CONGRATULATIONS!
You’ve been engaged for a while you’ve set a date. Now it gets even more exciting and you need to start planning your wedding! You’re looking forward to the challenge, you love spending time browsing through the wedding websites and Facebook pages. You’re pretty organised in general and have some ideas of colours. You have started listening to some music you’d like to be played at your wedding and know what your first dance will be. But what now?
It’s likely you haven’t planned a wedding before but if you have you’ll know the amount of time you need to set aside and the number of lists that you’ll need! It’s a good idea to have a folder on your computer to save all of your wedding related documents in and a subfolder on your emails to pull all of your correspondence across to so that it’s easy to access. Using the calendar on your phone or PC to send you reminders for meetings and supplier invoice payments is also another good way of keeping organised and on track.
These are all things that you, and only you, can do and the planning and meetings and all those ideas swimming around in your head might start to feel a bit overwhelming. So if your wedding venue offers you the services of a wedding coordinator then grab it with both hands as she (or he!) will be invaluable and a real friend on your wedding planning journey! If they don’t then it would be a great idea to consider hiring one.
SHARING KNOWLEDGE
However much you’d like to be in charge of your own arrangements and keep control of the planning process you’ve only got so much time and so it’s great to feel that someone is in your corner giving you support. In addition it’s always good to have an expert to bounce ideas off and someone who can share their experiences with you. A wedding coordinator will have seen (and resolved) hundreds of issues around weddings over the years and will be able to give you the benefit of that experience resulting in a smooth wedding day for you, your fiancé and your guests.
SAVING YOU TIME AND MONEY
A wedding coordinator will be able to give you budget planning tools and advise you on how much of that budget should be apportioned to the different services and suppliers that you need. It needs a lot of thinking about and discussion. It won’t be the same for everyone and will depend a lot on what’s important to you and your partner on your wedding day. Some couples will want to spend more on their photographer or maybe enlist the services of a videographer too. Other couples will focus more attention on the entertainment at their wedding. The bulk of your budget will, of course, go to your wedding venue and food so it’s important to understand what is included in your wedding package and if there’s any extras that are included as standard that you won’t then have to pay out for on top of the venue’s fee. The more that’s included the better for you, and those suppliers in the package will also have worked together in the past which will help the flow of your wedding. Your wedding coordinator will be able to advise on other local suppliers and once she gets to know you will have a good idea of which suppliers will work well with you – and with each other on the day.
HELPING TO ACHIEVE YOUR VISION
The internet is awash with ideas and images and many couples find it so difficult to drill down on what it is that they’d like in terms of overall style. A good way of starting to collect ideas is using a Pinterest board so that every time you see something that looks interesting you save it on your board. Over time you can add or discard images and see what fits together and what looks out of place. Share these with your wedding coordinator as she will doubtless have additional ideas for maximum impact. She will also have contacts for venue styling who with insight to your ideas can make further suggestions and provide the items, such as props and backdrops, that you’d like. It’s often cheaper to utilise the services of a recommended venue stylist than start collecting lots of items yourself – plus one less thing to do yourself! If venue styling is included at your venue, more the better!
NOTICING THE THINGS YOU’VE MISSED
With the best will in the world you’re not going to think of everything but your wedding coordinator will quickly notice if you haven’t thought to order buttonholes, provided a swatch of your bridesmaids’ dress fabric to your venue stylist or forgotten to provide directions to your venue to your guests. She’ll be checking the weather forecast before your wedding to see if some golf umbrellas might be wise and will definitely ensure that you’ve thought about a comfy pair of shoes (hidden under your dress) for the evening so you can enjoy the dancing. Most wedding coordinators have an inbuilt super power of weeding out problems before they occur – leading to a stress free day for you all.
CHECKING IN WITH YOUR SUPPLIERS
Your wedding team will probably end up including quite a large number of suppliers. It’s great if these suppliers know each other and have worked together before as they will all support each other. This could be something as simple as a spare safety pin if a drape has fallen down, or actually helping each other fetch and carry if time is running short. It’s not often that this is the case though and so it’s super important to have one person who can liaise with your suppliers in advance ensuring that the blush pink you’ve spoken to your florist about is the same blush pink your venue stylist is using so there are no clashing shades. Putting the DJ in touch with the band so that running orders are discussed prior to your wedding resulting in a seamless flow of entertainment on the day rather than any difficulties because of miscommunication.
PROVIDING A STRESS FREE WEDDING DAY
From the moment you wake up in the morning on your wedding day right through to the last dance and waving goodbye to your guests your day must be perfect and just as you imagined and planned for. But you are at the centre of the celebrations and can’t possibly be organising everything behind the scenes on your big day. Having a trusted wedding coordinator who has worked with you for the last year, possibly 18 months, and that you feel really understands you, your partner and how you’d love your wedding to be takes all the stress away.
At Weddings at Fort Burgoyne we don’t expect you to bring in your own wedding coordinator, although you can if you want to. We provide you with a wedding coordinator as part of your package who will work with you throughout and be your go to person on your big day.
