REALLY cool hot dog carts in Toronto – not only do they grill the hot dogs on little grills right in front of you but most have a dozen or more great condiments…..

#2 Horn and Hardart’s – If you’re old enough to remember these…I can remember my grandmother taking us downtown to see the Christmas lights at Wannamaker’s and then heading over to the ‘auto-mat’ for cake and hot chocolate!

LOL – ok so here’s my point!

We don’t work with VENDORS! We work with WEDDING PROFESSIONALS!

We don’t work with people who offer vending machine products and services, they don’t open a can and take out your flowers, your invitations aren’t shrink wrapped and taken out of a self serve machine…

We research the best of the best – we work with people who will spend time with our clients, offer them custom designed products and services, spend time working at their craft, and offer great customer service

It’s not cookie cutter or out of a vending machine

So you’ll see we’ve attempted to eliminate the term VENDOR from our vocabulary…

We LOVE the WEDDING PROFESSIONALS we work with!