Tired of ads?  If you’ve visited any major wedding planning website (e.g. The Knot, WeddingWire, etc.), you know they’re bursting with ads.  And if you’ve signed up for their email updates, your inbox is probably flooded with ad-filled emails.

As a bride, you’re constantly bombarded with ads from retailers who want to sell, sell, sell.

It’s almost impossible to search for wedding vendors without seeing a bunch of ads that get you off-track.  This can cause major overwhelm.  It can also make you feel like you need to buy a ton of stuff that you don’t even need for your wedding!

Today, I’m going to show you how to shop for wedding vendors in a logical, methodical, and purposeful way without falling for the sleazy sales tactics of the billion-dollar wedding industry.

In my last post, I mentioned that you can shop for wedding vendors without ever leaving your email inbox. I love this!

It’s the equivalent of doing your research online before you make a trip to the store.  This way, when you arrive at the store, you know exactly which product you want, you know it’s available, and you know that it fits your budget.  The only thing left to do is to pay for it and you’re DONE!  I’m happy to say that you can do the same thing while shopping for your wedding vendors 🙂

Here’s my number one tip to help you shop for your wedding vendors via email:

Review the vendor’s website carefully BEFORE you send an initial email

In my previous post, I mentioned the importance of reviewing vendors’ websites before you reach out to them – this is SO important that I wanted emphasize this further.  Keep reading to learn how doing a little bit of research upfront will save you time later.

I must admit, when I first started reaching out to vendors for my wedding, I’d skip the research and go straight to the “contact us” page to send a generic email. This resulted in one of the following:

• No response at all
• A brief response saying, “That information is on our website. Please take a look and let us know if you have any questions.”

And guess what? I’d have to go back to the website, review it, and then email them again to let them know that I had reviewed the website and had some specific questions. I could have saved my time (and their time) if I had just done some research in the first place. That’s why my number one tip for shopping for vendors via email is to do your research.

The cool part about this is that you’re already doing it!  Think about it: you’re already visiting vendor websites, looking at photos, reviewing service offerings, reading reviews, etc.  On top of all that, you’re probably already coming up with questions that you want to ask!

You are literally 90% done researching by the time you’re done exploring a vendor’s website. So just take the extra step of writing down your questions, or better yet: type your questions into an email, save it as a draft and send it when you’re done browsing the site.

BONUS: To make this even easier, type your questions into an email template to send when you’re done researching! 

(If you read my previous post and downloaded the bundle of email templates to shop for vendors, you’re light-years ahead of the game!)

I’m not gonna lie, creating a template takes a some extra time and effort.  The good news is that I’ve already created ready-to-use templates for you.  Sign-up here to get the bundle of time-saving templates.

Bottom line

Prepare ahead of time by making sure that you know what you want before you start reaching out to vendors.