i need advice on revising or adding a section into my contract regarding last minute change of mind. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen occasionally and is super irritating. A bridesmaid will change her mind last minute and decide not to have her makeup done because she doesn't have the money or has decided to do her own, blah blah.. or like today, the bride will email me, two weeks before the wedding, and drop two people our of the headcount. I have such a hard time telling them that they are still responsible for payment, since I blocked off the time for x amount of girls. Anytime this has happened the bride has always been super nice and tipped me very well to make up for it, so it wasn't even worth saying anything, but, I don't even want to have to deal with it for next season, 2013 (most all of my contracts for 2012 are signed and completed) and want to adjust my contracts asap. Any advice or suggestions on how you all handle this. Not interested in having anyone prepay, as it just doesn't work for me, but more interested in hearing how you word this in your contracts. thanks SO much for any info.
Stand your ground. If you let clients walk over you, you won't make money! And you're not in the business purely for fun!
My contract says that once a payment is made on my invoice (and the booking secured) that the client is still responsible for paying the full amount, regardless of any head cancellations. Obviously it says so in more legal lingo
Stand your ground. If you let clients walk over you, you won't make money! And you're not in the business purely for fun!
My contract says that once a payment is made on my invoice (and the booking secured) that the client is still responsible for paying the full amount, regardless of any head cancellations. Obviously it says so in more legal lingo
Have never had a problem.
great clause on once any payment is remitted! thanks for sharing
Felicia Bromba
Posts: 532
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Ok, firstly, do you not already have a head count clause in your bridal contract? or are you looking to tighten its terms up? or Enforce its details? or add on it entirely? All different points
There's so much I can say on this I'm not sure where to start...
A few options you have, in short;
100% Head count up front, it's signed and documented on the contract anyways. Bam. Done. It's outlined already. Times are set.
Or, you have a minimum in place, extra people added are gravy. Same thing though, they have up until a set time frame to add on the extra's should they be asking around. That gives you time in advance as well should you need to adjust start/end times to accommodate any extra's added.
Or, you can be like super generous, let the bride book and confirm, retainer covers that. If you have a minimum in place, that can be covered to with your retainer fee taken when securing a date.
THEN, as for the headcount afterwards, In worst case scenario, it's listed on your contract that they have up until say 3-6 months to the wedding date to 100% confirm total head count, as that's when all final paperwork, times, etc are set for services... thus if anyone "drops off" after that cut off, the payment defaults to the original number as confirmed, that's what they owe, it's signed...That way you aren't booking like 6 people and show up to one.
Ours states that if any drop off last minute, they still owe us regardless, after that point of final head count cut off. Just as you said, you've blocked out that time for ____ number of people. Their "change" now not only cost you $, but potentially could have made the difference in taking another booking that day too and so on.
Another main reason while many artists take final payment in advance. Just makes things so much easier!!!
Felicia Bromba wrote: Ok, firstly, do you not already have a head count clause in your bridal contract? or are you looking to tighten its terms up? or Enforce its details? or add on it entirely? All different points
There's so much I can say on this I'm not sure where to start...
A few options you have, in short;
100% Head count up front, it's signed and documented on the contract anyways. Bam. Done. It's outlined already. Times are set.
Or, you have a minimum in place, extra people added are gravy. Same thing though, they have up until a set time frame to add on the extra's should they be asking around. That gives you time in advance as well should you need to adjust start/end times to accommodate any extra's added.
Or, you can be like super generous, let the bride book and confirm, retainer covers that. If you have a minimum in place, that can be covered to with your retainer fee taken when securing a date.
THEN, as for the headcount afterwards, In worst case scenario, it's listed on your contract that they have up until say 3-6 months to the wedding date to 100% confirm total head count, as that's when all final paperwork, times, etc are set for services... thus if anyone "drops off" after that cut off, the payment defaults to the original number as confirmed, that's what they owe, it's signed...That way you aren't booking like 6 people and show up to one.
Ours states that if any drop off last minute, they still owe us regardless, after that point of final head count cut off. Just as you said, you've blocked out that time for ____ number of people. Their "change" now not only cost you $, but potentially could have made the difference in taking another booking that day too and so on.
Another main reason while many artists take final payment in advance. Just makes things so much easier!!!
Hope that helps for you
thank you for the replies, and yes, I def did scour over the contract threads, but was unable to find anything specifcally pertaining to this. Might do a 'bridezilla' search next, could have missed something there??
thank you, felicia, this def helps! was hoping you'd chime in actually, i guess i am super generous, because although I do require a minimum of three girls, this is (as you mentioned) covered in the initial booking when they send the retainer. Typically, I will then give them a little bit of time to confirm the headcount, being anything in addition to the required three. I give them the time, and am pretty lenient with it, as long as I don't have another event booked for that day. I also explain this to them letting them know that they have a little bit of time to get the final headcount together as they are my only booking. But, that can and often does change, so once I get another inquiry, then i will need to know their final headcount ASAP, since they have priority on my timing, as they booked me first. does this make sense? sometimes hard to type out and explain all of this stuff!!
so i guess what i need more than anything s to clean up that part of my contract and make it more specific, including a cut off date to get me all of the final info. what do you suggest? three months prior to finalize the headcount?
Felicia Bromba
Posts: 532
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Glad I could help
As for the Bridezilla clause, that's something different, But yes, very needed as well and if you do a search, you'll find tons on that subject too!
I get what you mean, We do upwards of 2-3 weddings in a day during high season.
You can still let them have that time to let others decided (past your min required of course) if you chose too, that's totally fine, we do too.
You need to set a FINAL cut off for headcount. After which it is 100% firm. No subtractions of people after that point. No exceptions. Otherwise, it's breach of contract anyways. They signed agreeing to that. In which case, does in fact give you grounds to terminate services should you chose to...
I think a 3 month prior to date time frame is more than generous. Especially considering the fact that average wedding services book 6 months to 1 year in advance.
If they book even 4 months to date let's say, there is NO REASON, That they can't, within that next month, firm up a head count in order to still meet that 3 month cut off.
During high season, we set it at 6 months prior. Why? Because we NEED To know time frames set, ceremony, leave by time, plus the number of people. Chances are, even last minute, we're going to have another booking, whether it's another wedding, bridal trials afterwards, shoots, etc. Doesn't matter what it is. We need to know and book accordingly so there's no issues.
It's a two way street. Client's are planning details, but so are you for their services, assistants that might be needed, travel ideals and more. If they can't adhere to even something that basic, after you've already given that extra lee-way. They aren't client's you want to have.
Yes, there are select cases in which this set up may not apply, but that is YOUR CALL, your business procedures, no one elses say....case in point, we had a Wedding, MOH was the sister, she went into labor 2 days prior to the date (pre-mature) clearly she was not going to be there for services. We let it go.
We had a wedding just a few weekends back; MOH was in a hissy fit with bride over whatever, bailed on services 3 days before, we were driving 3 hours to this wedding - not good enough, you better believe that bride found someone to fill that spot, after all she's already paid for it, her cousin jumped in. Everything worked itself out.
So you can see how you can easily set it to work for you. It just needs to be stated clearly...
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