This week’s blog about wedding supplier contracts is brought to you by Katherine Howe, The Wedding Industry PA. Hello, that’s me! I am here to tell you how I restructured my wedding business and in doing so, had to sure up my terms and conditions and supplier contracts simply, quickly and reliably.
2020 has been a year that has seen many business owners in the wedding industry adapting their offerings to suit the new social and economical climate. Pivoting. Its the word of the year. If that’s something on your agenda, it’s vital to ensure that your wedding supplier contracts still function as solid legal documents to exchange with your new clients.
The Wedding Industry PA is a sector-specific outsourcing service, in which I virtually and physically assist wedding professionals to allow them the time and freedom to focus on their talents and creativity. My services range from blogging and social media management to general administrative tasks, as well as in-person on-the-day support at weddings for wedding planners and suppliers. However, I arrived here after beginning my career in the industry as a wedding planner.
Whilst running my wedding planning business it began to dawn on me that my favourite parts of the job (and the ones I was best at!) were the ‘behind-the-scenes’ tasks, and I started taking on other wedding professionals’ blog pages, auditing websites and securing monthly retainer contracts for regular admin work.
As you can probably imagine, the wedding season of 2020 saw my wedding planning business reach a tipping point and I had a decision to make. I took my opportunity to launch The Wedding Industry PA, feeling the desire to help my community of talented wedding suppliers more so than ever. Among the many considerations involved in this decision, I found myself in need of new wedding supplier contracts and terms and conditions. The documents I held for my wedding planning business no longer covered me for the work I was going to be doing, so I turned to Heather at Stanford Gould for advice.
It took one simple email exchange and I was pointed in the right direction – templates for wedding supplier contracts on the Stanford Gould Online website. In a matter of minutes I downloaded the ‘virtual assistant’ template recommended to me, and after a few small tweaks I was set up with a new, legally watertight, functioning set of Terms & Conditions for my VA business.
If you have had a similar experience this year and have in some way changed your wedding industry business offering, I urge you to consider your legal documentation. Now more than ever it is so important to be confident in your Terms and Conditions and contracts you send out to clients. As the ever-evolving picture of the world remains so uncertain, Stanford Gould’s contract templates for small businesses are a simple and reliable way to bring some certainty and security to your business plans.
Photography by Megan Wilson. The Wedding Industry PA can be found on Instagram @theweddingindustry_pa.