After researching and trying to find the perfect vendors for your wedding, you may feel that having a separate vendor for each service you need at the wedding seems both expensive and exhausting to find.  Suddenly, you come upon a vendor who can do it all for one low price! You are immediately excited and thrilled that your DJ will also do your wedding ceremony as a Justice of the Peace, run uplighting, provide your photography, your videography, your room decor and even run the photo booth! Why wouldn’t you stop your search and book this fantastic “bundled” deal?

“Bundled” services differ from a “package deal” that some larger companies will offer if you book several “individual” services they offer separately and as a package. “Package” services are typically still provided by independent wedding professionals, who each offer a price reduction on their specific service if booked as a “package” along with other individual services they work with on a regular basis. A bundled package means one price includes the whole farm from one company… (DJ, uplighting,  photo booth, video, justice of the peace, room decor… etc) but dividing the total price of the bundle by the number of services they provide will give you an idea of how little is actually being allocated to pay for each service within that bundle.

There are many reasons why you risk a trade-off in quality and attention to detail when booking a multi-component bundle package that will rarely add up to the same level of quality you would have gotten with booking individual services. A wedding is extremely difficult for any wedding vendor to master and each vendor you hire needs to really understand their particular job in order to deliver the level of quality you expect. One person juggling several responsibilities at the same time, no matter how experienced or efficient, cannot possibly give each component their full attention simultaneously, whereas skilled individual vendors can each concentrate solely on their specific, specialized service.  Imagine having the DJ who is also your videographer, standing behind the DJ table shooting the video all night. What happens if he’s busy choosing the next song to keep the crowd dancing and misses an awesome, emotional moment across the room that is now lost forever? Perhaps he may start playing music that he thinks will get better video results rather than the style that better fits your audience.  An uplighting designer with a degree in theatrical lighting may change the lighting several times during special moments or during a DJ’s dance set, but a DJ who is also responsible for those lighting changes is far less likely to be worrying about ambiance and emotional impact of the lighting while worrying about making sure all the requests have been played, formalities have been carried out and the music is keeping the audience dancing.

Many companies that have these bundle packages bring a staff comprised of friends and relatives with them and each person has a different job. Rarely are they full-time pros within that specific field and most have merely been taught how to operate the camera or the lighting controller?  Perhaps the person is a photo booth attendant one week and a videographer or uplighting technician the next?  Do you think the bundled temp holding the video camera or a full-time videographer will give you a better finished product? Do you think an individual vendor with just one responsibility will divert their energy and time to unrelated aspects of the wedding… or devote 100% attention to their specialty?

Choose wisely when you try to save money by bundling services with one willing vendor who may mean well, but unwittingly be spreading himself too thin to actually offer you the top quality you seek.  It’s too late on the day of the wedding to decide it would have been wiser to spend a bit more and cover each service with a dedicated professional who takes pride in his or her ONLY service.