“Day of Coordination” is dead. There, I said it! Whew. I feel so relieved. Now, to be clear, coordination on the day of your event isn’t dead. But the mentality that as a coordinator we sweep in on the wedding day ONLY and make everything run smoothly simply isn’t true. 

It takes preparation, planning and skill to pull off a wedding day!

Even if we’re “only there for the wedding day,” we’ve in reality, done hours of prep work to ensure that we make it look effortless! 

When it comes to industry jargon, we’re moving away from calling it “day of coordination”  to calling it “event management” – it isn’t a new service, but it is a new perspective! We feel that it’s a better representation of the work that goes into coordinating a wedding day. But We also recognize that couples are conditioned to know what having a wedding coordiantor means. So we thought we’d take the opportunity to break down what a “day of coordination” package actually is and why we’ve made the name change! 

We’re usually stepping in 2-3 months prior to the wedding day.  

We spend hours organizing the “state of affairs’ as they stand.

We bring ourselves up to speed on the day-of-details. 

We’re taking over your vendor + venue contacts. 

We’re creating the master timeline and coordinating with your team of vendors to ensure that everyone is in the loop.  

We’re doing site-visits, countless phone calls and emails. 

We’re coming in during the most stressful part of the planning process to ease your worries and stress.  And that’s all before the day even arrives. 

The average wedding day looks something like this:

• Up and early…answering any emails or texts
• Driving usually 2-3 hrs to the venue with my wedding assistant.  Reviewing all of the “detail” for the wedding day
• 1st person to arrive at the venue (last person to leave too).
• Start greeting all of the vendors and reviewing timeline & other expectations with them for the day
• Go greet the wedding couple! This gives us an opportunity to feel out what still needs to be done and make the couples feel calm and stress free!  We also arrange lunch or snack and waters to be delivered to both sides of the wedding party 
• Off to the ceremony site!
• Meet with the florist to see if they need anything (they’re a critical piece of the design & decor puzzle). 
• Ensure that set-up is done and all of the last minute detail and decor is in place. 
• Off to the reception again….
• Meet and greet with the cater, band or DJ, photographer, baker.  Make sure the table decor is perfect!
• Ensure all of the other last-minute detail and decor is in place. 
• Back to Ceremony. It’s GO time!
• Send couple down the aisle.
• Head back to reception to greet.
• Keep everyone on track, per the timeline.
• Lastly we celebrate the closing of another wonderful wedding by popping some bubbles
• Close up the event (often includes transporting gifts & cake topper, helping caterer, venue & florist break down, deliver any tips for couple, etc).

Needless to say, the number of hours we put into “the day of” far exceeds the actual day of! We can easily put in a 12-14 hour day. THEN we have the Wedding Hangover the deal with (yes, it’s a real thing)! Hence the “new” name- Event Management. We hope this helps you better understand the shift you may be seeing the wedding space and gives you a bit of perspective from our point of view!

Still have questions? We’d love to chat! Contact us today!