I tend to keep my ear to the ground on national trends, and one thing that’s been getting more attention both locally and across the country are “price wars” amongst groups of wedding vendors.  In a nutshell, the recession has hurt certain wedding companies very hard, and now we’re finally reaching the point that they are slashing their prices in a desperate attempt to stay in business.  This, in turn, causes their competitors to panic, and lower their prices as well.  This causes the struggling company to lower their prices again, and so on.

The problem with price wars in the wedding industry is that the real victims aren’t always the businesses that go bankrupt – more often than not, it’s the brides who already signed contracts with those companies before they went under.

Having been in this business for more than a decade, I have heard countless stories of brides left without a dress when their bridal salon went belly-up, or with no wedding pictures when their photographer took their album deposit and disappeared.  These things happen, and they’re happening more frequently now.  Companies under financial pressure eventually realize that they need to do something drastic or they’re going to have to fold.  What may look like a great deal can turn out to be a lost deposit, sometimes with little or no time left to book a replacement vendor.

For couples planning a wedding, here’s something to consider:

If a vendor wasn’t in deep trouble, would they be offering a deep discount on their services?  What I’ve found from talking to wedding professionals in the DC area is that the stronger, more stable companies like ours are doing just fine despite the economy and are generally not offering discounts.  Businesses that are struggling to stay afloat, however,  are essentially telling brides “name your price,” or undercutting their competitors just to try to keep their doors open.  Unfortunately, they may be forgetting that only a small amount of any company’s price is profit, and operating costs — including products/supplies, payroll, and marketing — must still be covered.  The sad reality is that a lot of these businesses are going to collapse, leaving their customers in the lurch.

It may seem like a good idea to find two companies willing to engage in a bidding war for your wedding dollar, but the reality is that you may actually be putting yourself in a position to pick a loser no matter who you choose.  Those companies battling it out for your business are, more than likely, both in trouble and picking either one of them could result in catastrophe.  Companies who are on solid footing aren’t going to be willing to get in a price war with a failing business – they know it’s better business to simply let them go bankrupt and absorb their market share, and their stranded customers, when that happens.  Just something to think about when a vendor is offering a deal that seems too good to be true.  There’s a reason for that cliché.