Are you and your partner about to tie the knot? If that’s the case, you’ll find hiring a day-of wedding coordinator ideal for several reasons. You may wonder what wedding coordinators do and whether you need one on your special day.
There are many little things and practical considerations to ensure your ideal wedding runs smoothly. Many brides ask friends and family to assist coordination on their wedding day, but their inexperience may worsen things.
Based on the above, hiring a wedding organizer with experience is crucial. Their job is to ensure everything goes smoothly, relieve tension, and deal with last-minute hiccups. Consider your wedding coordinator on the day of the event as your very own fairy godmother!
A Wedding Day Coordinator and a Wedding Day Planner: How do they differ?
Many people think a wedding planner is the same as a wedding coordinator. However, each one of them plays a different role. A wedding planner will stick with you throughout your entire wedding planning process, helping define your vision while locating the right vendors.
Wedding planners work in unison with you during a few weeks or months leading to your wedding. A wedding planner will schedule vendor meetings, manage your wedding budget, and coordinate hotel and transport logistics, to mention a few.
On the other hand, wedding coordinators focus on the actual day of your wedding ceremony. They are tasked with handling logistics within a significantly shorter time frame. For this reason, you should hire an experienced coordinator a month before your wedding so that they can identify areas that require attention.
Ultimately, it’s the role of your day-of wedding coordinator to ensure that everything runs smoothly from the beginning to the end.
Primary Roles of a Day-Of Wedding Coordinator
A day-of wedding coordinator has several vital roles to play so that the wedding ceremony goes as planned on the wedding day. Here are the primary functions of a day-of wedding coordinator:
- Organizing Logistics
The most significant benefit of having a day-of wedding coordinator is that you can sit down and relax, knowing you have an experienced expert handling the day’s logistics. Even though you may have a team of reliable individuals willing to help, some will be guests who want to celebrate your special day with you.
The best option is to ensure you find an experienced person with years of experience who’ll ensure everything runs as planned. Some essential roles of a day-of wedding coordinator include making sure guests find their seats, ensuring the wedding rings are in the right place, checking to ensure that transportation is catered for, and clearing up after the ceremony is over, to mention a few.
- Communicating with Vendors
If you want your special day to succeed, hire a day-of wedding coordinator a month in advance to give them sufficient room to communicate with vendors. By employing your day-of wedding coordinator early enough, they’ll be able to communicate with different vendors, offering suggestions and areas of improvement.
Wedding coordinators hired in advance will also be able to confirm with vendors if any other pending details require urgent attention and know who to contact if anything is needed on your big day.
Your wedding venue will most likely want to see the person handling your wedding day’s questions, any arising issues, and deliveries, to mention a few.
- Preparing a Backup Plan
Backup plans are helpful, and you’ll find an experienced wedding coordinator very helpful in coming up with backup plans, especially if it’s a non-traditional wedding. There is more of a chance that problems will arise if you have chosen an unconventional location, a do-it-yourself wedding, a wedding that is scheduled quickly, or even a large wedding.
A family member’s house is one example of a venue or location where a couple may choose to get married. A wedding coordinator will know how to ensure your day goes successfully in this situation, so having one is crucial.
- Managing Guests and Organizing your Bridal Party
The bridal party, made up of the bride and groom, the officiant, the bridesmaids, and the groomsmen, will most likely be led by the wedding coordinator on the big day. Ensuring that the wedding guests know the ceremony’s location, parking locations, seating arrangements, and where to pick up the program is another crucial duty of day-of wedding coordinators. Such will also entail welcoming visitors and instructing ushers on how to run this operation.
- Coming up with a Timeline
Another primary role you can expect from your day-of wedding coordinator is properly organizing your big day timeline. Experienced day-of wedding coordinators will review several starting and ending times and set up detailed schedules to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Aside from verifying the arrival of your vendors, your day-of wedding coordinator will also check that favors have been put appropriately, arrange the setup of decorations, make sure music is played at the appropriate moment, and supervise any announcements.
A day-of wedding coordinator will also receive a list of who will make the toast, the appropriate duration for each toast, and instructions on gently cutting someone off if they are running late.
- Conducting Rehearsals and Solving Urgent Cases
The day-of wedding coordinator will ensure that the bridal party and everyone else knows the sequence of events during the ceremony. Such covers any significant religious components of the event.
Apart from the above, they will take you over the schedule for your wedding rehearsal. They will also inform your family members and bridal party of where they should be, what is expected of them, and when they should be at each location.
A day-of wedding coordinator also solves unexpected problems that could arise on your big day. In case slight issues crop up, you can relax knowing that there’s an experienced person ready to handle everything.
Conclusion
A day-of wedding coordinator is a helpful person ready to assist you in making your special day a big success. You may rest easy knowing that someone will handle any unforeseen issues because you know what to anticipate from your wedding organizer on your special day. All that’s left to do is relish the priceless memories you will create!
