Wedding Budget Saver Tip #3

Wedding Budget Saver #3: If you exchange money for a service, put it in writing, whether you're strangers or acquaintances: it's not rude, it's protection for everybody, the provider and the payee. People can mis-communicate verbally about expectations and not realize it until after the fact. Find out BEFORE the fact, write it down and read it together. That way if there's a "Oh wow, I thought you meant blah blah blah" moment and the other person says "oooh no, I meant yada yada yada", you can discuss it beforehand.

Illustration: if we would have written down our expectations of services & fees with our budding caterer (this was her first catering exp), we probably would have realized that labor + food = $1500 (our mind) was labor ($1500) + food ($1500) = $3000 (her mind). See the difference?? Yeah, the "ahah!" moment didn't happen until we went to pay our remaining $300 balance (our mind) and she was confused that it wasn't $1800. Fortunately, all's well that ends well, it was a mistake and no hard feelings. But hindsight is 20/20. Put it in writing.