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How to find the right suppliers for your wedding (and the 37 best wedding suppliers in London)
Stress-free wedding planningStress-free wedding planning: wedding planning

How to find the right suppliers for your wedding (and the 37 best wedding suppliers in London)

By Mell 28th of May, 2020

The hardest part of planning a wedding – harder than finding the perfect venue (and the perfect date), picking your wedding party without hurting anyone’s feelings, and whittling down your guest list – is finding the right wedding suppliers for your day.

Because, no matter how meticulously you plan everything else – no matter the time, and effort, and pinning you put into it – if you don’t have wedding vendors who get you and get what style you’re going for, your wedding won’t come out as you expect.

Wedding suppliers who get you

Wedding suppliers are the people who make your wedding happen: stationers, cake makers, photographers, planners, celebrants, stylists, caterers, videographers, bands…

They contribute a huge part of your day – so you want to make sure they’re contributing the right thing!

You want to find people you click with, who get your sense of humour, share your values, and match your style.

If you’re eco-conscious, hiring a stationer or cake maker who doesn’t know what sustainability means probably won’t end with you having the low carbon footprint wedding you’d expected.

If you’re having an alternative festival wedding with fun fair games and food trucks, hiring a traditional planner with a portfolio of church weddings probably won’t be best placed to organise the day you’re picturing.

It’s important that you find people on your wavelength to help with your wedding.

A florist arranging foliage. THEY COULD BE YOURS! René Jordaan

Wedding suppliers who know how to run the day – right

And it’s important that you find people on each other’s wavelength too.

While most people who work in the wedding industry are incredible and lovely (hello!), the freelancing aspect of it can also attract the kids who had ‘doesn’t play well with others’ on every school report.

I’ve heard horror stories about videographers who refused to stand by the photographer so they could both capture the wedding ceremony, and instead ruined every shot.

And I’ve seen wedding ceremonies ruined by photographers who don’t understand it’s not just about the photos – the couple want to be in the moment, getting married, not having a flash going off in their faces.

True wedding professionals can easily communicate with each other, with you, with the celebrant, and with your guests to make sure they capture the moments you care about without being disruptive or taking over the day.

So how do you make sure you hire wedding professionals?

How to find wedding professionals

Don’t assume lots of followers means lots of talent

While Instagram can give you a good idea of a wedding vendor’s style and personality, you need to dig a bit deeper before you commit.

Start with their reviews and testimonials on websites like Trustpilot and Facebook, where you can see the full review.

Next, meet them! The people who play a big part of your day – celebrants, planners, photographers, and videographers – will often offer a free consultation, where you can meet each other in person or on a video call and see if you click. You’re going to be spending a day you want nothing but happy memories of with this person – be honest with yourself and your partner and evaluate if you think they really get you, and if you trust them to get your wedding day right.

This won’t be possible with every vendor – at Gettin’ Hitched Rocks, for example, we don’t have face-to-face consultations for our house collection work so we can keep our prices accessible. (Though we always do it for bespoke designs, so we can get a good grip on who our couples are and what they’d like.)

Then get a sample! Better to pay for an engagement shoot, a sample cake, or a trial run of make-up and find out it’s not for you than to realise on your wedding day!

You should be able to get sample cards from your stationer, organise tastings with your cake maker and caterer, and have small shoots with your photographer and videographer to make sure you’re happy with exactly what you’re getting.

Go to wedding fairs

If you think they’re not for you, you’re looking at the wrong wedding fairs. There’s nowhere better to go to get ideas, try samples, feel stationery, and chat to wedding vendors to see if they’re right for you.

Ask wedding vendors you do trust

If you’ve found a photographer who gets your sense of humour or a wedding planner who completely understands your vision, ask them who they’d recommend for your wedding.

The traditional ‘recommended supplier’ list has been a bit tainted by dodgy venues who’ll charge you more to bring in someone they don’t recommend (and get a cut for promoting), but small businesses like photographers, planners, and stylists don’t run the way big businesses do. They care about giving you a great experience, not wringing you for money. They’ll recommend the right people for the job. (And ones they can play well with, too!)

The world isn’t that big a place – wedding professionals working in the same area have come across each before. Ask them who they think would be right for your wedding, or what they think of a vendor you’ve found, and they’re bound to have suggestions.

The best PDF you will ever download: ours.

The 37 best wedding suppliers in London

On that note, I’ve put together a list of 37 of the coolest, kindest, plays-well-with-others-est wedding vendors I’ve come across in London.

Sign up to our newsletter to get the full PDF and meet your dream wedding suppliers!

Photo by Jacob Lund.

What do you think?

Agree? Disagree? Pistols at dawn? Let me know what you think in the comments.

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Mell
Mell

After planning, designing, and coding her own wedding, Mell started Gettin' Hitched Rocks to help awesome couples stay WHELMED through the wedding planning process, with clever websites that do the work for them.

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About Gettin’ Hitched Rocks

About Gettin’ Hitched Rocks

Hi! I'm Mell.

I started Gettin’ Hitched Rocks to keep you whelmed while you plan your wedding, with wedding websites that do the wedmin for you and send automatic RSVP reminders to the people who need them, and matching stationery, so you can carry the design you love, with your personality shining through in every detail, across every part of your wedding, from save the dates to thank yous — and everything inbetween!

Stay whelmed with our free resources, interviews with real couples on what not to do, our regular Problem Pal advice column, and stress-free wedding planning advice.

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Gettin' Hitched Rocks wedding stationery collection - custom save the dates

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This is the dirty part of wedding planning no one This is the dirty part of wedding planning no one talks about: you get sick of talking about your own wedding.⁠⠀
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It dominates most of your conversations. You talk about it with the people who are a part of your day and need to know the nitty gritty details, but also the casual acquaintances, who turn to it as an easy way to make conversation for a few minutes before a meeting.⁠⠀
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If you're starting to feel like you don't talk about anything else, we have some wording you can pinch to - politely - move the conversation on to something else on our wedding planning advice column.⁠⠀
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(Link in bio.)⁠⠀
This month, we're donating 5% of every sale we mak This month, we're donating 5% of every sale we make to @s_lawrencetrust, to support the incredible anti-racism work they do across the UK.⁠
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Set up in memory of Stephen Lawrence, who was killed by racists while waiting for a bus, the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust helps young people from disadvantaged backgrounds study and gain work experience in architecture - honouring Stephen's dream of becoming an architect - and helps businesses recruit more diverse talent.⁠
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They're truly incredible and well worth your support.
Our wedding websites work in 3 easy steps:⁠⠀
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1. Choose your wedding style⁠⠀
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Find a website design to fit your wedding in our collection or wow your guests with a bespoke design, unique to your wedding.⁠⠀
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2. Create your website⁠⠀
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The fun bit! Create your guest list and write up the details of your day, then we'll turn it into a fully working website with our concierge service.⁠⠀
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3. Netflix and chill!⁠⠀
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Focus on the fun parts of planning your wedding — we'll do the rest. We'll remind your guests to RSVP and get the details you need.⁠⠀
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Click the link in our bio to learn more and find out how you can plan your wedding, stress-free, with a website that organises your guests for you.
Sound the sexy new website klaxon! 📣⁠⠀
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I've been beavering away behind the scenes to update Hitched.Rocks with a new look, oodles of information about how our wedding websites work (and how they can make your life easier), and even some exciting new services!⁠⠀
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Click the link in our bio to check it out, or slide into my DMs to natter nuptials and find out more about our wedding websites and matching stationery.
Plan your wedding, stress-free, with a wedding web Plan your wedding, stress-free, with a wedding website that organises your guests for you.⁠
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Our wedding websites:⁠
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✔️ are password protected, so only your invited guests see the details.⁠
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✔️ change for every guest, so evening-only guests never see the details of your ceremony or get asked what they want to eat.⁠
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✔️ send automatic reminders to get your RSVPs in on time. No awkward chase-up phone calls!⁠
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✔️ collect all the information you need in a simple, searchable dashboard. You don't have to count and re-count who needs a vegan option, or dig through RSVP cards to find your plus one names.⁠
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✔️ keep you WHELMED while you plan your wedding.⁠
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Check out our live demo to see how a wedding website can help you organise your guests and plan a stress-free wedding.⁠
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(Link in bio.)
🚨 Nerd alert! 🚨⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ If it's not imm 🚨 Nerd alert! 🚨⁠⠀
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If it's not immediately obvious from a) the fact I run a website and stationery business and b) my general me-ness, I was the kid with ten different notebooks I never wrote in. (With ten pens that were 'too nice' to write with.)⁠⠀
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So the last few weeks have truly been my 12 year old self's dream: I've been surrounded by fancy stationery I haven't been too scared to write on.⁠⠀
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(I like to think little Mell M would have been equally as excited about this as the other dream I've accomplished for her: working with a Spice Girl. Right…? Right…?)⁠⠀
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I decided to upgrade our paper to something a little more ✨luxurious this year - something that really gets across how special your day is going to be when your guests hold your invitation in their hands.⁠⠀
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This is linen texture card. It's the same paper playing cards are made of, so it feels weighty and substantial in your hands. (And a little exciting too, like you're about to win a game.)⁠⠀
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It looks INCREDIBLE in the background of photographs and when it's taking more of the focus, and it really adds a special finishing touch to wedding stationery - the kind you can only say in French.⁠⠀
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Tell me what you think! And what you wanted (what you really, really wanted) to do when you were 12.
You come across a lot of jargon when you're planni You come across a lot of jargon when you're planning a wedding.⁠
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People bang on about wedding breakfasts when they mean dinner, favours when they mean gifts, and cummerbunds which… Who even knows what that means?⁠
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One of the big ones is on-the-day stationery - so we're going into what it means and what pieces it's worth considering for your wedding (and why!) on our blog.⁠
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(Link in bio.)
Let's talk table names.⁠ ⁠ Your wedding should Let's talk table names.⁠
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Your wedding should feel like you, with little touches that make it completely unique to you and your partner.⁠
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Table names are a fantastic place to work in some more personality without feeling cheesy or distracting; they need names, so people can tell them apart - name them after something that matters to you, like places important to you as a couple or your favourite films.⁠
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Check out more ideas for non-boring table names on our blog.⁠
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(Link in bio.)
'Wait. They book up HOW far in advance?!'⁠ ⁠ F 'Wait. They book up HOW far in advance?!'⁠
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Find out how far in advance you need to book your wedding suppliers - and how you can prioritise them within your budget - on our blog.⁠
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(Link in bio.)

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