Wedding & event professionals need these contract templates - Creative Law Shop review
As a heads up: this post contains an endorsement and an affiliate code for a product I use in my own business :)
When you have an event business and you’re advertising through a website, you need certain legal documents in place to protect yourself (and your clients).
If you are a venue, planner, photographer, florist, baker, caterer, calligrapher, stationer, live painter, dj, band, or any other vendor that offers a service, this post is for you :)
There are 3 contracts every wedding pro needs (at minimum) to run a safe & legit business operation:
1. Privacy Policy
Your website is most likely collecting personal information of visitors; like data cookies and contact information. Laws around the world dictate that you must have a Privacy Policy that’s easy to find, which states what you will and won’t do with the personal info you collect.
2. Terms and Conditions
You are displaying your work for everyone to see, along with your own words, your branding, and your expertise. Among other purposes it serves, a T&C on your website will legally protect you from these assets being plagiarized or sold by someone else.
3. Service Agreement (Client Contract)
Weddings and events are complex, sometimes messy affairs with a million moving parts. With every client comes new challenges and differing expectations. It’s SO important to lay out exactly what you do and don’t do - what you are and aren’t responsible for. What the specific package they purchased does and doesn’t include.
You also want to anticipate in writing anything that could go wrong. What happens if you are expecting a baby when their wedding day comes, or there is a cancellation due to extreme weather? What if the client isn’t happy with their final images? Do you want to be fed at the wedding? What if a vendor trashes your venue and doesn’t clean it up? Ideally you want to have a plan in place for every situation.
Your contract should also cover questions about payment schedules, deposits, late payments, and refunds.
And then there’s the question of copyrights. What if your clients aren’t comfortable with you using their wedding photos for your advertising? If you are a photographer, are your clients allowed to give their digital files to relatives? Can they edit your photos or print through a third party?
I could go on! But hopefully by now you see the myriad of sticky situations that a solid contract can help you through.
>>> If you have an existing client contract and you’re not sure whether it covers all the bases, you can grab the Creative Law Shop’s FREE Client Contract Checklist here.
Other common scenarios where wedding pros should use a contract:
Organizing a styled shoot - Any time collaborations are taking place between creatives, things can get muddled. It’s best to have a document that explains the roles of each participant, like ownership of images and use permissions.
Becoming an LLC - If you want to legally protect your personal money and property, you need a contract that separates your business as its own entity.
Hiring help in your business or a Second shooter at an event - If you need support at an event or behind the scenes, you’ll need to clearly define the roles of the contractor as well as who owns what they create.
Offering consulting to other businesses - This would call for a completely different kind of service agreement than the one you use for your event clientele. It would also limit your liability if, for example, they took your professional advice and didn’t see the results they wanted.
Discovering that someone is using your work on social media without your permission - If you’ve asked them to take down the post and they refuse, that’s where an official Cease & Desist letter comes into play.
Guest speaking at a conference or on a podcast - Again, you’d want to have the expectations, content ownership, and disaster plans clearly defined.
Whatever situation you need a contract for, the safest way to make sure it covers all the bases is to have it custom-written for your business by a local attorney. ...Buuuuuuttt that can cost an arm and a leg.
If you want a beefy, solid contract without having to pay thousands $$$ to draft one from scratch, purchase a trusted contract template and customize it to your business.
best of both worlds :)
Why I believe the Creative Law Shop is the best contract shop for wedding professionals:
1. You can trust that CLS know their stuff, and you will receive the latest legal recommendations.
The Creative Law Shop is created by Paige Hulse, a still-practicing attorney and actual wedding pro herself.
Yep, that’s right - she followed another passion and became a calligrapher on the side, which is actually what opened her eyes to the fairly risky way that most creatives are operating their businesses.
I love that she’s literally been in the weeds on both sides.
Today, she is still actively defending clients, so she has her finger on the pulse of the courts. That means as the law evolves, so do her contracts!
And when you purchase a template from the Creative Law Shop, you will receive allll subsequent updates to that template! A one-time purchase = lifelong security!
Not only are these contracts written by a creative for creatives, but they are also peer-reviewed for each specific industry. That means if a contract is for hairstylists, it has been put to the test by actual hairstylists who know first-hand what kinds of tricky scenarios they tend to face.
2. The CLS website is far superior to other contract shops.
Most legal template websites are soo visually cluttered (not naming names here, buuut…). You typically will see words and images packed into every corner, an outdated aesthetic that isn’t fun to look at IMO, poor search capability, mismatched designs, and it’s unclear what each contract contains.
But this site… ahhh. It’s a breath of fresh air.
It’s well-organized, uncluttered, clean and elegant. I honestly just like hanging out there :P
Then, they have an awesome navigation setup that allows you to browse either by your field or the type of agreement you’re looking for.
Take a look for yourself!
3. I trust CLS contracts in my own business and I recommend them to all my clients.
In case you’re wondering if CLS has contracts for your business, here are the event professionals they serve through their custom-tailored templates:
How to get the best deals on Creative Law Shop legal templates:
First, check out the contract bundles CLS offers to see if they fit your needs. I recommend the Website Basics Bundle for your Privacy and Terms!
Then, make sure you use my affiliate code BEJ10 at checkout to get 10% off any purchase, year-round! You are also allowed to combine this with any other discount or sale :)
Lastly, if you’re about ready to get a new contract and it’s early fall, I would wait until the [pre] Black Friday sale, because it’s the biggest sale they do each year. Everything gets marked down 30%! AND you can combine it with my affiliate code, BEJ10 ;) How cool is that?!
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