A Guide to Gratuity & Tip Payment Portal

We do everything possible to make your big day smooth and easy, including tipping. Gratuity for weddings is as customary and critical as at restaurants, although the percentage is slightly lower than typical restaurant gratuity.

Luckily, you don’t have to arrange for envelopes with cash, and guess who on our team is more deserving of your tips. You can simply tip using a credit card right from here, using the button below, and our payroll system employs an advanced algorithm to distribute the gratuity fairly based on roles and hours each spent contributing your celebration.

How to tip?

The button below also allows you to estimate what amount you think is fair and choose that tip amount. In a restaurant, 20% based on your bill (total spending) is customary; in catering and events, the gratuity range is 5%-12% of the total spending at a venue.

When to tip?

Most couples and their families tip a few days before the wedding. If gratuity is shared the following day or days after the reception, the gratuity may not make into their upcoming payroll cycle so we recommend submitting gratuity ahead of time, and no later than the evening of the reception. Advanced tipping also greatly motivates the team to go above and beyond and many extra miles to make your celebration magical.

What to tip?

Before planning to tip, you’ll need the total spending of your wedding. You can figure out this value by checking your “supporting documents” folder in your couple portal on the drive. Here, you can find a copy of your original contract, and receipts of all your roadmap purchases. Please add the total contract value to the values of all additional purchases to arrive at the total spending of your wedding.. As an example, if your total contract value came out to $42,000, and the added costs of lodging, bonfire, additional guests, and upgrades comes out to $5,700, then the total spending of your wedding is $47,700. If you choose 10% gratuity, you’d navigate to the 10% gratuity page, and select the gratuity option closest to your wedding’s total spending (so, 10% of $50,000, equal to $5,000 in gratuity).

Total spending is defined as the four contract payments, plus the afterparty, rehearsal, and/or brunch and any additional guests or upgrades, flowers, smores, bonfire shuttle house rentals, etc. Everything that you spend with our venue and organization is considered Total Spending.

Here are some interesting facts and perhaps some answers to your questions about tipping for your wedding.

Who Receives Tip at the Farm?

At our farm, everyone gets to share in the tips (except for owners, partners and those who only work offsite). The people who make the farm beautiful before your party to the people who get the inns ready, to the people who make your cocktails, to the lead managers and chefs who run your events—they all get a share.

We use a complex algorithm of tip distribution designed for fairness: different team members get a share based on their role, seniority, and how many hours and how many days they worked specifically for your party.

Is Tipping Really Necessary?

Leaving a restaurant without tipping may only amount to a minor inconvenience because so many other guests tip. However, at an event like a wedding, not leaving gratuity or undertip will have very meaningful negative effect: it affects the earnings and livelihood of dozens of people who worked for many days and sometimes weeks to make one of the biggest celebrations of your families a success. low or no tip would also have a negative “pay it forward” effect as well, as the team would be demoralized for the next couple’s wedding.

How About Guests Tipping at the Bar at Your Wedding?

We don’t recommend a tip jar at the bars at your wedding, since many do not bring cash to a wedding, and a tip jar may cheapen the experience for some guests. And it may pressure guests to always think about tipping if a tip jar is present. Our default policy is not to put our tip jar on any of our bars, and we also trained our staff to quickly remove tips if someone does tip so as not to create an impression to others that tipping at the bar is required.

If you know your guests love to tip and want us to put out a tip jar, we can provide that. However, keep in mind that bar tipping should not be considered in place of the gratuity for the overall wedding. It should be considered in addition to gratuity based on the Spending Total.


Why Are Wedding Tips Based On Total Spending And Not Just Food And Beverage?

At a restaurant, rent, utilities, salaries, repairs, and equipment etc, are built into the food and bev items that are added to your bill, in catering + events industry those are charged separately. So 5-12% of the total spent with the venue is the most common way to calculate tips.

It also makes sure the gratuity reaches the number of staff working for you: the more guests you have, the more days of activities, the more enhancements like bonfire and shuttle and cake, the more work it is to successfully produce your wedding, and the more staff are hired to work and the more workers will share the gratuity.

What Factors Should Be Considered as You Consider Tip Amount?

Gratuity is such an essential part of a hospitality worker’s livelihood, and tips should be calculated carefully. There are valid reasons to offer less gratuity, and there are unacceptable reasons. Here are a few examples from the past that are not good reasons: “We have spent so much on our celebration that this is really all we can do” or “A lightbulb in the farmhouse did not work, which is why we tipped so little” or “a vegetarian guest was initially serve meat before it was corrected.”

As hard as we all work and as organized as we are, there will be small but mostly insignificant issues. The consideration of gratuity should be based on the overall experience you expect for you and your guests. If anything is not 100% right throughout your stay, please get in touch with upper management so we can help address it. But please do not “punish” or pre-punish the service team if it is not clearly deserved based on their effort and attitude.