05/27/2025
WHEN A WEDDING PLANNER IS THE DAY OF COORDINATOR ONLY
Day of coordination is not like its name. It’s more like two months of working with your couple and their vendors, reviewing contracts creating timelines looking for inconsistencies in their planning process, and so much more and then you get to show up on the day of the wedding to run an event, you didn’t plan although your title is planner .. This is a very important piece to remember. It is much harder than full planning because of lack of control. We are not there through the planning process so our couples have picked their vendors negotiated with their vendors and hired them sometimes without an understanding of how a full wedding is planned and that is no fault of theirs because for majority of them, it’s their first time getting married.
Unfortunately, in the planning process, there are questions that go unasked and questions that get unanswered but as we know the saying is, you don’t know what you don’t know. So how would you know what to ask? and then there’s a client that has planned a birthday party for a four year-old and is now qualified as a planner.
Problems arise as nothing is perfect and the stuff that falls through the cracks are items we alert our couples to and give them the tools to fix it, but sometimes they don’t follow through even though we have given them direction on how to fix something before it becomes a problem.
Now as a planner, we want to fix it, but we have boundaries, if we don’t fix it there could be repercussions on site. If we-do fix it we have now given away more than we have been compensated for i.e. we worked for free. Where do we find the happy medium in this? How do we keep the boundaries but yet make sure our clients have a perfect day.? Sometimes we can’t, I think that’s the easiest answer. There are times when a client doesn’t heed our advice. their planning process is from a monetary standpoint and there’s nothing we can do. So when the AV equipment fails because uncle Ralph was running it or Spotify doesn’t work, they look to us as the coordinator to fix the situation. but we don’t have technical skills for sound systems belonging to venues. We hire professionals to do those things. We stay in our lane and do the things we do best And allow the other professionals to do their job. A planner is not supposed to be a jack of all trades and the master of none. We are supposed to be a master of our trade, anything else would be a disservice. Any other craft handled during a wedding by a planner or coordinator means the client is getting less than 100%. Now we are doing someone else’s job, somebody who invested their time, their blood,sweat, and tears into perfecting that craft. I always say I’m not build a bear and I’m not Legoland but I know somebody who can build anything you can dream of and I can help facilitate that dream . I believe we all possess a talent, but we cannot possess all talents. By perfecting one and working with a team of people who have perfected the rest makes for a perfect wedding.
At the end of the day, I find day of coordination to be a delicate balance and at the end of the day if something goes wrong, we get the blame because even if we are only there for the day of coordination, our title is that of planner. Sometimes I think to myself is it really worth that one day and then I realize I do this job because I absolutely love what I do, I believe in what I do and in watching two best friends commit their lives to each other is by far the most amazing thing I’ve ever witnessed (minus being a mother and nonna)
So kudos to all of my fellow vendors who have perfected their craft, I appreciate you and I appreciate not doing your job!
