Wedding suppliers: which wedding vendors publish a price and which make you ask

What suppliers publish, and what they do not

How to work through a supplier list

1. Book the date-limited categories first. Photographers, bands and popular venues take Saturdays a year out. Categories with more supply can wait without costing you anything.
2. Get the per-head lines costed early. Catering and drinks decide whether the rest of the budget is possible, so price them before you commit to the fun parts.
3. Ask everyone the same four questions. What is included, what is extra, what happens if the day overruns, and what the cancellation terms are. Quotes only become comparable once these are answered.
4. Keep the published figures beside the quotes. When a quote arrives well outside the published range for its category, that is a question rather than a problem. Ask what it includes.

Who publishes, and why

The categories that publish sell something countable: three hours of a photo booth, a marquee of a stated size, a package of a stated number of hours, a per-head menu. The supplier can name a figure without knowing anything about you, so they do, and it wins them enquiries from people who were never going to ring first.

The categories that do not publish sell hours of judgement whose quantity depends on you. A planner cannot cost your wedding without knowing how decided you already are. A florist cannot cost a room they have not seen. Those are honest reasons for a quote, and they are still not a reason to accept a discovery call as the only route to any number at all.

What an absence in this record means

Two suppliers here publish nothing and both are recorded with the date we checked, because an absence read carefully is information and an absence guessed at is not. One of them answers perfectly well and simply carries no figure anywhere on the page. The other is a national body whose ceremonies are priced by individual celebrants rather than centrally.

We keep those apart from a third case: a page we could not read at all. A blocked fetch tells you about the website, not about the supplier, and letting the two blur would turn a technical failure into a claim about somebody's business.

Questions organisers ask before they book

How many suppliers should I get quotes from?

Three in each category is the usual advice and it holds up, because two quotes tell you a difference and three tell you a range. More than three mostly buys delay.

In what order should I book?

Date-limited categories first: venue, then photographer and any live music you have your heart set on. Everything with more supply behind it can be booked later without costing you a choice.

Why do quotes vary so much within one category?

Because they are usually quoting different amounts of work. Hours, coverage, travel, equipment and what happens if the day overruns account for most of the spread before anybody's skill enters into it.

Should I tell suppliers my budget?

Tell them what you want to spend on their category rather than your total. It lets them show you the version of their service that fits, and it stops the conversation starting with their most expensive package.

What this costs where you are marrying

• What a wedding costs in the UK, from published supplier prices