The florist’s number is in one phone, the caterer’s quote is in an email nobody can find, and the receipt for the deposit is a photograph somebody took in a shop in March. None of it is findable in thirty seconds on the morning of the wedding, which is exactly when somebody will need it. Keep one record for every vendor, carrying the number, the agreed cost and what you have already paid, and put it in the hands of whoever is running the day.
What scattered vendor information costs you on the day
It rarely fails dramatically. It fails in ten small ways. The decorator’s van is at the wrong entrance and the only person with the driver’s number is in a car on the way to the venue. The band wants to know who is settling the balance and in what form. Somebody has to ring the cake shop and nobody is sure whether it was booked under your name or your mother’s. Each one costs a phone call and a search through somebody’s inbox, and they all land in the same crowded hour.
The information is not missing. It is scattered. It sits in three phones, two inboxes, a WhatsApp thread that has scrolled past retrieval, and a paper folder in a drawer at home. Gathering it into one place is dull work, and it is the most useful hour of admin in the whole plan.
What to record about every vendor
Seven things. Anything less and you will be searching an inbox at the worst possible moment.
- The business name, and the name of the person you actually deal with. Ringing a company gets you a switchboard. Ringing Priya gets you an answer.
- A phone number in full international form, and an email address.
- What they are delivering, in your own words rather than the contract’s.
- When they arrive, which entrance they use, and when they leave.
- The total agreed cost.
- What has been paid so far, and by whom.
- What is still owed, when it falls due, and how they want it.
A vendor record in Link Invitation holds the business name, a category, the contact person, a phone number and an email, the agreed cost, the amount paid so far, a status of contacted, quote or booked, and a free notes field. Tapping a record calls that person, opens a WhatsApp chat with them, or starts an email. Arrival times and delivery details are not separate fields, so they belong in the notes with everything else you want to hand over.
Deposits and balances are the part that gets forgotten
Contact details you can reconstruct. Money you cannot. The deposit went out four months ago, quite possibly from a card belonging to someone who is not you, and by the week of the wedding nobody is certain whether the photographer was paid part of the fee or all of it. That conversation, held on the day, in front of guests, is the one worth designing out early.
Record a payment when you make it, not afterwards. Put the date, the amount and who paid it into the notes on that vendor. The outstanding figure then looks after itself: cost minus paid, for each vendor and across the list, with a filter for the ones that still have a balance due. Two assumptions are worth planning around, neither of them measured and both of them cheap to be wrong about: every remaining balance falls due on the day unless the contract says otherwise, and at least one supplier will want it in cash.
The person coordinating the day needs it, not just you
You will not be answering your phone. You will be getting dressed, being photographed, or sitting in a car with no signal. The list is only worth anything in the hands of whoever is running the morning: an aunt, a best man, a paid coordinator, or the friend who volunteered in April and now regrets it.
There are two ways to hand it over. Export the list as a spreadsheet file and print it yourself, which is the version that still works when the venue’s wifi does not. Or give that person access to the vendor section of your dashboard, so they can tap to call from their own phone; hosting somebody else on your account sits on the paid plans and the number of people you can add is capped, so settle that well before the week of the wedding. Doing both is the safer answer, because paper needs no battery and a phone needs no photocopier.
When you do not need a vendor list at all
If you are booking three people for a party at home, your phone’s contacts and one note are enough, and building a second system to hold six facts is just work you invented. The same goes if your venue supplies everything under one contract: you have a single vendor with an events manager, not eleven suppliers to coordinate between.
It is worth being plain about what this is not, too. It is not a document store. Signed contracts, quotes and payment receipts should stay wherever you keep documents, backed up somewhere you trust. What you keep here is your own note of what was agreed and what was paid, which is the thing you need at speed. It is not proof of either, and on the day proof is rarely what anybody is asking for.
Frequently asked questions
What should I write down the moment I book a vendor?
The name of the person you spoke to, their number, the total agreed, the deposit you have just paid and the date the balance falls due. Writing it down while the call is still fresh saves an inbox search months later.
Can I give a coordinator access without sharing everything else?
Access is granted section by section, and view-only is a separate level from being able to edit, so somebody can see the vendor list without touching your guest list. Hosting other people on your account is a paid-plan feature, with a limit on how many.
What should be printed and handed over on the morning?
One page: every vendor, the person to ask for, their number, the arrival time and the balance due. Give it to whoever is coordinating and keep a second copy in a bag rather than only on a phone.
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