Happy
dog days of summer to you! My apologies for not writing a July
installment, the busyness of the summer seems to have caught
up with me. This month I am going to digress a bit from budget
tips and tell you about why you really need a wedding coordinator.
This subject is very near and dear to my heart. I would hope
so since I am a wedding coordinator. Recently there was a wedding
in my family. Now, I have made it a rule to never coordinate
family weddings. However, the bride and groom were young and
had only attended one or two weddings in their entire lives
and had very little to no knowledge of how to plan a wedding.
They had little money and big dreams. They had four weeks to
pull the entire wedding together from start to finish and my
familial emotions and devotion kicked into high gear. The bride's
mother does not live in the same town and the groom's mother
who is my niece put up the "help" sign. This would
not be a "high-end" wedding, but all weddings require
the same vendors, decisions and careful coordination regardless
of the amount of money being spent. In fact, the fewer professionals
you have participating in your wedding and the more friends
and family you draw upon to help, requires more coordination.
These willing helpers seem to become very scarce when the event
approaches and it takes some fancy coordinating to keep things
on track. They get caught up in the moment and would prefer
to celebrate with you than help you. I agreed to talk with them
and give them some budget crunching suggestions and to give
them a "jump-start" in their planning. They needed
more than a "jump-start." They needed someone to plan
and execute. Now, normally, this is no big thing for me. I have
done it many times, but keep in mind, THIS IS FAMILY where emotions
run high and not everybody agrees with what you are doing. After
my first meeting with them I realized if this thing was going
to happen it would take me and my assistant's full involvement.
A wedding is a celebration, a party, and if you don't have some
knowledge and a lot of organizing and coordinating blood running
through your veins, a disaster may be waiting to happen. The
road to a wedding is paved with little girl dreams, a few romantic
ideas picked up along the way, and if you don't know how to
drive down that road, you will crash and burn at the end. I
did not want this to happen to my family member.
My
assistant and I agreed to give this couple the works…planning
and coordination. Once we determined the vendors my assistant
agreed to accompany the bride to vendor meetings and to help
her find "the dress." We chose vendors we had worked
with frequently and knew their work well. They all came through
with flying colors. I might add that my assistant made all the
initial contacts and made many of the meetings solo as the bride
was working a full time job. Meanwhile, I was doing the office
organization, planning, and lists, phone calls, itinerary and
all the hidden details that so many couples never think of.
Decisions had to be made quickly and carried out immediately.
I think I talked to my assistant on the telephone no less than
five times a day during this planning stage!
When
all the plans were in place I had another meeting with the bride
and groom where I presented them with an itemized list of their
responsibilities. I remind you that this was a groom that would
rather be recreating than doing errands for a wedding! Family
members were drawn upon for various tasks. Even though this
couple did not want to address small issues that they had never
considered, we did our best to keep them on track with these
seemingly unimportant details. The ceremony that I had procured
a copy of from the officiant was read to them and changes were
made, music was chosen from the wedding CD that would be played
for the ceremony and we went over all the details that had been
decided upon with vendors. As the day approaches it becomes
harder to remain focused on all the large and small aspects
of your wedding. That is part of my job, to keep the bride and
groom on tract with all the decisions that have been made and
need to be made right up to the end. If this bride and groom
had not had a "coordinator aunt" and a most capable
assistant, there would not have been a wedding.
This
takes us to the day before the wedding. I insisted on a rehearsal.
Even though it was a simple ceremony with two attendants each,
my belief is that you must have a rehearsal so that nerves are
calmed and questions answered which will hopefully make those
involved more relaxed in the knowledge of the details of the
ceremony. As the officiant was not available for the rehearsal
I directed the rehearsal just as I would direct the ceremony.
Details were given to the officiant upon his arrival the next
day.
Yes,
the wedding happened - without a hitch! The bride and groom
will never really know the planning and fine-tuning it took
to make their day happen - and they really don't need to - it
happened and that's all they need to know.
And
that, my dear brides and grooms, is why you need a wedding coordinator!
Cheers,
Janet
