Vetting Caterers, Florists, and Hair & Makeup Artists

Each vendor category has its own specific failure modes, so the generic "ask for reviews and get it in writing" advice, while true, misses the questions that actually matter for each one.

Caterers, if not tied to your venue:

• Ask for a tasting before booking, not after - a menu description tells you far less than actually eating the food.
• Confirm how they handle dietary requirements in practice, not just in principle - ask how allergen cross-contamination is managed for a shared kitchen and shared serving staff, especially for anything serious like a nut allergy.
• Check what's included in the quoted price versus billed separately - staffing, crockery and glassware hire, corkage if you're supplying your own drinks, VAT.

Florists:

• Bring photos of your actual venue and dress, not just an inspiration board, so they can advise on what will genuinely suit the space and colour palette rather than working from an abstract brief.
• Ask what's in season for your wedding date - an in-season flower list is usually both cheaper and more reliably available than insisting on something out of season, which can mean higher cost or last-minute substitution.
• Confirm delivery and setup timing directly with the venue as well as the florist - this is a common gap where both assume the other has coordinated it.

Hair and makeup artists:

• Always book a trial before the day, not as an optional extra - this is the one category where "just trust the portfolio" goes wrong most often, because hair and makeup are genuinely hard to judge from photos of other people with different hair type, face shape, and skin tone.
• Ask directly how long the look is expected to last, particularly for hair in humid conditions or an outdoor ceremony - a look that photographs perfectly at 11am but doesn't survive to the evening reception is a real and common disappointment.
• Confirm timing for the morning of the wedding explicitly, including for your whole bridal party if they're also being done - this is one of the most common sources of a stressful, rushed wedding morning, and worth being firm about a realistic schedule rather than an optimistic one.

Across all three categories, the same underlying principle applies: ask what happens if something goes wrong on the day (illness, a delivery issue, an equipment failure) - a professional operator has an answer ready, not a shrug.