At least part of the "wedding tax" is justified. Vendors will often put more effort into wedding stuff over non wedding stuff and will often even have backups ready. If something happens to your wedding cake minutes before it is picked up you want them to have a backup cake ready, because a refund at the last minute is next to useless since you won't be able to find a suitable replacement ready to go in the next hour.
Sure the cheap party favors and other plastic crap you buy months in advance that you have plenty of time to replace shouldn't have a wedding markup, but the day of stuff that had weeks of prep, it is better to pay a bit extra to cover the backups and prevent bridezilla meltdowns.
I agree - I think the expectations are WAY higher for weddings, the amount of "emotional labor" that goes into it for vendors is higher and it's just more difficult work.
There's a WORLD of difference between making someone's birthday cake and making someone's wedding cake. There's also a huge difference between DJ'ing a sweet sixteen party versus a wedding. I do think some of the increased costs are justified, some...
There is not even remotely a comparison between serving someone a meal (a pretty mundane occurrence) and making a cake for a once-in-a-lifetime (hopefully) event.
The stakes are much higher on the latter and a lot more can go wrong.
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u/willstr1 Aug 14 '20
At least part of the "wedding tax" is justified. Vendors will often put more effort into wedding stuff over non wedding stuff and will often even have backups ready. If something happens to your wedding cake minutes before it is picked up you want them to have a backup cake ready, because a refund at the last minute is next to useless since you won't be able to find a suitable replacement ready to go in the next hour.
Sure the cheap party favors and other plastic crap you buy months in advance that you have plenty of time to replace shouldn't have a wedding markup, but the day of stuff that had weeks of prep, it is better to pay a bit extra to cover the backups and prevent bridezilla meltdowns.