When NOT to Hire Friendors
As excited as I am to continue the Broke Ass Guide to Wedding Friendors, I’m hesitant about writing this post. The Broke-Ass Bride isn’t that kind of wedding website, the kind that yucks your yum and seeks to instill fear in the hearts of engaged people so they try to spend the anxiety away. But we DO want you to be as happy as possible with your wedding, and the fact is, using friendors isn’t right for every bride or every situation. Here are some times you might want to think twice about hiring friendors.
When you’re only “Facebook friends.” This is inspired by a comment on the first part in this series: if you wouldn’t invite this person to your wedding if they were not working it, and you feel obligated to invite them if they do work at it, think twice. The cost of inviting the Only-on-Facebook Friendor and a plus one might obliterate any friendor savings you’d have. But remember what I said in part one, you’ve got to formally negotiate, and you can explain to the potential Only-on-Facebook Friendor that you don’t have the space or budget to invite them, but you’d still love to give them the work. If that sounds too awkward to handle, hire a stranger professional.
Caveat: Hiring friends-of-friends who are wedding pros can be a great strategy, you’ll have insider info if the person can be trusted and you might score a discount. In that case there is enough distance that the role of the person is clear: they’re hired to work your wedding, not invited.
Don’t hire Rayanne to work your wedding.
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You don’t trust them. Some friends are rocks: solidly reliable and trustworthy. Some friends are… not, but we love ‘em anyway. [Or maybe all your friends are totally dependable saints? Good for you!] But if you wouldn’t trust your friend to feed your cat when you go away for the weekend, don’t hire them to work your wedding.
You have exacting needs. We don’t like to use the B-word around here (you know, the one that starts with “bride” and sounds like “chinchilla”), but if there is something in your wedding that you absolutely must have in a particular way, don’t hire a friend to take care of it. If your heart will break if your cake doesn’t taste exactly like a strawberry shortcake ice cream bar, don’t hire your friend as your baker. Even if she’s the best baker in town. Because if something goes wrong and you don’t get the wedding cake of your dreams, you don’t want to ALSO lose a friend over it.
Your gut tells you no. I had FOUR different friends offer to DJ my wedding. (Sorry to brag about my embarrassment of friendor riches. If you’re feeling bummed about not having friends with wedding-friendly skill sets, stay tuned for next week’s post). And I ended up turning them all down and hiring a stranger. Why? Hiring a pro just felt right for my situation. I have exacting needs (I really want a crazy dance party at my wedding) but don’t know enough about music to give a friend exacting guidelines. The risk for me being disappointed with the music at my wedding is too high, so I’m putting that risk on a stranger, even though it costs a little more. I’m all about buying peace of mind, which is why I made room in my budget for it.
How to say no: I love honesty (mostly because I’m terrible at lying), so I recommend just explaining why you’re not hiring a friend who has offered wedding services as straightforwardly as possible. But if you feel like you can’t use the direct approach, just shift the blame: you can’t hire them because of the demands of your parents, your in-laws, your fiance, your wedding planner, your venue contract. Pick the fib that works for you.
Sometimes after thinking twice you’ll still choose to hire a friendor. That’s ok! Do what works for your life, your wedding, your budget, and your values.
Have any of you decided to turn down a friend who offered to do a job at your wedding? How’d you handle the tricky decision to hire a stranger professional despite your budget constraints?
-Robin
I literally was going to write to BAB tonight and ask for tips on gracefully turning down friendors. Thanks for the tips, Robin
i have fallen into the ASSUMING trap with my MIL. she kindly offered to organise and pay for our wedding cake, bouquets, and flower table centrepieces (as these were all items i did not want at our wedding and she was mortified to say the least). anyway, at the outset i didn't set her any clear way to approach this task, commication wise.
because i left her to it, next thing i know, she has it all organised. i ask her what she has organised and as she explains her choices i realise it's not something i like/want at our wedding. so i email her shortly thereafter and state my EXACT requirements. she then goes ahead and does something completely different. (i.e i asked for blue & red flower table centrepieces, she organises red & white without consulting me).
looking back, i should have sticked to my guns and said 'thank you for offering to do these thing; however, i don't actually want them at my wedding'. i guess i was too nice. althernatively, i could have said 'please do not lock in anything without first consulting me'.
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I could use some advice myself. My fiance and I have been engaged and in wedding planning mode for about a year and a half now. At first, like any normal bride, I was gung ho abotu certain expectations. My first marriage had no pictures and had a half-blurry video which excluded me walking down the aisle and everything after the first dance. Photography was one of my biggest must haves this time around. My fiance has a friend he has been friends with since the age of 16 and she has been in school for photography for 8 years. She has not graduated, nor is she legally licensed yet, though she has "a studio" to take pictures. She begged us to do our photos but I turned her down very nicely and let her know that we did not want her to feel like less than a guest we invited to share our special day. We wanted her to enjoy herself, not work. During this time she also threw a fit about not being asked to stand next to my fiance as his best man, instead the honor was given to….of all people… his own brother. She then started in on being on my side which I quickly put an end to myself.
Fast forward a year or so. Finances and Work have all but gone missing and we are ready to just go to the Justice and have a court house wedding. We had a lot of sudden friendors jump out of the woodwork to give us a real ceremony, including our photographer friend. This time, not knowing what else to do and knowing she takes nice photos, we accepted her offer to do pictures for free. She then let us know that she "will take as many pictures as she can but since its free it wont be anything incredibly fancy" which we accepted. After all, beggars cant be choosers right? We simply laid down our own expectations: No cheesy effects, sepia, vignettes, or any major photoshopping. We want just the natural photos as they are taken. We negotiated on red eye removal and ended the conversation.
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Since then she has decided to be my "honorary maid of honor" since all of my friends and family live in another state and I needed someone to help me with things that I can't trust to my groom (tee hee). I graciously thanked her for the help where she wishes to give it. Did that somehow lock me into her taking the maid of honor reigns fully?? She constantly reminds me that she can make a dress for me…. I passed. DOZENS of times. She decided I needed strippers at my bachelorette party. I am not that type of bride, and my brothers would not let their wives attend if strippers were involved. I passed again and that ended the party conversation. We have discussed music, which I have taken a lot of suggestions to heart and even placed a few on my list. During that discussing she asked if she could have a special dance with her and my fiance (her "brother" as she has claimed him). This is OUR DAY. Not hers. I let her know my doubts that he would want one, especially since we are adding a mother and son dance and a very special father/daughter dance just for him and my step daughter on top of the traditional one. I then let her know I was sure he would love to have that dance with her at her own wedding. We moved on to cake…. I lucked out there since she didn't have much to say. Again I endure the guilt trip about her not being a part of the wedding party, but I do not respond at all. Good Missy, I praise myself. I keep reminding myself that though she might not have been there for most of MY life… she has been a part of my future husband's life since he was a kid.
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I recently had to swtich my girls around, placing my sister in law as a bridesmaid and my cousin as my MOH, because my SIL doesnot need the stress of wedding planning added on to her already overflowing plate. Both women have been there for me through SO much….. even sheltering me and holding my hand when I had tosend my kids to their father temporarily. I owe them the world and no one is going to take the glory of the places they have earned in my wedding. My now MOH, April, has been a super-MOH. She has found bargains in places I never thought to look, even browsed E-bay for a dress until I found the most PERFECT… funky…. crazy cool wedding dress. Even at a bargain price of 30 bucks… I cant afford it… and April not only put 15 dollars into a paypal account for me, but also opened up a frundraiser on facebook to help raise more wedding money. She has my cake maker on standby…. her own MIL is a florist and is going to make my bouquet (another thing my friendor-nightmare is wanting to do) and she has listened to me vent about everything without judgement.
Now that I have made my dress choice known on facebook, this fundraiser has been set up, and bachelorette party plans have been handed to April, my friendor has made a point to post on the fundraiser wall that she is already donating 2000.00 worth of photography, going to help make my dress, and is taking care of most of the details including the party. She also restated on there, as well as in another email sent to my MOH directly, that she was hurt she was not asked to stand with one of us. After which, she called me and told me her plans for taking pictures (she tried to get me to agree to pose in my dress with James BEFORE the ceremony to save daylight…. no way…. and tried to talk me out of the dress so she could make it again…. and then told me she would only take the posed pictures with ehr professional camera then use a digi-cam for everything else…. is that 2000.00 worth???)
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We are both at our wits end. If we sugar coat things with her, then she will blow it out of proportion and throw a major pity party/guilt trip and start twisting things around just like she did when speaking to my MOH. If I don't sugar coat it…… I have no middle ground and I will end up severing a friendship that really isnt mine to sever. Either way…. we will most likely lose a photographer. We are in a no win situation. I do NOT want to do the whole "place disposable camers on tables and have the guests take them" idea because we did that at my first wedding and we only got one camera back. It just never works out. I am so lost… I do not know how to handle this and she manages to make me regret no jumping to the JoP. (Which she also managed to sneak in a "I will be thoroughly offended if you do a JoP and don't invite me") HALPPPPP!!!!! Will accept suggestions here or in email! By the way I friggin LOVEEEEEEEEEE the BAB blogs!!
P.S. She also told us that if anyone other than us wants a cd or copy of a picture that she will charge 30 dollars for them…. she does not want to see them tagged on facebook or anything of that sort. She asked me to put a disclaimer on any pics i post on FB asking people to NOT copy the images to their computers. If she is not licensed can she do that? I completely planned on plugging her amateur business for future reference to friends…. and if she IS being reasonable in her demands then I will follow it… I am just in uncharted territory there.
Sorry it was sooooo long…. i guess a bride just needs to vent
Wow, Missy. I'm amazed you haven't killed her yet. For the pictures, I would have other friends and family take pictures with their digital cameras too. Get some idea from wedding photographer websites for backgrounds and poses that make a nice composition, ask a few of your closest to take pictures of you (in addition to the friendor) and if nothing great comes from them you won't be out anything. On the other hand, you might end up with some really great, high quality photos that you can share and print, and you eliminate the chance of the friendor not sharing the pictures she takes if she's angry.
One of my friends (with a professional-quality camera, I admit) took all of my daughter's senior pictures a number of years ago. We used the same outdoor venue as most of the other kids at the school (a lovely college campus in town) and my friend shot 4 rolls of film. My only cost was developing and enlargements, and I got to keep the negatives. The pictures turned out as nice as any of my daughter's friends' senior pictures, and only cost us $80. You might have some amateur photographers in your ranks with hidden talents. If not, it's still free.