Wedding vendor tip calculator

Methodology

This tool runs the Kindhow Scale, version 1.0, in its list form — the same shape as the holiday tipping list, one row per person rather than one baseline and a stack of adjustments. It adds one thing no other tool on this site has: a control that changes what kind of line a vendor gets, not how big it is.

The formula

for each vendor you hired:

  contract says "gratuity included"
                       → $0, and the line stays visible       sourced

  contract says "service charge" / "admin fee"
                       → the full figure, held and flagged    judgment
                         (IRS: a required charge is not a tip)

  otherwise, the published figure:

    a dollar range     The Knot's own $ range for that vendor
      ± where you marry BEA price parity, as a nudge inside it
      ± how they did    as booked / great / well beyond
                       → a figure still inside their range    sourced

    a percentage       "15-20% of the food and drink fee"
      ± how they did    picks the point in their range
                       → applied to a bill you entered        sourced

  ─────────────
  = one envelope per vendor  = cash to have ready on the day
  each line rounded to a bill you can put in an envelope (lib/giveable.js)

A service charge is not a gratuity

This is the part of the tool that is worth more than the arithmetic. A wedding invoice routinely carries a line reading “20% service charge” or “administrative fee”, and it is read as the tip. It usually is not one.

The IRS’ test is that “a payment is a tip only if the customer voluntarily decides to pay it and determines the amount.” A required percentage set by the venue fails both halves, and the IRS names “required gratuities included in a contract or invoice” as a service charge explicitly. A service charge is the business’s revenue. Whether any of it reaches the people who carried the plates is a question only the venue can answer — and Zola’s guide says the same thing in plainer words: if you see vague language like “service charge” or “administrative fee”, ask directly.

The safe default is deliberate. If we zeroed a service-charge line and it turned out the venue keeps the fee, you would have stiffed the staff on the strength of our guess. Holding the money and asking the question costs you a phone call.

Published figures — sourced

The Knot’s wedding vendor tipping guide prices vendors two ways and this tool keeps both. Some have a published dollar range, per person or per car. Some are a percentage of that vendor’s own bill. The middle column is their wording; the last is what this tool computes at the middle setting, in an average-cost state.

Two of those rows deserve a note. Catering and bar staff are one row, not two, because The Knot’s 15–20% is of the food and drink fee and is split between waitstaff and bartenders — billing them separately would count the same bill twice. And the church or religious institution row is a donation, not a tip; The Knot lists it alongside the officiant’s own $50–$100 and this tool keeps them as separate envelopes because they are.

Where the judgment is

One control moves every line, and it picks a point inside the range The Knot publishes — so the figure is always one they publish, and those lines stay tagged sourced. The Knot says the amount is at the couple’s sole discretion, which is exactly the latitude this control spends. Where it is spent is ours.

Where the wedding is

The bands come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Regional Price Parities for 2024, and shift you up or down within each published range — never outside it. A state ten points above the US average moves you a fifth of the way up. That inference is ours, not BEA’s: nobody has studied whether wedding tips track regional price levels.

It deliberately does not touch the percentage vendors. A Manhattan catering bill is already a Manhattan price, so indexing the percentage on top of it would count the same thing twice. Same rule as the holiday tipping list.

What this tool will not do

• It will not tell you any of this is required. The Knot marks most of these vendors optional and says the amount is at the couple’s sole discretion. Untick anyone. A written review and a referral are worth real money to a wedding vendor and cost you nothing.
• It cannot read your contract. The contract setting reports what you tell it. If the invoice is ambiguous, the tool’s answer is to ask the vendor — and it says so on the line rather than quietly picking for you.
• It has no opinion about your budget. No nudge toward generosity, no comparison with what other couples spend. The biggest lines here are percentages of bills you already agreed to pay.
• It does not handle vendors who own their business. Whether you tip an owner-operator is a real and unsettled question, and no publication we would cite puts a figure on it. Treat those rows as optional and decide for yourself.
• It is US-only. The figures are American. Wedding tipping customs elsewhere are frequently different and sometimes absent entirely.

Sources

• The Knot — How Much to Tip Wedding Vendors — the published range or percentage for every vendor on the list, whether each is expected or optional, and that a tip is unnecessary where gratuity is already on the invoice.
• IRS — Tip recordkeeping and reporting (tips vs. service charges) — the test that separates a tip from a service charge, and the explicit naming of a required gratuity in a contract as the latter.
• Zola — A Guide to Tipping Wedding Vendors — a second published figure set, used as a cross-check, and the advice to ask directly when contract language is vague.
• U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis — Regional Price Parities, 2024 — the regional price bands.

Informational only, not professional advice. The Kindhow Scale is a published model, not a standard, and the lines marked house judgment are our reasoning and nothing more. Nothing here is tax, legal or employment advice: the IRS material is quoted to explain what a service charge is, not to tell you or your venue how to treat one. Last reviewed: August 2026. Scale version 1.0. Figures that come from a publication are re-checked against their source on a monthly cycle; when one moves, the version number moves with it.