Weddingbee Blog

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No, not that type of Doc, I’m talking about our wonderful and talented Day Of Coordinator, Sara Gorski!

For the longest time I didn’t think we needed a DOC, until I started really diving into the wedding planning. Everywhere I read, the #1 thing that brides said they wished they’d had was a DOC (if they didn’t have one), and the #1 thing brides said they liked best about their wedding was having a DOC (if they had one), so they didn’t have to worry about everything. And so, I started thinking that just sounded too good to pass up, and a DOC was quickly added to the budget.

Next came the research. There are SO many DOCs in the Bay Area, and their prices and services vary so much that it’s pretty difficult to compare them. So I started with laying out what I was looking for in a DOC, someone who could work with my type-A personality (and someone with a similar personality), who could handle all the set up and vendors with ease, but not do too much up until the last couple weeks before the wedding (I didn’t want anyone stealing my planning fun!). I e-mailed about 20 DOCs in the area, giving a little background about myself and what I was looking for, and started gathering quotes.

In mid June I met with two different coordinators, who were both just OK. The first one I didn’t really seem to click with. She kept trying to reiterate what I was saying, but I kept getting the feeling that she wasn’t really getting what I am going for with our whole ‘look and feel’. The second was very nice, but not quite passionate enough for my tastes, and I would be working with her partner for my actual wedding, but couldn’t meet with her partner for several months because she was on bed rest, pregnant with twins.

So I held tight for a few months, until early September when I got the chance to sit down with Sara Gorski. I’d been e-mailing with her since June, and just had a great feeling about her. She has a really nice website (something important to me, if you don’t have enough attention to detail to have a nice site, how are you going to pull off our wedding?), and I just seemed to click with her, since it seemed like we have quite a bit in common and similar personalities. She’s also somewhat new to wedding coordinating (although with lots of event management experience), so her prices were very reasonable, which was another plus! Sara had several weddings in August, so we had decided to hold off meeting until after Labor Day, so I could see some additional pictures of weddings she’d worked on.

During our meeting I got to see some of the events she’d coordinated, and showed her some of my own inspiration pictures, as well as reviewed my running list of what needs to be set up the day of (click on any one of these for a larger view):

And after a successful meeting, needless to say, we booked her! For $945, it’s a steal (price includes rehearsal coordination and a $100 early booking fee, plus an assistant for the day of for free, since we don’t need much help with the timeline creation). I’m so excited to work with her and I really feel confident that our wedding day will go smoothly with Sara at the reins. She is every bit as organized and detail oriented as I am, and even thought of several things I’m sure I would have missed (like moving the speakers and mic after the ceremony, duh!). I’m so thrilled to have crossed booking our DOC off the list, and yet again, glad I went with my gut feeling when making an important wedding decision.

Now, for any other Bay Area brides out there reading this, here is a breakdown of all the different services and costs I found in the area (listed in no particular order). I posted this on the Weddingbee boards a while ago too.

Will you be using a DOC for your wedding? And did you find a crazy-big price difference between DOCs in your area?