eddings, and all events really, usually require a good number of vendors. You may have a coordinator, caterer, bartender, rental company, florist, band/DJ, photographer, etc., etc. It can be overwhelming, if you let it.
Your event deserves great vendors. You deserve great options and an easy selection process. But how do you achieve all three? You likely have one shot at getting your event done well, especially if its a wedding.
What to expect from venues
Venues tend to take an extreme position when it comes to how they let you select your vendors.
On one extreme, there are the hotels and country clubs that tend to be very restrictive with vendors. In fact, they often want to be most of your vendors (food, beverage, furniture, etc.)! This is why they call themselves "all-inclusive" venues. Although the quality they provide is often acceptable, their prices are high and product/ service options are limited.
On the other extreme, there are the independent venues that tend to be wide open with vendor selection, an almost anything goes approach. Though options may be vast and seemingly attractive, the selection process can be exhausting and picking a good vendor from the pack is not assured.
What is a boutique vendor approach?
A boutique approach to selecting vendors means giving clients both of the advantages of the two vendor categories above: vendor choice and vendor quality. It's essentially staking out the beautifully lonely area between the two extremes above.
First, we want our clients to have great freedom in choosing their vendors. As I mentioned, this enables them to have the product, service, and price that they prefer. It's difficult to argue with the advantages bestowed by a free market.
Second, we want our clients to be able to make their vendor decisions knowing that their selection will perform to their expectations. They should have an assurance that the vendor is a good one. No client wants their event to be marred by a poor vendor selection. This should be a very real concern for clients. But, how to know if a vendor will perform well without prior experience with that vendor?
Last, we think selecting vendors should be done in a fun, efficient manner. Exhaustive planning in each category can be, well, exhausting. No client wants to research a hundred local caterers. And then move to the next category and do it all over again. That's not what mosts hosts thought they were getting into when they started planning their event.
How we implement this for our clients
We always want to balance freedom of choice, quality and ease of decision making for clients when selecting their vendors. A lofty goal, but how do we do it?
Our vendor approach is to present our clients with a large curated list of approved vendors in every category. These vendors have been to Dragon Park's venues many times and have performed admirably and we expect them to do so in the future.
With our 13 years of venue ownership in Nashville, we know most of the vendors and their capabilities. Some vendors will go, and new vendors will be added. We believe that our curated list of vendors is the finest in Nashville and greatly benefits our clients.
We don't think that it would be right to withhold this information from our clients when they're making their vendor decisions. Many of our clients are making these big decisions for the first time, so leaning on us makes sense.
