Should you tip your videographer?

One time I was traveling in New Zealand. My brother and I stopped at a local restaurant to grab a bite to eat. After we finished, we decided to do the right thing and leave a tip. As we happily collected our belongings and headed for the exit, our waitress, who had been quite pleasant for the duration of our meal, caught up to us and tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned, I found a disgruntled employee holding before me the sum of NZD I had left on the table where we had eaten.

“You left this,” she announced coldly. I smiled and thanked her for her integrity, but assured her that the money was intended for her and was left behind on purpose. I expected her to smile warmly and thank me for my generosity. I thought she would appreciate the gesture and reciprocate with gratitude. But she didn’t. She doubled down on her insistence that the money was mine to keep and that I didn’t need to give her anything extra. I was confused, but didn’t want to push the matter any further, especially considering her growing frustration. Beneath her professional demeanor I could sense a fragile offense, an offense for which I was entirely unprepared to handle.

As I pocketed the money awkwardly and turned to leave, one of the patrons who had overheard the exchange leaned over to me and tapped me. “We don’t tip here like you Americans do,” he said gently. “Here, it’s offensive. Almost like you’re giving out charity.” I nodded, still confused, but learned a valuable lesson that day in cultural sensitivity. I realized that we Americans are pretty weird. Why are we expected to pay money on top of a service? Why do we feel the need to add on to “enough?” Is standard service excellent by definition, and therefore must be rewarded with more than the expected cost? We Americans are in fact pretty weird. So does that weirdness extend to wedding videography? Well, it depends…

There are two reasons to tip someone. The essence of a tip is appreciation for a service that goes above and beyond what is typically expected. That is, at its core, what a good tip entails. Aside from that, there is also the case of an hourly employee who is underpaid and it is therefore the responsibility of the patron to pay an additional tip on top of the invoice. This is, if you can’t tell by my biased tone, a stupid business model, and most of the world doesn’t observe it (this is the weird American quirk I mentioned earlier). Jobs in this category would include: waiters/waitresses, movers, food delivery, valet services, cleaners, and, yes, sometimes wedding vendors.

Here’s the rule of thumb - if you hired a wedding videographer or photographer who works for a large company and you paid the company for their services, chances are they are not being paid nearly as much as a sole proprietor. In that case, I would certainly recommend tipping them, especially if they did a great job. The other case would be if you hire someone who does own the company and they just do an extraordinary job. Maybe they power through rain, hold umbrellas, help calm stressful situations, carry items that aren’t their own, offer great advice, sweat a lot, etc. In that case, a little appreciation goes a long way. But if you hire someone who owns their own business (like me), you are already paying for the service that they charge, and if they meet expectations, that isn’t a reason to expect a tip and I will speak from my own experience when I say that I have been truly grateful for every tip I’ve received, but I’ve never left a wedding and felt indignant because the couple didn’t tip me. That’d be really stupid.