HazelNutCoffee: Yes and no. Yes, in that certain vendors do charge more for weddings with good reason–the ur-example is caterers. For your average 200-person corporate banquet, the caterer will charge a standard fee and not worry too much about it. But for a 200-person wedding, the caterer might charge double to cover his “headache fee,” which means the couple calling frequently to add/drop/change menus, the mother of the groom calling to order ten kids’ meals unbeknownst to the couple and necessitating a volley of phone calls, the bride calling to see if they can substitute chicken tournedos for the beef medallions because her new sister-in-law doesn’t eat beef and she’ll be offended if they serve beef, and blah blah blah blah blah. Tour average 200-person corporate banquet is just not going to have the same amount of drama and tension attached to it because it’s not as high-stakes. Sometimes, really headache-inducing couples have ruined it for everyone else. But for other things, like flowers? A certain amount of the markup is due to the extra consultation that something like wedding flowers would require (an initial consultation, maybe two more meetings to nail down specific flower choices and display choices, plus installation at the venue). I can’t answer for all the different vendors because I can’t pretend to know exactly what it is that makes wedding flowers different from some other floral installation, but the short answer is that a small number of really demanding, frustrating people have given a lot of vendors a lot of headaches.
LC Strawhouse: On etiquette. Yes, we have seen some egregious stuff. But it’s a really fine line to walk–on the one hand, yes, we are being paid for our expertise and our opinions. But we really don’t want to offend someone who is going to pay us! My bosses usually try to gently steer people away using general language (i.e., putting “Cash Gifts Only Please” on the wedding invitations is a gigantic no-no, but you can’t tell a couple “that is awful,” it’s better to couch it in terms of "You know, usually most people don’t put anything about gifts on the invitation–have you thought about including a registry card in the invitation or printing a link to your wedding website instead?) or gentle persuasion. When it comes right down to it you can’t absolutely stop Sally and Johnny from inviting all of their exes even though you think it’s a horrible idea, and you can’t stop Sally from seating Johnny’s ex-girlfriend at a table with all of Sally’s ancient maiden aunts, even though nobody is going to be pleased about it. Usually we try to gently dissuade people from doing the worst things they dream up, and bite our tongues about the stuff that can’t be changed.
astro: No, like any other vendor we have the couple sign a contract and if they flake on it, we’ll take them to court. Although I believe this has only happened once to one of my bosses, a few years back.
DummyGladHands: On preferred vendors. My bosses have been doing this for a really long time, so they have a lot of contacts and friends within the industry that they like to throw business to already. Usually our preferred vendors are people who we actually enjoy doing business with and are professional about what they do. If we take a chance on working with a new florist and she is prompt about returning messages, has a great client manner, competitive rates, does a good job, and bills in a prompt and efficient manner, then we will bump her up the list of florists. If she sucks at any one of those things (maybe she’s great with the clients but hell to try get ahold of, or her arrangements fall apart because her setup wasn’t the best), then she gets bumped way, way down the list. Our lists of vendors are usually sorted by type, too–if the couple wants a big floofy cathedral wedding and country-club reception and the flowers to match, we’ll call florists A, B, and C. If the couple is getting married at City Hall and having a reception at the VFW Hall later, we’ll call florists D, E, and F–because the styles of the couple and the florist have to match. There’s no use in hooking up City Hall Couple with Lady Dazzleton’s Orchids And Exotic Hothouse Flowers R Us–they’re just not going have similar styles. So we have preferred vendors within each subgroup, if you will, and the vendors we work with are those who have shown themselves in the past to be professional, efficient, good quality, competitive, and have good client manners.
As far as crazy brides go…one bride I knew wanted to have a helicopter entrance to her reception. She was getting married at a golf course, and the helicopter would pick her up at the other side in full gown and veil regalia, then bring her slowly towards the reception, showering the guests with flower petals from above (I swear), then alight nearby and the bride and her father would emerge from the copter and walk down the aisle together. It wasn’t actually my wedding but one of my coworkers, so I don’t remember the specifics, but the bride was quite pleased with everything afterwards, so it must have been OK.
Also, a crazy groom: an outdoor wedding reception, in August, and he wanted an liquor ice luge. (This is where a big block of ice is strategically carved into some kind of attractive shape and holes are bored through it, so the bartender pours the shot in at the top and you wait with your mouth agawp at the bottom, waiting for the now icy-and-watery liquor to shoot on in.) We absolutely could not get him to see reason–with the temperature forecast to be above 90 that day, his ice luge wouldn’t last very long, it would be melting and dripping and a waste of money. He DESPERATELY wanted that ice luge. So he went ahead and booked it, even after the ice sculptor warned him that optimum results were not likely to occur in that weather. The luge melted with amazing speed. The groom was pissed off. The ice sculptor and my coworker just stared at each other and did this: :smack:
