2024 LC Thread #1 - Elder Fraud Advice

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1349

This is going to end up in the LC Anger thread at some point because I’m going to lose my mind, but for now it’s information gathering time… If you’re willing to share, and you have planned/paid for a wedding, who did you tip and not tip, and how much if you recall? Maybe also mention when you got married.

This shit seems out of control, and at this point it almost feels like a shakedown from some of these people. I don’t want to poison the well of responses on who should or shouldn’t get tipped, so I’ll just say some of these people I think it’s reasonable to tip, others I’m appalled.

These are the people who have made it clear that they are supposed to be tipped and if they’ve told us how much they expect, that’s included. We are paying the venue $275 per server/staff member and $330 per bartender, but our understanding is that they get a little over half of that and the venue gets the rest. The others we don’t know what their cut is from the per plate cost, venue rental costs, etc, and some are salaried with benefits. The servers/bartenders will be working five hours directly for us, I’m assuming at least six or seven hours with setup/teardown time. It’s an open bar, but I assume most people will tip the bartender - at least I always have when I’ve been at a wedding with an open bar. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong?

Venue
Servers ($100 each)
Bartenders ($100 each)
Site staff ($100 each)
Head Chef ($200)
Assistant Chefs ($150 each)
Wedding Coordinator ($200)
Assistant Coordinators ($150)
Event Designer ($300)

Vendors
Hair/makeup stylist (no specification on how much)
Wedding dress store (they said it would be appreciated, no specification)

The following people have not mentioned it, but the internet says they are supposed to be tipped:

Florist (20%)
Officiant ($100)
Photographer ($200 each)
Videographer (unknown)
DJ (20%)

Some of these people own their business or are directly contracting with us, others work for a business we’re contracting with.

Could be missing a few others, but at least the responses should give me a general idea of whether I’m a raging asshole or some of these people are trying to shake me down. Curious to see how many people agree about who should/shouldn’t be tipped here.

1350

It’s been a long time ago really don’t remember details and was fortunate to have family covering cost, but even aside from tipping seems like a lot of different types of staff?? (I assume the venue is requiring all this?).

As far as tipping there no way in hell I’m tipping a dress store, I mean wtf. Feels like the bartenders would just collect their own tips throughout night unless it was a sit down thing where servers were taking orders? I’m so far removed from this now I’m just musing

1351

When my daughter got married there was a standard 18% for the staff. It was written up front.

They had a couple of signature drinks plus beer and wine included up until after dinner was done. Then it was cash bar after that.

I just wrote checks. The kids handled the details.

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1352

To some extent, the whole thing is a shakedown. Just accepting that will make this a better experience.

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1353

I am so glad my wife and I just got married on a random weekend day in our backyard with just her parents, my parents, my brother and a justice of the peace friend of my family present.

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1354

Yeah everyone under the venue thing works through the venue. I understand what the head chef, assistant chef, servers, and bartenders do of course. Site staff I don’t know really. There’s someone who’s assigned to us to bring us drinks and stuff and make sure we’re taken care of, but I assume that is considered a server.

I understand what the main coordinator does - they handle stuff in advance with our vendors and whatnot, and I guess direct traffic throughout the day and make sure everyone is where they’re supposed to be. Seems like they have an awful lot of assistants, which has never made sense to me.

The Event Designer makes no real sense to me, we’re hiring a florist, we’re handling the decor, so what are they doing? Designing the entire place and updating it each year before wedding season?

Some parts of this I’ve been more involved with and some less, I’m definitely asking for a head count of staff before the event, what they do if it isn’t obvious, and which ones are salaried or not.

Yeah my fiancee didn’t fall for that thankfully. Total bullshit, everyone just asks for tips now it seems.

No sitdown drink orders - we can have that for an extra $300, no thanks. Drinks are free to our guests, but in this economy? They’re gonna have to go get them. I’ve also always tipped the bartender for open bars, so it doesn’t make sense to me to pay them up front and then double tip them.

Do you know 18% of what? And do you know if they also had a line item to pay the staff?

Could be 18% of the total venue cost (would be absurd), 18% of food cost, 18% of service cost, or 18% of food + service cost. 18% of food cost would make sense to me if we weren’t separately paying for the service.

That said, the servers rank #1 in people I’ll tip off that list, because I understand they’re only getting $150 for the entire shift which doesn’t seem like much. It’s not their fault the venue is taking $125 of the $275 we’re paying each of them (which by the way works out to pretty close to 18% of the food cost by my estimates - they don’t give us a breakdown on food/alcohol). So basically the venue is fucking either us or the servers and leaving it up to us to decide which. Great business model, gotta love it.

1355

If only I were wired that way. I mean, we’re probably going to open a side hustle wedding vendor business. What’s happened to weddings post-covid is batshit crazy. They tried to rent us a sign for a seating chart for $500. We looked it up, and we decided to buy one ourselves… $50.

We had trouble finding a florist who would give us a quote if we didn’t spend at least $8,000. Thankfully we found someone who is just starting her own business this year and is more affordable as a result.

To rent a tux you are no longer allowed to try one on, that’s only for the people who are willing to buy one. Everyone else can pay up front, get their cheap peasant ass out of Men’s Wearhouse, and try on their tux three days before the wedding and it must be in the morning because otherwise they can’t alter it if they fuck it up.

I assume private equity is in the wedding vendor business now and made it that much worse.

1356

Ugh, wrong LC thread. @moderators por favor!

1357

For someone so in tune with finances as you are, I can’t recommend enough just saying fuck it and having a JOTP wedding. If you want to invite a bunch of people, just go to some town/state park and have a barbecue or something similar.

Weddings sounded incredibly -EV when we got married 13 years ago, and from the way you’re talking, they’re about an order of magnitude worse in 2023.

If you have a hole in your pocket and want to spend some money together, use it on your honeymoon.

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1358

The wedding industrial complex is WILD.

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1359

Love this term, definitely going to use it!

1360

Yeah, basically my parents offered to pay for a lot of it and really wanted us to have one. So we’re only paying for about 20% of the total cost. If it were our own money we wouldn’t even be able to, we’d just send out announcement cards and maybe throw a party of some sort down the line when we could afford it. In hindsight, I almost wish we did that. I know this will be fun on the day and it’ll mean a lot to us and my parents and her parents, but getting raked over the coals for an extra 30-50% by everyone on something so expensive because the wedding industrial complex is using cartel pricing is enfuriating.

This is, from a financial standpoint, the most -EV thing I’ve ever been closely involved with or seen play out. The markups are insane. There are vendors who ask you before they quote you what kind of event it is, and if someone else calls back and says something other than wedding the same service is half as much.

There’s a reason there’s a growing influx of vendors into the…

right after their own wedding.

1361

Are you planning on having kids?

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1362

marriage is a scam.

1363

We’re planning on waiting longer than we’d otherwise like so that we’re financially prepared for it.

1364

I can’t speak to site staff since our venue included bartenders/servers/food (and I think event designer? if that’s the person my wife was coordinating with at the venue of how everything should be set up) and we paid whatever fee for them all together, but we tipped everyone else you mentioned (except we didn’t have a videographer, and the officiant was my wife’s childhood friend).

+1 on the general advice of, if you’re going down this route, just suck it up and be happy you only have to do this once in your life.

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1365

Our wedding was super DIY and used a lot of volunteers from friends and family, so many of the wedding roles were their wedding gifts rather than something we paid for. Of the things we paid for, I think we tipped the caterer, the bartenders, the photographer, the videographer (who ended up giving us a shitty ass video and didn’t earn their tip), and the day-of coordinator (we didn’t employ a planner, but we did hire someone to coordinate the various paid roles on the day of, so that we and family and friends could focus on enjoying the wedding). The wedding industrial complex does suck, and about the only way around it is to have talented friends and family who like to help. Even then, you’ll still have to end up paying through the nose for things, so focus on making things easy and pleasant rather than picture perfect. You should hopefully enjoy your wedding. I certainly enjoyed mine.

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1366

They’re included in the flat rate we paid, but they also suggested tipping them. My understanding is that if they work eight hours for a five hour event, we’re paying the servers approximately $35/hr out of the flat rate and the bartenders more like $40-45/hr.

Including if they owned the business? I think our florist, videographer, and photographer all own the business.

This is good advice for my general happiness, probably, but I just can’t let it slide if I’m getting ripped off. Like I want everyone to be paid fairly for their work. I want the servers and bartenders to make at least what they’d make working a decent restaurant or bar for a weekend night. But I can’t smile while being extorted, I don’t have it in me.

1367

Did you tip the ones that own the businesses too? Most of our vendors do.

Our day-of coordinator works directly for the venue on a salary with a 401k and all, but they suggested a $300 tip. I feel like at some point they just realized that since everyone only does it once, nobody knows who is actually working for tips, so they just ask for a bunch and everyone winces and pays it and says it is what it is.

1368

The photographer was independent, and also a friend who gave us a deal. We tipped to be nice and to pay somewhere between the discount and her going rate. Similar for the videographer, but he was a referral from the photographer and not someone we knew personally. The caterer had servers who’d need to be tipped out. Coordinater was independent, but I’m not sure of the bartenders. She hired them, so we tipped.

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