How to choose wedding suppliers you will actually be happy with

Booking wedding suppliers is the part of planning where most couples feel out of their depth. You are hiring people you have never met, for a day that has not happened yet, often a year or more in advance. Here is a way through it that does not involve forty open browser tabs.

Start with the three that shape everything else

Your venue, your date and your photographer tend to lock in first, because they book up furthest ahead and because everything else bends around them. Numbers, budget, the style of the day, even what you wear — all of it gets easier once those three are settled.

Everyone else can wait. Florists, bands, cake makers and stylists are generally booked a few months out, and you will make better choices once you have seen the room and know what the light is like.

Shortlist from real weddings, not from adverts

A portfolio is a supplier's best day, chosen by them. A real wedding is an ordinary day, in a real venue, in real British weather, with real guests. It tells you far more.

When you look at a wedding that feels like yours, look past the couple:

• Which venue is it, and does the room look like the photos on the venue's own site?
• Do the flowers suit the season, or were they clearly flown in at a cost nobody mentioned?
• Does the photography look like the day, or like a style filter?
• How many suppliers were involved? A twelve-supplier wedding and a four-supplier wedding are different budgets entirely.

That is the whole idea behind Wed: couples share the wedding they actually had and tag the people who made it, so the next couple can work backwards from a day they like to the suppliers who delivered it.

Ask these before you pay a deposit

Most disappointment comes from an assumption nobody wrote down. Before money changes hands, get the answers in writing:

1. Who is actually turning up? Especially with photography, bands and larger companies. Ask for the name of the person covering your date.
2. What exactly is included, and for how long? Hours of coverage, number of staff, set-up and take-down, travel, overnight stays.
3. What happens if they cannot make it? Illness, a car that will not start, a double booking. A good supplier already has an answer.
4. When is the balance due, and what is the cancellation position? Both ways: yours and theirs.
5. What do they need from you, and by when? Final numbers, timings, a playlist, a shot list, access times for the venue.
6. Are they insured, and does your venue require proof? Many venues do, and they ask late.

If an answer is vague, that is information too.

Compare like for like

Two quotes are rarely the same thing. Before you decide one is expensive, line them up properly: hours, people, what you get afterwards, how long afterwards, and what costs extra on the day. A cheaper quote with a four-hour limit and no second shooter is not cheaper, it is smaller.

Trust the conversation as much as the work

You will spend more of your wedding day with your photographer than with most of your guests. Your band will read the room, or not. Your coordinator will be the person your auntie asks where the toilets are.

By the time you are choosing between two suppliers whose work you love, the deciding factor is usually simple: which of them was easier to talk to, replied when they said they would, and asked you a question nobody else thought to ask.

Keep a single source of truth

One document. Supplier, contact, what they are doing, what you have paid, what is still owed, when the balance is due, and who is arriving when. Share it with whoever is helping you. It takes an hour to set up and saves the fortnight before the wedding.

And when it is over

Tell people who did what. Your friends will ask — they always ask — and the suppliers who did a brilliant job deserve the next booking. That is the bit Wed was built for: share your wedding, tag the people who made it, and earn a flat £40 every time another couple books one of them.