Thanking our DJ and Minister
So, we have this wealth of awesome and talented friends who we are utilizing in ways that are often 'paid professionals'.
A friend of ours did our invitation printing, she gave us a deal, we basically paid for the invites at cost. (www.twinravenspress.com she's amazing!)
A friend of mine is doing our photography, he's giving us a discount rate (www.michaelbrinkerhoff.com).
These friends are established professionals who are giving us a deal. So I get that. They're friends, but we're buying their product. Then things get more complicated....
Our DJ is a friend of mine who is starting his own DJ company, starting as in we're his second wedding. His first wedding he was 'paid' by the person (MotB I think...) making him an article of clothing.
He has made it clear (we asked) that he doesn't expect compensation for our wedding. When we originally asked him to DJ, we knew he was experienced and enjoyed DJing, but at the time he had no equipment. We planned on having him run music off of my laptop through rented speakers. [He used to work as a DJ for someone else's company, but the owner moved out of state, taking his equipment with him and he was left without a job. He loved doing it, but didn't have the capital to start his own at that time. Now he does]. He decided, in part due to our wedding, to get his stuff together to start his own business. So now we're using his equipment, his speakers etc. He's also probably going to be running some of his music files, instead of our music files.
So that's the DJ.
The minister is my FH's childhood playmate. They grew up a few houses down from each other. He went to seminary and finished, technically, this spring. He was ordained a few weeks ago. He doesn't have a church, he's going to be interning at a hospital in S. CA this fall in a children's cancer wing. We are his first wedding (my FH jokes 'hey, ours too!') and he's not doing any sort of counseling or anything with us before hand. Just performing the ceremony itself.
Both of these people would be invited to the wedding, no matter what, as guests, even if they weren't helping out. But because they will be helping us during the wedding I want to thank them both more then I would someone who was just ushering or helping with set up.
Should we give them a gift like we do for the BMs and GMs ?
I'm afraid that would be weird.
Should I give a cash tip? If so, how much?
Would that be offensive since they're doing this for us as friends?
How about a gift card?
This was my original though. $50 gift card to a nice restaurant, except I'm afraid my single, geeky DJ friend would have no use for a nice restaurant gift card... Gamestop gift card?
What do you guys think?
A friend of ours did our invitation printing, she gave us a deal, we basically paid for the invites at cost. (www.twinravenspress.com she's amazing!)
A friend of mine is doing our photography, he's giving us a discount rate (www.michaelbrinkerhoff.com).
These friends are established professionals who are giving us a deal. So I get that. They're friends, but we're buying their product. Then things get more complicated....
Our DJ is a friend of mine who is starting his own DJ company, starting as in we're his second wedding. His first wedding he was 'paid' by the person (MotB I think...) making him an article of clothing.
He has made it clear (we asked) that he doesn't expect compensation for our wedding. When we originally asked him to DJ, we knew he was experienced and enjoyed DJing, but at the time he had no equipment. We planned on having him run music off of my laptop through rented speakers. [He used to work as a DJ for someone else's company, but the owner moved out of state, taking his equipment with him and he was left without a job. He loved doing it, but didn't have the capital to start his own at that time. Now he does]. He decided, in part due to our wedding, to get his stuff together to start his own business. So now we're using his equipment, his speakers etc. He's also probably going to be running some of his music files, instead of our music files.
So that's the DJ.
The minister is my FH's childhood playmate. They grew up a few houses down from each other. He went to seminary and finished, technically, this spring. He was ordained a few weeks ago. He doesn't have a church, he's going to be interning at a hospital in S. CA this fall in a children's cancer wing. We are his first wedding (my FH jokes 'hey, ours too!') and he's not doing any sort of counseling or anything with us before hand. Just performing the ceremony itself.
Both of these people would be invited to the wedding, no matter what, as guests, even if they weren't helping out. But because they will be helping us during the wedding I want to thank them both more then I would someone who was just ushering or helping with set up.
Should we give them a gift like we do for the BMs and GMs ?
I'm afraid that would be weird.
Should I give a cash tip? If so, how much?
Would that be offensive since they're doing this for us as friends?
How about a gift card?
This was my original though. $50 gift card to a nice restaurant, except I'm afraid my single, geeky DJ friend would have no use for a nice restaurant gift card... Gamestop gift card?
What do you guys think?