I’m getting married on a Saturday in October 2019 in a major northeastern city and negotiated with a few vendors. I negotiated my band down to 7.5k from $9k, my dress down 20%, the venue down 10% on food and alcohol, and I was able to get 50% off the price of the grooms suite for two nights. This wasn’t a negotiation but our photographer gave us 15% off for using their recommended videographer. I didn’t negotiate with my florist, I was just extremely candid with her on what I’m willing to spend and we went over everything line by line. She ended up throwing in a few things for free. Also didn’t negotiate with the bakery as we are doing a donut cake and the pricing was really fair. My fiancé hates negotiating with vendors, but didn’t want to budge on what we wanted, and wanted to stay in budget. I love negotiating so I did all of the back and forth. The band negotiating specifically took two weeks and was extremely stressful. I had to pretend to walk away twice. I just straight up asked for a lower price from almost every vendor unless I thought the price was very fair, there was no way they’d come down, or if my ask might insult them so much it would affect the wedding day execution. One thing I learned: it’s easier for vendors to throw in extras vs. giving you a cash discount, which can help if one vendor has more than one service you need (IE DJ and uplighting or photo booth.)