Wedding Blog

During that post-wedding letdown period (where you realize that you’re not wedding planning anymore and miss the more fun components of planning the event), many women think about starting up wedding-related businesses. Sometimes it’s a fleet of fancy and the person gives up on the idea when they realize they don’t really like it. I have always loved planning events and did as much during my college career. It seemed pretty natural that after planning the wedding, I’d look into planning other people’s special events. Over the last couple of months of marital bliss, I’ve not taken the time to pursue this career path because I’ve been busy with life in general.

On Thursday night, after I came home from Back To School Night, I was de-stressing and watching TV when my phone rang. It was a woman, Em, who was getting married on October 6.

Backstory: Em and I met on The Knot. She lives in Texas. We were getting married at the same venue within a couple of weeks of each other in Summer 2006. Weirdly enough, both of us postponed our weddings. Em changed her location completely to a destination wedding in Hawaii. Mr. P and I were invited guests, but weren’t able to go for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, I did refer several vendors to her, one of whom she was actually supposed to be using (ironically, the coordinator).

Anyway, Em asks if I’m still interested in coordinating weddings. I’m puzzled because she’s supposed to be getting married in Hawaii and it’s 2 days before the event. Turns out Hawaii fell through two weeks before and she was getting married. In Santa Barbara. At the Four Seasons. Same day. I agreed to help out as best I could and waited for the promised additional details on Friday, as it was late for her.

Friday came and went. No details. No nothing. She didn’t get into Los Angeles until very late on Friday and was too tired to give me details then. The only detail I got was that the airlines lost her uber expensive St. Pucchi wedding gown because they wouldn’t let her carry it on. My first coordinating experience is not starting off too hot!

On Saturday, she called me at 10AM and gave me bare minimum details. Em happened to be over near my home (within 10 miles) for hair and makeup, so I swung by to pick up some checks to pay vendors and hauled ass up to Santa Barbara. I got there by 2PM and the ceremony was to start at 4:30 PM. While there, I had to basically learn EVERYTHING about her wedding — the food, the set-up, the vendors, etc. At 3:00, I called Em to see where she was at and she hadn’t left Los Angeles yet. Mind you, Santa Barbara is about 100 miles away from where she was at! Long story short, the bride didn’t arrive at the hotel until past SIX PM!!!

Luckily, I displayed some quick thinking skillz. I arranged for the guests to be moved to the cocktail hour so they’d get some food and drink (because, as we all know, food and drinks make even the grumpiest guests a bit happier). I also had to talk to the bride about moving her ceremony location (or date) because of the late hour and the lack of available light outside. I was on the spot with a sewing kit for a bridesmaid’s dress strap and a nail file for the bride. I set up the candy buffet including hot gluing cutesy candy wrappers onto candy (and simultaneously burning my fingers and getting glue on my nails).

In the end, Em and Groom were exceedingly happy with their wedding day, despite Em thinking everything would be a disaster because of the late notice, lost dress, and everything else. It was so great to see her smiling happily at her reception, especially when she saw her cake. To be fair, the cake was simply stunning — an 8 tier confection reminiscent of a Faberge egg, courtesy of the Cake Divas. I was sad that I didn’t end up snagging a piece, as there was cake for days (40-ish guests and an 8 tier cake means that you’ll be on a sugar high for a week)! I’ll be able to add some pics when I get a CD of images from her amazingly talented and ultra friendly photographer Tomas Ramos.

All in all, quite an experience! I feel like I learned a great deal from this and can only get better from there.