The role of the wedding planner/coordinator is to assist clients in planning their weddding, or certain aspects of it, and bring the couple’s vision to life.
Wedding planners have been around for a long time, and most people automatically think of Jennifer Lopez’s role in the movie The Wedding Planner. We can assure you being a wedding planner is not as luxurious as JLO made it look. Wearing a dress and heels on the day of a clients wedding? The amount of times we’ve had to crawl around on our hands and knees to fix things such as decor, back drops, linens, bride and bridesmaids dresses etc, that would not be appropriate work attire for us.
Now, most venues do come with what’s called a Venue Coordinator, however they may still refer to themselves as a wedding planner or coordinator. They may sound the same, however Venue Coordinators at the end of the day work for the venue, whereas Wedding planners/ coordinators such as us at Perfect Planners, we work for the couple. To read up on the differences between the two more in depth, you can read a past blog post of ours “Wedding Coordinator versus Venue Coordinator“.
Not all couples decide to go with a Wedding Planner/ Coordinator, but we can assure you that EVERY couple who has hired us, did not regret it.
Your wedding day should be filled with laughs, love and loads of memory making. The last thing you should be worrying about is timelines, vendors showing up on time, or any issues that may arise on the wedding day. This is our job, let us do that so you can enjoy your special day.
The specific tasks that each wedding planner does may vary between companies, however the points we will be making are what your wedding planner should do, in our opinion, and what our team is trained to do! We have broken it down based on when the tasks would be done, such as before the wedding which includes all the planning, and then during the wedding day.
Please keep in mind that we tailor our services to each couple, meaning some couples may need/want our help more than others, or in different aspects of the wedding planning and coordinating!
Wedding Planning
The initial one on one meeting with the couple is free of charge, where we pick your brain and see what it is you are looking for and have in mind for your special day. We give you a slight inside scoop to what we think may work and any ideas we have to go with your theme. Once you decide that you’d like to work with us, you sign the contract and our work starts!
Some couples come to us knowing exactly what they want. They have a theme, colours, venue, and decor all planned out in their heads, or on their Pinterest boards! Then there are some couples who have some idea of what they want, however they aren’t sure on venues, or colours, etc. Regardless, we can help! Just by gathering some information from the couple, we can get a general idea of what they are looking for and what we absolutely should stay away from. Another important thing that is discussed is the budget, and the plan we come up with for that.
Your wedding planner should be doing the budget planning with you, and constantly monitoring it to ensure your dream wedding stays within it! With the budget planning we are able to start searching, and suggesting, venues that not only fit the budget but the theme and asthetic of your wedding. Once the couple has selected a few venues, we will arrange site visits for all of us to go and check it out in person together. We also do this with any potential vendors you may need such as DJ, Decor, Florals, Catering, etc. We outsource the vendors, negotiate vendor contracts, and keep in constant communication with any and all vendors that have to do with the wedding day. We find this to be absolutely crutial in ensuring the wedding day goes perfectly!
Once we have the vendors all secured, we reach out to them all to get an idea of what they need on the day of. For example, how much time they need to set up in order to be ready ontime for when they are needed. By reachig out to them to get times, and ideas, we are able to build the ultimate timeline of the wedding day. Not to toot our own horns or anything, but when we build a detailed timeline, we BUILD a detailed timeline. It includes everything you can think of and it’s one of the things our clietns absolutely love. When the rough draft is complete, we send it off to all of the vendors again, this allows us to make sure everyone is on the same page and if there are any scheduling conflicts we are able to fix them. We wait to get the approval from all vendors before finalizing the timeline, and then it goes out again for everyone to have for the day of.
At Perfect Planners we find it cruitial to building meaningful relationships with the vendors we work with at each and every wedding!
Photo: As It Happens Photography Inc.
Another very important part of our task before the wedding day is the rehearsal! Regardless if you have an officiant that attends the rehearsal or not, we are always there as we feel this is another critical aspect to making sure the wedding day is a success! We ensure each person knows exactly what is expected of them on the day of, where they should stand, when they should walk, etc!
the wedding day
You may assume that the “hard work” of planning is done, and we can just sit back and watch the day unfold, however that is certainly not the case. The day of, the couple has our full attention, we typically are the first to arrive and always the last to leave, and hardly sit down! The day of is when we need to be in top shape to catch any problems that could potentially arise and solve them before anyone notices, that includes the couple.
If you are curious to hear some stories of problems that have arose in past weddings, check out our “Things That Go Wrong” blog post!
The day of for us is constantly checking the timeline, making sure the other vendors are arriving as they should be. If there are deliveries to be made, like the cake or any rentals, we are the day-of contact so the couple can focus on getting ready and enjoying the day. We are the ones that keep everyone on track and on time, that being said some things are out of our control, however with our problem solving skills we almost always able to get everyone back on schedule!
While the couple gets ready, we are at the venue setting everything up, and making sure other vendors that are setting up and doing it how the couple wanted it done. For the ceremony, this could mean aisle decor, alter decorations, candles, special seating signs, and that the signing pen is at the signing table. At the reception site, we go around and check the tables, and number of seats at each, making sure the venue has the correct number of guests. Another important thing we check for with the table settings is any special equipment that may be needed. For example, highchairs, booster seats, or a place with no chair to accommodate a guest in a wheelchair. From there we will set out the placecards, favours, table numbers, stationary, signs, centrepieces, etc.
Once everything is set up and show time approaches we are there to make sure everyone arrives to the venue on time, if they are not already there. We ensure the guests are seated, the DJ or musicians are cued, and those walking down the aisle are doing so at the right pace and are evenly spaced out for optimal photo capturing! We assist the photographer with the post-ceremony photo session, ensuring you get photos with all the family members and friends that you want a photo with. We keep you hydrated and fed, making sure the venue brings you a special platter of the cocktail hour food to keep your energy up.
When it comes time for the reception, they usually start with grand entrances. During this time we coordinate with the venue and DJ to get things started and ensuring the correct names are being called and the specific songs are being played. Throughout dinner service we are constantly keeping an eye on the tables making sure guests are happy and being served. In most cases, while everyone is eating we have speeches spread out through the service, we like to go around and give those doing speeches a heads up before it is their time to get called up so they can have 10-15 minutes to prepare, go to the washroom etc. Our goal throughout the rest of the night is to keep things on track, in control and on schedule!
Earlier we mentioned that our team is the last to leave. A lot of wedding planners and coordinators don’t do this, however we find it important to ensure everything goes perfectly, right to the very end. We also like to stick around to the very end to make sure the couples ride at the end of the night shows up. We have had it before where the limo service doesn’t show up for the bride and groom at the end of the night. In one particular case we were able to get ahold of another preferred vendor of ours and have them come last minute to take our couple home.
Before the couple leaves we help them gather all of their belongings and make sure that nothing is left behind! In some cases, we will actually pack most of the wedding items into our vehicles, and meet up with the couple or members of the family a few days after the wedding.
We can only touch on some of the tasks that we take care of for our clients, the list is honestly endless because anything that pops up, we take care of. Our sole purpose is to not only help plan and put together the wedding of your dreams, but execute it and ensure any problems that arise get sorted immediately. All of our clients get treated like family, we work as hard to ensure your day is perfect as we would for our closest family and friends, and we feel any wedding planner in the industry should do the same! As we mentioned earlier, there is no one size fits all when it comes to wedding planning and coordinating. What one couple needs and wants will be different from the others, so we really do tailor our services to each and every couple that we meet.
