diff --git a/docs/my-website/docs/providers/vertex.md b/docs/my-website/docs/providers/vertex.md
index d94059536c..170b24be4a 100644
--- a/docs/my-website/docs/providers/vertex.md
+++ b/docs/my-website/docs/providers/vertex.md
@@ -10,6 +10,9 @@ All calls using Vertex AI require the following parameters:
 * Your Project Location
 `litellm.vertex_location` = "us-central1" 
 
+### Pre-requisites
+`pip install google-cloud-aiplatform`
+
 Authentication:
 VertexAI uses Application Default Credentials, see https://cloud.google.com/docs/authentication/external/set-up-adc for more information on setting this up
 
diff --git a/litellm/main.py b/litellm/main.py
index ff88e3959b..1637e49507 100644
--- a/litellm/main.py
+++ b/litellm/main.py
@@ -605,7 +605,10 @@ def completion(
                 return response
             response = model_response
         elif model in litellm.vertex_chat_models:
-            import vertexai
+            try:
+                import vertexai
+            except:
+                Exception("vertexai import failed please run `pip install google-cloud-aiplatform`")
             from vertexai.preview.language_models import ChatModel, InputOutputTextPair
 
             vertexai.init(
@@ -633,7 +636,10 @@ def completion(
             model_response["model"] = model
             response = model_response
         elif model in litellm.vertex_text_models:
-            import vertexai
+            try:
+                import vertexai
+            except:
+                Exception("vertexai import failed please run `pip install google-cloud-aiplatform`")
             from vertexai.language_models import TextGenerationModel
 
             vertexai.init(
@@ -790,7 +796,10 @@ def completion(
 
 
 def completion_with_retries(*args, **kwargs):
-    import tenacity
+    try:
+        import tenacity
+    except:
+        Exception("tenacity import failed please run `pip install tenacity`")
 
     retryer = tenacity.Retrying(stop=tenacity.stop_after_attempt(3), reraise=True)
     return retryer(completion, *args, **kwargs)