I’m just gonna go off on a limb (sarcasm) and say that an easy way to never feel like a blushing bride is to plan your own wedding. One of my goals this year is to help potential clients understand the difference between coordination, planning and design. I believe we do our best to explain the difference during consultations but when planning your own wedding gets overwhelming and frustrating, couples often forget that we offered and encouraged partial and full planning and design as options. There’s a TON of misconceptions about the roles and responsibilities of a wedding planner vs. wedding design / styling vs. a wedding coordinator. Although it’s common practice for the general public to use those titles interchangeably they are three different jobs with their own responsibilities that may or may not be fulfilled by the same person or company. We’re just going to go over the difference between wedding planning and coordination, since that’s the most misunderstood.

I think it’s important to clear some of these misconceptions up. Throughout the years of working weddings assisting photographers and other planners to now going off on my own working for myself, I’ve observed and experienced the lack of understanding about the industry as a whole. A huge gray area is in relation to our various roles and services, and its mostly our fault (I’ll elaborate at a later date). The role planners, designers and coordinators are hired to fulfill often remain unclear for the client and even more for the guests who assume that any person in charge is actually responsible for every aspect of the events that take place throughout their day. That’s never the case when a couple takes on the role of wedding planner and/or designer.

When a planner is hired for “Day-of” Coordination, we aren’t actually planning your wedding, we’re merely coordinating the day that you planned with the vendors that you booked so you don’t have to work on your big day. Month of Coordination is often referred to as “day of” but in all actuality, in the industry we’re trying to get people accustomed to “Month of” because we aren’t just working on the day of. We’re piecing together all the different elements and vendors that you scheduled to be executed on your wedding day in addition to making venue visits and trying to help our clients manage any and last minute tasks (even the ones that aren’t listed as our responsibility).

If you’re a highly organized person, have impeccable taste, have lots of extra time on your hands and just LOVE event planning… Month of Coordination may seem perfect for you. Just keep in mind that this requires great communication between the couple and the coordinator. If the couple leaves out any information or forgets something that may seem to be of minor importance, it can set off a chain reaction of fires that may need to be put out on the day of. That chain reaction takes time away from your coordinator’s ability to handle the numerous tasks that need to be executed on your behalf by completely throwing your timeline off.

Side Note

I will say from personal experience, if you want to be WOW’d by your wedding, allow a stylist or designer to work with you and/or your planner to create that visual experience for you. Your planner can link you up to the right people to give you a wedding day our of your wildest dreams. *Raises hand* I’m totally happy to work with you even if I’m not your planner to help style the day – talk to your planner first though!

Cautionary Tales

Often times couples that choose coordination also involve their friends and family by asking them to take on professional roles in their wedding and it almost always backfires. Like the DJ that never worked a wedding before, skipped the rehearsal, never did a sound check, didn’t bother to look at my timeline and didn’t bring a microphone or extension cords. He just wanted to be a guest and didn’t know how to say no. That choice completely hijacked not only our timeline but made for countless awkward moments and unexpected costs that could have been avoided had they taken my recommendations.

Catering is a huge role that can go really off the rails when couples go with a friend or family member rather than choose a reputable company with lots of wedding experience. Even worst was the couple that claimed to have their own company be the caterers with “experience doing weddings,” their own company was two hours late, yes, TWO HOURS LATE. Prior to that, they had no idea how much staff they needed to hire. I had to spend the week before their wedding, amidst high season and Art Basel in Miami, scrambling to staff their wedding. So much for that wedding experience they were talking about. Needless to say, this entire wedding was a cautionary tale as to why, if you’re not a wedding planner, you probably shouldn’t be planning your own wedding without at least taking our recommendations.

Another example of how friends and family taking on professional roles in your wedding can backfire: we had the most organized bride ever, but she was overwhelmed by juggling her fast paced full-time job and wedding planning. When I was confirming the wedding details she was providing, she said she had table numbers and seating assignment signage. She was so busy she never got around to placing the order until the Thursday before her Sunday wedding. The only time I had left to pick up her signage was the morning of the wedding – not enough time to add or fix anything. One sign of the four signs was a seating assignment sign, and it was gorgeous! Only problem, there was no corresponding table numbers for the guests to identify the actual table they were to be seated at. I needed to send my assistant to a convenience store to buy card stock and markers to make table numbers.

We try our best during the days and weeks prior to your wedding day to coordinate everything you’ve arranged so it will actually make sense in real time on your big day. When you’re scheduling hair and makeup, your getting ready location, transportation, etc. it all needs to coordinate with the timeline your photographer has for your photos. If the timing of any of those items is off, that could completely throw off the day. Unfortunately, if your coordinator tries to make adjustments and those vendors have already scheduled other clients on your wedding day, you could be SOL. You’re guaranteed to be frustrated and looking for someone to blame. Let us be your best friend when preparing for your wedding so we can stay on the same page at all times ensuring that you’re 100% happy about everything having to do with your wedding day.

Just be a Bride and/or Groom

The moral of most of this story is that hindsight is 20/20. No matter the outcome of your wedding day, everyone that plans it themselves usually looks back wishing they just hired a planner so they could just enjoy being a bride. Whichever partner is super enthusiastic about having the wedding should be the one working with the planner. Trust your chosen person and enjoy the process!