What To Do When Your Contract Conflicts with Vendors | Wedding Planning Q&A

Hi and welcome to Union Podcast.

My name is Jamie Wolfer and I'm a wedding planner who absolutely loves to share how I got started and scale my business to above six figures in this amazing and occasionally extremely competitive industry. In this podcast, I share the tech, tactics, mindset, and mistakes that got me to where I am today. No gatekeeping, no cloak and dagger, just full disclosure and a little humor along the way. So whether you're a planner or a solopreneur, my goal is for you to be a better business person than I ever could have been and support you on this journey.

I let's dive into this week's episode.

Today's episode is one of my favorite things in the entire world. And that is a live Q and A from one of our union mastermind calls.

I know you're going to love it.

Take a listen.

My contract states 8 to 10 hours max of wedding day assistance. The contracts are signed and I've reached out to the venue to introduce myself and schedule a tour. They sent me their contract and that they have their couple sign and it says they must book a day of coordinator for the full duration of the event. Oh, I hate when this happens. It says I must be there two hours before the client. I must stay till the end to help close down. My issue is this is, like, way more than I bargained for. I can manage, of course, but should I say something? I expected to come early and help with setup and greet vendors, but I didn't expect to have to stand through until the end. What would you do? It's going to be like 13 hours. Okay, so, Brittany, this is a fantastic question. We've only had this happen once and we didn't find out till we were at the event. And the venue's like, yeah, you gotta stay, you can't go. And I was like, what are you talking about? He's like, yeah, they signed a contract that says you have to stay. And this was, I think, like my third or fourth wedding. And I didn't have anybody to talk to you about this, so I was like, okay, I'll stay and I won't say anything to the client. And it's gonna be fine. Everything's fine. The only issue is I had a breastfeeding child at home that I had to get home to. So it's just like, I guess I'll just figure it out. I have my pump, you know, it'll be fine. In a situation like this, I would recommend you have a few different options. Of course you can do this yourself. I would recommend bringing in hopefully an assistant. I know you talked about bringing in. I think it was your fiance to help out. Especially because you're in a position where you don't have a lot of people around you that might even be interested in assisting at a wedding. So that's, that's going to be the biggest issue is one, I don't want you working 13 hours by yourself. Two, is there any way you can find someone to come in and do like a partial shift change with you to either start the day or close out the evening? Again, that would mean finding an assistant. And I get again, I know out in Montana you're like, I don't know if there is anybody within, you know, 20 mile radius or whatever happens to be that could help. So if that's an option, I would add that onto your list. In fact, I would emphasize that and put that to the top. If you could do a shift, you don't have a ton of time though. Another thing that you can do is let the venue know, like we have a contract signed with them that says we're not working longer than 10 hours. So what have you, have you come across this in the past and see if the venue is willing to budge on their hours? Because if you say if I have a designated person from the family, sober, trusted, etc. Here to do the walkthrough at the end of the evening with you, is that something that you're comfortable with? Because 13 hours, that seems really long. So I'm wondering, is there like an excessive amount of setup and tear down? I'm curious to see what that looks like because that's a huge request for a venue to make and that's really, really hard for planners to fulfill. Especially when you know, you're at the level that most of you are at where you're, you're doing fantastic, you're just getting started and you're not charging $10,000 per client. So you can't bring in seven different planners to run a 13 hour day. Now that you bring in seven. But so first, see if there's anyone that could spot you hours. Second, go to the venue and say we are not staffed to equip a 13 hour shift. What have you witnessed in the past? We've already signed a contract with them that says 10 hours maximum. I want to do whatever we can to make this work. And then lastly, as a last ditch effort, you could go to your client and say, hey, I've read through the paperwork from the venue and they say that we have to be there for 13 hours, which means I need to charge you an additional three hours. And those hours need to be overtime. So it could then, well, they should be overtime. You can choose to charge them whatever you want. You could choose not to charge them at all. You have some freedom here. I would recommend charging something. The most logical thing to do would be to. Well, I shouldn't say most logical. It's difficult in this situation because of course, you don't want to, you know, impact your relationship with your clients, but you also want to let them know, like that that's a ton of extra hours to just add on for free. So if you do talk to the client, what could then happen is ideally you and client pair up and go to venue and go, hey, this isn't going to work. We already signed this for. This client goes, hey, can we have someone else come in?

I'm only mildly embarrassed to admit that in the beginning, I printed out every single piece of paper, every single contract. I took handwritten notes and created a binder for every single one of my wedding planning clients. Now, in theory, that sounds really cool and I thought I would look really cool showing up to these meetings with these binders that are full of all of these contracts with handwritten notes. But let me tell you, the chaos that ensued when I tried to stay organized on my own and got over five events at a time, it was a nightmare. Enter Honeybook. I am telling you guys, Honeybook was literally exactly how my brain was processing wedding planning, but just in digital form. It's so easy to go in there and make any sort of customizations that you want, from adjusting your contracts to adjusting your packages, maintaining conversations back and forth that not only pop up in the app on the website, but also in your inbox as well. It's a great way to stay organized.

So get out of the paper and

get onto the Digital. Head to wolfrenco.com HB and use code Union at checkout to get the best deal. We interrupt this podcast because there is something extremely special that I want to

share with you guys.

I don't know about you, but for the last who knows how many years I have been using a Frankensteined, googled, copied and pasted contract. And while that is extremely embarrassing to admit to all of our listeners, I know that there are people out there

who feel the same as I do.

And there were a couple things that kept me from actually getting an attorney drafted contract. Actually, no, there was one thing. It was so expensive and it seemed so out of reach that's when I learned about Legally Set. You see, Coon Bee with Legally Set has created industry specific contracts for people like you and me working in the wedding industry. They're easy to customize, they're drafted by an actual attorney and not googled. Can you imagine that? And last but not least, they are so extremely affordable. So if you were like me and maybe using a less than appropriate and or legal contract, it's time to step up your game. You have no more excuses. Head over to theunionpodcast.com legally set to check them out. Use code union for 20% off your contracts.

What do you recommend for event insurance? Event by event insurance for myself. So I have worked with Event Helper in the past. We do have a new event company that is launching insurance in March that we're probably going to be working with pretty exclusively moving forward and that's Brightco B R I T E Co. Both are fantastic. We also know. Oh gosh, what's the other one? Wedding Event Help is one that I've recommended for years, but I'm really excited about the Brightco option and then I'd wait until about 30 days in advance to get that as well so you can have a more confirmed guest count. Have you ever had an issue with setting up shop at a venue? Like does every venue typically have an

area for you as a coordinator to

safely keep your belongings, emergency water bottle, coat, et cetera? No, that's. They actually don't. That's a great question. I know this might be a funny question. No, this is perfect. But this venue's parking lot is a mile from the actual structure and I will have to have my stuff on me. I know this is a question for the venue, but on a personal level, have you ever struggled with finding a safe place to set up? No, because worst case scenario, I throw all of my belongings under a table with a tablecloth. I always find a place that I end up feeling relatively good about. If the parking lot's a mile away, just make sure it's not near any entrance ways or public doors, things like that. And I usually find. I always find. Usually fine. I've never not had a place to squirrel my stuff away. It could be the bridal suite. It could be, you know, in a supply closet. Yeah, we've done that before. So I've always had a spot to just kind of put my stuff. But I've never needed to like set up shop. So if you have big set of

things that you need to do, you

might need to request place for that. But as far as this is concerned, no, I just usually find a little. Or an office. They have offices that you can put stuff in. Do you usually eat your vendor meal in the closet? No, I usually don't eat my vendor meal. I should, but I don't know. Just kidding. I just. I eat it in stages because I keep running back to the main room to check on the event and then running back again to be like, okay, I'm just going to scarf some food. And my team's always like, jamie, it's okay to sit down. Like, it's okay. The event's not going anywhere. The food's not going anywhere. The DJs eating, so, you know, he's not going to announce anything. But, no, I don't eat in a closet. There's usually some sort of vendor space that they will set aside for you, or my team and I will grab it and our food and go sit on a couch or sit on a bench outside. There's usually a third space kind of thing that you can go to no matter where you are. I don't eat in that main space. Yeah, I think. I can't even think of ever having to, like, sit in a weird spot to go eat. Usually I'll ask the venue, hey, where do vendors typically go to eat? And they'll direct us there.

That's all we have for this week's episode, guys. If you enjoyed it, do me a favor, screenshot that episode and share it on socials.

Tag me in it.

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not going to reassure that one.

I hope you guys enjoy this week's episode and we'll see you in the next one.