Your wedding planning begins as a few lines on paper and quickly transforms into a notebook full of ideas, expectations, and lists. The fun days of dreaming about the perfect day begin to take over your life, and you might need help tying up the loose ends. For some couples, hiring a day-of wedding coordinator that swoops in to take care of the final details can make or break the wedding day.
We were lucky enough to work with a lot of awesome vendors and wanted to take the time to give them some shout-outs. If you are getting married in Charleston and have any questions about any of these vendors, please feel free to leave a comment below!
Wild Flowers Inc – Beth served as both our florist and our day-of coordinator, and she really rocked. There is no way that we could have had our vision executed without her! The bouquets, boutonnieres, and decor that she created for us were beautiful and matched our vision perfectly. She made the whole night very relaxing! The only thing that I would warn you is that she is very silly, which went well with my personality, but if you are very serious or looking for a coordinator with a more serious attitude, she might not be right for you. We loved her!
A wedding binder is something that anyone planning a wedding needs. From receipts, to contracts, to seating charts, your binder holds it all. If you are planning a wedding, you probably have realized how fast those papers pile up.
Keeping them in a binder will save you a lot of trouble later, because everything is in one place. You don’t have a drawer full of papers to sift through, nor do you have to feel badly about keeping every piece of paper. It’s definitely a good idea to keep all your papers and receipts, because there has been more than one time where I have needed to return something or I didn’t receive everything I ordered. I would pull up the contract or receipt and scan them into the computer or take a picture of them and send it to whomever I needed.
Whenever you are entering into any legal contract, you should save not only the signed contract, but also your emails and conversations. If you need to dig them up, you know exactly where to look. When I started having problems with our venue, it helped to know exactly where the contract was so that we could prove our side. Sectioned tabs help with this, because then the binder is organized by categories to make looking for things even easier. Mine is organized into the following sections: ceremony, dinner, cake, centerpieces, invitations, guests, favors, and honeymoon.
A lot of people that I talk to are actually surprised that we have chosen to hire a day-of coordinator for our wedding. We are very transparent with the fact that we are paying for our whole wedding, and while I think our budget is high, it’s not that high by Charleston standards. We are avid do-it-yourself-ers; we love building and crafting and creating and planning things. But there was never any doubt in my mind that we would have a coordinator. I ended up engaging our florist, Beth from Wild Flowers Inc, to also act as our day-of coordinator. Really, though, since we booked her as a comprehensive coordinator, she is acting more of a “month-of” coordinator. It was worth the extra $1,000 to our budget. (We booked her last summer when she had slightly lower rates—it’s now $1,500, but you get 10% off if she’s doing your flowers.)
I really want to relax on our wedding day. We can get into the venue Saturday morning, but not before then. I plan to spend Saturday morning drinking mimosas, getting pampered, and giggling with my girlfriends and my mom. I don’t want to have to set up, and I certainly don’t want to know if anything goes wrong, especially minor things. I tend to freak out about things, so staying just a touch in the dark will be key to my big-day sanity.
I also really don’t want to clean up after the wedding. We are having an unofficial after-party at Red’s Icehouse, a creek-front bar across the parking lot from our venue. I’d like at least the option to attend, and I certainly don’t want to be worrying about getting our decor and vendors out in time to keep our deposit. I also don’t want to burden our family with that task.
It often feels like Mr. Narwhal and I share the same brain. While we have our own interests, we do have a lot of things in common, and often find ourselves saying things like “I was just thinking that!” or writing the same answers when playing games.
One of the things about Mr. Narwhal and me that we don’t share in common? Our sentiments on planning ahead. He has a go-with-the-flow attitude about life, and I like to make lists, spend money on Erin Condren planners, and, yes, create a secret wedding Pinterest account three months after we started dating.
Pinterest changed the waiting game. / Image via someecard
I like to plan things*. I just do. I have in fact been planning my wedding since I can remember. I was made for this stage of my life. While I did heavily consider the idea of eloping for quite some time (more on that another day), a lot of my excitement leading up to engagement and wedding planning was the planning part.
Time and again, I’ve read on the ‘Bee that the best money spent on a wedding expense was for a day-of coordinator. Even with all the sage advice, I hesitated on hiring one considering the following facts:
There is a venue coordinator at the Liberty Warehouse, and he knows his stuff. For anyone that watches Bar Rescue, the man could be John Taffer’s twin—in looks and in personality.
BM G is a former wedding coordinator so I trust her opinion, and she advised that we skip the DoC since we have a coordinator at the reception venue and church ceremonies can usually run themselves. She assured me that any day-of mishaps could be handled between my mom, herself, and the other bridesmaids.
We didn’t budget for a DoC, and by the time I got around to seriously considering one (back in September), wedding funds were running low. I reached out to a few vendors on pricing and was floored by the cost. We just couldn’t afford it.
I’m an organized person, so surely I could do just as good of a job as a hired pro if I prepared appropriately. Actually, I was certain that I’d do the best job because I’m the bride—the person who cares THE MOST about our wedding.
Before joining Weddingbee and throwing myself headfirst into wedding planning, I had no idea what a lot of these wedding-related acronyms meant: OOT, FI, MOH, STD…well, the last one has another meaning outside of wedding vocab…not something I want associated with the happiest day of my life.
Anyway, I learned the hard way what the acronym D.O.C. meant when a friend of ours decided to get married, and I became tasked with the job of Day Of Coordinator—on the DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING!
Mr. Angelfish was a GM (look—there’s another one!), and I was just attending the wedding as a supportive girlfriend. I went with him to the rehearsal the night before, and the pastor kindly asked the bride who was supposed to be coordinating the ceremony. The bride looked confused (and on the verge of crying), so the pastor asked if I could help him organize the wedding party since I knew (almost) all of them.
Mr. Angelfish, GM N, and GM Eagles as groomsmen in this wedding I helped DOC.
My friend Crafty shared this with me ages ago—on one of our wedding-crafting weekends—and I thought it was both pretty funny and pretty helpful. We’re still on our honeymoon (don’t worry, I scheduled this post).
Crafty’s sister is engaged and wants to get married, but has no interest in planning the actual wedding. Crafty’s all over planning things, so she offered to plan the wedding. The problem? They can’t seem to get anywhere.
Here are the conditions Crafty started with:
Crafty Sis told her she’d rather have someone else plan her wedding.
They are having a secular ceremony, so there’s no church to consider.
They aren’t considering a destination wedding because it would be cost prohibitive for a few people that they truly want there.
We have a gigantic family that we actually see on a regular basis. Their guest list isn’t made up of long-lost relatives; it’s people who they would rather share the celebration with (who would be deeply hurt if not invited).
I included the question about parental contributions because I know our parents are planning to contribute—I’ve heard it from both my parents.
I should have known that Friday, the day of our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, was going to be a less than perfect day when I told my hairstylist that I needed to leave the hair salon at 4:00 PM—no exceptions!—and left there at 5:30 PM. Granted, it was totally worth getting my hair relaxed and having hair extensions sewn in, but I totally missed the little get-together my mother had planned for me and Mr. G’s family at her home before the rehearsal.
I raced home to get dressed for the rehearsal and put on my Yukata (a cotton kimono). Mr. G and I had decided to bring some Japanese flair to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, and he wore a cotton men’s kimono as well. Mr. G and I headed straight to the rehearsal where our DOC and venue coordinator were setting up the reception area. I was glad that they were setting up early because we were able to get a sneak peek of the reception space.
Marveling at the room decor
Our families arrived soon after, and we began our rehearsal. We initially planned on having the rehearsal outdoors at the ceremony location, but it had started raining so we had to hold it inside.
OK, let me get real with you for a second. Our DOC is an incredibly polite and professional woman whom I enjoyed working with very much—except on the day of the rehearsal. I have a very loud, rowdy, and big family who were way too busy cracking jokes and talking to pay attention to our DOC. On that night I wish I’d had a tiger of a DOC who could have taken charge of everyone and handled the situation immediately rather than my sweet, soft spoken lamb of a DOC.
Well, the moment that I’ve dreaded has arrived: it’s time to review our day of coordinator that I’ve only hinted about. I debated if and how I should this, and then I read Mrs. Sword’s cathartic review of her photographer. In addition to her great post, what also struck a chord with me, was Sarah Cool’s comment:
This is such a tough situation, but I wish we (as brides) would feel more comfortable leaving negative reviews for bad experiences. It would help out other brides SO MUCH. But personally, I just don’t want to 1) be uncomfortable, 2) open myself up to legal issues, and 3) BE UNCOMFORTABLE. You know?
She is so right. As uncomfortable as it is to leave a negative review, I also don’t want another bride to go through what I went through with my DOC. And so, here is my honest review, negativity and all.
I’m not really aggravated here. This is just how I dance. (Mr. Rucksack is rightfully just as frightened.)
It probably comes as no surprise that hiring Carisa is my biggest regret of the wedding. Like my other reviews, I’ll try to keep this short and to the point and won’t be writing a laundry list of grievances here. I will, however, outline some of the biggest problems we experienced.
