After you have a sense of your budget, you’ll know whether you can have a high-season wedding (when things cost more) or if you need to be more cost conscientious about when you time your wedding. However, the best way to approach your wedding plans is with a few dates in mind. That way you can compare availability of vendors and the prices they charge with the various dates you’re considering and which make the most sense for your budget. Armed with this information, you can begin looking at ceremony and reception locations.

After that you can begin considering caterers and cake bakers (if they don’t come hand in hand with the reception location). Next, you should find your photographer or entertainment depending on what’s most important to you. That is, if you place a higher priority on great music at your ceremony and reception than the person who will be taking the pictures, you want to book your musicians next. However, if you want to make sure that you get the best photographer possible but couldn’t care less about the music (heck, you’re even considering bringing your CD player to the reception), book your photographer next. Before you hire any person or company for your wedding, you want to check on his or her background.

Make sure that this person or business has a good reputation for treating its customers well. The best way to do this is to call your Better Business Bureau, State Attorney General’s Office, or your local Office of Consumer Protection. All three are where everyday people report business violations, such as a vendor who took a bride’s money but then didn’t show up at the wedding or a photographer who kept a couple’s photographs hostage while he demanded more money than agreed upon for his services.

When checking on the reputation of vendors, you don’t want them to show up in any of these databases. If there’s no record of the vendors, they haven’t treated anyone poorly enough to have a complaint filed against them, and that’s a good thing. However, that doesn’t mean that you’re off the hook. You should always check references, even with a vendor with a squeaky-clean  reputation.

Remember:

beforeyou sign on the dotted line of any vendor’s contract, make sure you check him or her out first.You should only do business with someone you know has treated other customers well. And speaking of contracts,only work with a vendor who is willing to put his or her
terms in writing.A written contract is always a must.