Hire a day-of coordinator! Because yes, your friends and family want to enjoy your wedding too!

I know I’ve already written a Thursday Tips about having a wedding planner, but I had an experience at a wedding recently and I thought I would share it.

As some of you know, I work for an event décor company, and although I am the in-house coordinator for the company, I also help to set up events if I’m not booked. One weekend, I was helping to set up a beach wedding at a popular beach wedding venue. My company was hired to hang paper lanterns and drape because the venue required insurance to hang things in their structure. Other than that, the bride wanted to do everything DIY-she would have hung those things if she could have. She created centerpieces, ordered flowers from an online supplier, and was planning to make the centerpieces with the help of her family and friends. A few days before her wedding, we received an email asking if we could arrange the flowers for her centerpieces. We agreed, because we know how much goes on in the days leading up to a wedding.

We arrived at the venue, and the bride’s friends were in charge of setting things up. The bride was under the impression that the venue would be setting the tables, but they were nowhere to be found. Among all of the other things to set up, the bride’s friends also had to set the tables for this wedding. I’m sure you’re thinking, no big deal, it’s just a table. Well, they also had to set up a ceremony huppah and decorate it with tissue paper poms, which isn’t an easy feat if you’ve never done it before. It took them about 2 hours to do just the ceremony décor. Then they had to move on to the tables. They were starting to get visibly stressed, and were looking at each other like “Oh crap, we still have to get ready for this wedding that’s in 2 hours!”

And then there’s the recent wedding that I was the day-of coordinator for. The bride made the menus, added little DIY touches to chairs, made the escort cards, among many other things. Still definitely DIY. The bride, her friends, and her family were able to enjoy their time together on the wedding day. No one set foot in the ballroom until they were entering for the reception. Everyone had an absolute blast and at the end of the night, the bride told me that none of it would have been possible without my help. But the bride had done a lot- I just helped to execute it all.

In a nutshell- DIY seems like a great idea when you’re talking about it, and even when you’re creating the things for your wedding. I have nothing against a DIY wedding- I completely love them! But in the end, it’s usually not the best idea to put the responsibility of decorating and running your wedding in the hands of your poor unsuspecting friends, cousin Jill, mom or aunt Linda. So at the very least, hire a day-of coordinator. Your friends and family will thank you for it!