I just love this post and wanted to bring it up again. After 3 weddings in a row this last month, I am reminded of how valuable my role actually is!

Check it out:

http://www.megandaubertevents.com/blog/2009/08/site-coordinator-vs-wedding-coordinator/

Please mail in your response cards to a wedding as soon as you know if you can attend or not. The bride and her family have enough stress in the last couple months leading up to the wedding and do not need to be chasing after forgetful people. Be considerate and reply as soon as you can. Enough said.

Also, pay attention to how you sign the RSVP card. If you play jokes, the bride may play a joke back:

I kid you not, this was me and my husband at a wedding on May 30th.

Once you’re engaged, creating a personalized wedding website is a great way to communicate wedding information to guests quickly and efficiently. You get to have fun and upload photos, tell your engagement story, talk about your bridesmaids, create an online guestbook and much more. There are many useful sources available to build your site on:

TheKnot.com

MyWedding.com

WedOrama.com

My newly engaged sister just created one for her June 2010 wedding. Check it out here! Be practical – once you have the information gathered, add hotel contact numbers, travel directions, wedding attire, the weekend’s events, and local attractions. Have fun with it! It’s a great tool to use when planning a large wedding.

1. You will go over budget. Don’t be naive about the money it will take to make your wedding happen. Just count on going over. I see it happen every time.

2. Think of an upside down bell-curve: expect the beginning of your planning to be hectic, stressful,  and full of decision making. Then there will be a lull in planning followed by a crazy, stressful 1 month count down. Plan on it. (Also hire a wedding coordinator to help manage it.)

3. You will have trouble creating, cutting down and finalizing your guest list. Don’t break up with your fiance over this – it can be worked out!

4. You will have some guests who do not return their response cards and make it hard for you to chase them down by phone.

5. Your groomsmen will take their sweet time to complete their tux rentals.

6. Not everything will turn out exactly how you envisioned it – sometimes better, sometimes not as great.

7.  At the end of the wedding day, you will be married and that is what matters most!

As an invited guest to a wedding, it is best to stay throughout the duration of the reception. Receptions typically last from 3-4 hours but it is just a fancy way of having a big dinner party with all of your closest friends. So many evening weddings these days lose about half their attendees by the time the newly married couple makes their Grand Exit to the get-away car. It makes me sad to see what could be a huge celebratory send-off at the end of the night become a small line of mostly bridal party members waving good-bye.

I recognize the obstacles that some wedding guests may have such as young children, sleepy husbands, or other plans. Those are legitimate reasons to need to leave but try your best to plan ahead – hire the babysitter for the entire evening, get the hubby a cup of coffee, and clear your schedule for that day. If you’ve ever planned a wedding you know full well the stress that goes into making the guest list just right. The bride and groom chose to invite you over someone else so don’t disappoint them by dipping out early.  Clearly, these are my opinions and not law but a wedding is a special occasion that deserves special time and attention from all parties involved!

One great way to ensure a better experience for your wedding guests is to assign seats. You don’t even need to assign people to a specific seat at a table but rather assign groups of guests to a table. This can be a challenging puzzle in the beginning but when you finally get a seating chart worked out the stress is well worth it. Assigned seating avoids awkward situations and hurt feelings. Most of us have probably experienced a wedding where we’ve had to walk around searching for a table with enough chairs open so that your party doesn’t have to split up. How frustrating is that? Or think about the guest that came alone; it’s no fun for someone to have to wander around wondering whether or not he is going to be intruding on certain families or groups of friends sitting together. Just save your guests the trouble of making up their own seating arrangements by placing them ahead of time. Your guests should greatly appreciate it!

Not to beat this to the ground, but folks there is a real difference here. Most all wedding and reception venues will offer a staffed site coordinator. That is fabulous and will do wonders for your wedding such as – adjust AC when the air gets too stuffy, dim the lights when dinner is over, collect your bar tab, etc. Perhaps it is easier to list what a “site coordinator” will not do:

• He/She will not make a detailed timeline of events that covers the minute by minute schedule involving all aspects of your day.
• He/She will typically not have coordinated the schedules of all wedding vendors participating in the day.
• He/She will not make sure all parties involved make it safely to the ceremony dressed, photographed, and flowered.
• He/She will not organize your bridal party introductions and make sure the MC is perfectly clear on correct name pronunciations.
• He/She will not make sure the MOG and FOB are given a 5 minute heads up as to when their dances will begin.
• He/She will not personally direct the bride and groom at all points during the event so they know what on earth is going on. (Even though you’ve planned your day for months, you will lose all concept of the event when it’s actually your wedding day. It’s a joyful thing.)
• He/She will not give a heads up to the “toasters” so that they are well prepared to speak into the mic at the proper time.
• He/She will not cue the arrival of the get-away car to be waiting for you outside.
• He/She will not make sure all of your personal belongings, purses, luggage, etc. is safely in your get-away vehicle.
• He/She will not take the burden and load off of your family’s back.
• He/She will not have gotten to know you personally through the months of planning and will not be able to share in your desired goal for the evening and be prepared to answer last minute questions knowing exactly what you’d say!

A wedding coordinator will! Those are some of the main misconceptions that brides have when they hear that their venue offers a site coordinator. Again, they are fabulous to have around and will work flawlessly in conjunction with your wedding coordinator. These reasons are precisely why I pursued my own business instead of going to work at a great venue as their site coordinator. I love the details and personal organization of the bride’s entire wedding day. I hope this helps define the roles and give you a better idea of who all needs to be involved in your day.

Let’s be honest, there is not a single bride who plans her wedding without thinking about a wedding coordinator. So why then do brides all too often go without hiring one? Here are some excuses…sorry, rational reasons:

• It’s not in my budget to hire a wedding coordinator.
• I’ve done a good job planning already, I feel I have everything under control. (I cringe at this one)
• My Aunt Cynthia is great at details! I’ll ask her to handle the day’s tasks.
• My reception location already has a site coordinator.
• I don’t get stressed out.

Any of these sound familiar? If you’ve gotten married already, I am sure you will identify with my responses to each of these excuses.

First, Budget. A budget should always reflect some type of hired help, at least for the “day of.” You are totally right that large event planning companies can be outrageously expensive. But then there’s me (or people like me – if you live on the west coast). I run a small, self-owned business brought about by my love of weddings and realizing that I could help people on a tight budget still have a fabulously stress-free day. My prices are nowhere near the competition’s and since I’ve “been there done that” – I know what is appropriate to charge for my services. Please find someone like me to coordinate your wedding. I’m sure they are out there, if not, I should start celebrating ’cause that is good news!

2nd Excuse: Even if you are a super champ at planning your big day and organizing the details (as  was I), you do not want to be the one running the show on your wedding day. If you are concerning yourself with distributing the corsages, arranging the cute place cards, making sure everyone’s on schedule, checking the clock for cake cutting time, etc. – you will miss out on the best parts of your day! Don’t make the mistake of being in control at all times during your wedding. Hand the responsibilities over to the professional and sit back, relax, and walk down that aisle care-free.

3rd Excuse: Do not hand off the coordination to your family members. Even if your aunt is a state of the art organizer and offers to help out, just let her enjoy the day. Your wedding is a time when the whole family comes together. Sometimes, it’s the only time during the year that everyone will be in the same place.  Family will  travel great distances, spend money on plane tickets and hotel rooms, buy you gifts and clear their schedules to come celebrate your marriage. It may be hard to do, but allowing parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents to sit around responsibility-free is a gift!

4th Excuse: Don’t be fooled. Though helpful and valuable to the reception site, the site coordinator will not be tending to your every need, will not cue toasts and dances, will not make sure grandma knows to get in a picture. A site coordinator’s job is to make sure their building and staff are under control.  They work great in combination with your wedding coordinator.

Lastly, You will be stressed on your wedding day (if not the entire week-of) if you do not have a wedding coordinator. There is always something left for the last minute and, again, on your wedding day all you need to focus on is how to make it down that aisle to your groom and dance the night away.

I could go on and on about this for hours. I know, from experience as a bride, that a hired wedding coordinator makes all the difference not only for you but for your groom, parents, bridal party and guests!