Weddingbee

I went back and forth, back and forth on whether or not we needed a day of coordinator (DOC) for our wedding. I even went so far as to contact some coordinators last year to find out pricing. But then I allowed our budget to rear its ugly head and decided that this was an extra cost we

just couldn’t justify.

Fast forward to this past January. I started to worry more and more about the actual events of the wedding day and who would do what. It was these babies that really started to have me worried:

Source

Read more…

When we first started planning, my mom was insistent that we get a wedding planner. As someone who has been married twice (once without a planner and once with!), she said it was the best money she ever spent to have someone running the day.

Well, I was pretty positive that our budget wouldn’t allow for a wedding planner, so I set about doing all the work myself. I was totally fine with it, although I slowly began to realize that, even though I’ve been willing to work long and hard on all the little wedding details thus far, I had no idea how everything was going to get taken care of on the actual day. Both of our families live out-of-state, so they haven’t been involved in the day-to-day planning and I didn’t know who to ask to run things.

One day, while scanning the Weddingbee classifieds, I saw an offer for a free Day of Coordinator in NYC. I immediately emailed, but had already been beat to the punch by other bees!

Read more…

I’m stuck. I have no idea whether I should hire someone to help on our big day (or if I can even find one available and within our budget three months out). They must have some sort of Procrastinators Appreciation Discount right?

So, Side A : We hire a DOC, and Side B: We don’t. I made a list of pros/cons, and am still undecided.

Side A: We are getting married at a ‘non-traditional’ venue, so there is no one in-house that would be in charge of me or my event. Which makes me think I need someone to be there to ensure things run smoothly.
Read more…

Oops, wrong “Doc”:

source

Early on in our planning, I knew that I wanted to hire a day-of-coordinator (DOC). I didn’t want a full blown wedding planner (I wanted us to have control of a majority of the “design” of our wedding), but someone to help run the show on our big day was a necessity.

Read more…

I’ve been absent from posting this last week… work took me out west to Denver. I was working like crazy and was literally inside of my hotel from Saturday evening to Tuesday evening, barely seeing the light of day. Ugh. Needless to say, all things wedding were pretty far from my mind.

Thankfully, my return flight provided me with a wedding infusion through the in-flight entertainment. I was flipping through the channels and was less than thrilled with the 5 options they provided - the Disney Channel, an old episode of The Office, and a couple of other random selections I flipped right by. But wait, is that Kate Hudson? And Anne Hathaway, is that you? Score. Bride Wars.

Source: IMP Awards

Read more…

Read more…

It’s no surprise that wedding planning, in a nutshell, has been pretty crazy. I wouldn’t really say I was super busy at first, but I was still pulling my hair out about insignificant things. All my friends have been so supportive and they have been offering their help to me unconditionally. The only problem is, I don’t know what to ask for. I don’t know how to delegate.

And so I spent most of my days stressing about nothing and everything, and not getting anything done.

Mrs. Bee has always said that hiring a day of coordinator was the best thing she’d ever done for her own wedding. I considered hiring one, but Mr. Martini was pretty confident that we would be able to do it without a DOC. He actually helped coordinate my best friend’s wedding a year ago. Not only is he fascinated with the wedding industry, he thought it was a great opportunity to get an idea of what it would be like to plan his own wedding someday. Fortunately for him, he is super organized, focused, and has a mild case of OCD. Unfortunately for me, I can’t concentrate on one thing for more than five minutes, and Mr. Martini lost interest in the little details of the wedding once all the big things like venues and vendors were taken care of (curses!! I was hoping he would plan the whole darn thing. Is that too much to ask?). So, I was left alone with my unfortunate predicament - absolute terror and wedding anxiety.

Mrs. Bee knows me well, and she knows that I have a huge problem asking for help.
Read more…

It is so important to be able to step back and ask for help when we need it. It is what will keep us sane in life and from going on overload. (This is my inner therapist talking; it is a whole different ballgame taking my own advice.) This same concept of asking for help applies to wedding planning. Since I already shared my amazing coordinator with you, I want to fill you in on why I thought it was so important to find someone to help with the big day.

I love event planning. I’ve been doing it for years and Mr. Duckling has as well. Before deciding to become a therapist, I thought seriously about wedding planning. I couldn’t wait to plan my own wedding if for no other reason than that I would get to plan a major event and all its details. However, I knew that without question, I wanted a day of coordinator.
Read more…

When I first began to think about who we wanted to work with for our wedding when it came to vendors, location etc., I thought about it as if I were picking my team. We’re not just picking people to work for us, or paying for a simple service. We’re searching for a group of people that we want to work with during this crazy and stressful process that will be surrounding us leading up to the day of our wedding. I’m searching for our team.

image

We all know how hard it is to pick out that guest list and choose the people who mean the most in our lives that will add to the special-ness of our day. You will be paying a lot so that they can be there. I think it is just as important that vendors you work with also add to your day. Your catering manager, coordinator, photographer, DJ, and florist will all be working with you closely, and who they are and their work will impact your wedding and you personally, whether it’s for the best or for the worst.

Read more…

Read more…