Earlier this spring, my fiancé and I visited the Wedding Expo hoping to meet all kinds of DJs, florists, photographers, and planners for our upcoming wedding.
Before leaving, some important details were already locked down. We had a venue and caterer, a total budget, and the overall feel we were looking for. We had a Pinterest board ready to show to anyone who wanted to see it. What we weren’t sure about was what these people were charging. And right away, almost unanimously, we found out that they weren’t going to tell us.
“Every wedding is different and special,” said our potential vendor. “We cannot price our services unless we schedule another call with you. Have you put your contact information on our list?”
The lack of transparency was a clever move on their part, says Atia Qureshi, co-author of “Never Settle: Persuasion and Negotiation Skills to Get What You Want” and a former business school lecturer at MIT and the University of Michigan. “What they’re doing is making you invest time into thinking there’s a sunk cost fallacy,” she says.
Being careful with numbers is one of the many tactics skilled negotiators use to get the other side to live up to their terms, Qureshi says. Even in states with pay transparency laws, you’ll be happy to find a contractor who lists their rates or a recruiter who can accurately tell you the pay for an open position.
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Wedding vendors in particular can take advantage of the idea that “people have been dreaming about their wedding their whole lives, they want it to be special, they have a vision in mind. And they can charge more to achieve that vision.”
I know my wedding won’t be cheap. These days, you can expect to pay an average of $292 per guest for a wedding that includes a reception, according to wedding website The Knot’s Real Wedding Survey 2026, which surveyed 10,474 U.S. couples getting married in 2025. For comparison, weddings in 2019 cost an average of $214 per guest, the report found.
The original guest list for my wedding was over 300 people. You do the math.
But I don’t want the contractor to take me to the dry cleaners. 41% of couples surveyed by The Knot went over budget, and nearly half said they felt their original budget was “less than the actual cost of their wedding.”
So I asked Qureshi to give me a framework for negotiating with little information. Here are her three steps to follow when you feel like you’re on the losing side of any type of negotiation, whether it’s with a contractor, a wedding vendor, or a prospective employer.
1. Define what you want
Qureshi says the biggest mistake most negotiators make is coming to the table without clearly defining what they want.
“That’s something we often forget. We don’t think about what our goals are and what we actually value,” she says. “Normally, many people think that negotiations are difficult and that you are trying to ‘outmaneuver’ the other party.”
If you don’t start from a place of self-reflection, you’re unlikely to get what you want, Qureshi says, and your relationship with the person on the other side of the table may suffer in the process. “You’re trying to create value for both parties, because what I’ve learned is that if you can make the other person feel like they’re getting a good deal, you’re getting a good deal.”
Before you start negotiating with a florist, Qureshi said, you need to keep your budget in mind and have a clear idea of what role you want flowers to play in your wedding. Do you need 1,000 white roses, or does your ceremony look like something you saw on Pinterest? Or do you know you need table centerpieces, but can you be flexible about the specific stems you use?
“Understanding your interests is very important in cases like this, because the other person will give you different ideas,” says Qureshi.
2. “Anchor” your research offer
If your negotiations revolve around numbers, such as salary amounts or how much you plan to pay the DJ, do some market research. Find “external data about what actually makes sense here, given what[your]interests are,” says Qureshi.
If your upcoming negotiation is a request for a promotion, you might search salary data sites to determine how much people in comparable roles make in your area, Qureshi says. For those hiring contractors and vendors, she says it might also be helpful to make a call and get a quote based on your vision, or even ask an AI chatbot to come up with an average price for your area.
Once you have a range in mind, Qureshi says, use the best-case scenario number to begin negotiations. “When negotiating with wedding vendors, find the lowest number supported by data and start from there.”
That way, she says, you can effectively “anchor” your negotiations around a number you’re comfortable with. “You start from the most offensive position, which is advantageous to you. So when you actually move, you feel like you’ve won (against your opponent).”
3. Keep a replacement in your back pocket
Some negotiations may not go as expected, even if you have done your research and come up with a reasonable number. In such cases, you don’t want to be a deer caught in the headlights, so have a backup plan before you start negotiating.
For example, you may be willing to accept a job offer elsewhere or hire another vendor to do the work for you cheaper. “Have an alternative, because you’ll feel more confident negotiating. They’ll smell it on you,” Qureshi says. “Honestly, there’s a different aura you give off when you have an alternative. And it gives you confidence in the conversation.”
Your goal should be to invite the other person into a conversation with you, rather than forcing them to protect themselves, she says. After telling the vendor how much he admires his work, Qureshi says, “The one thing that bothers me here is that someone else offered me half the price.” “So we want to understand whether there is room for variation and where that price difference is coming from.”
She added that finding ways to be flexible beyond price can help. For example, if cleaning silverware and china is a major part of your caterer’s labor costs, offering to use high-quality disposable plates and cutlery may get you a better price.
My wedding caterer accepted that compromise. Now, my fiancé and I just have to decide if we like the look of bamboo forks enough to buy 300 of them.
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