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The Truth About a “Day-of-Wedding Coordinator”

“Day-of-Wedding Coordinator” ------- the person who’s in charge of the wedding day – it’s pretty much a well known phrase that is used in the wedding industry. Ultimately, a “Day-of-Wedding Coordinator” is meant to be there to assist the couple by organizing their wedding day inside and out. From the wedding process to the banquet guest list to communicating with all the vendors, not only the coordinator needs to ensure that every little detail for the entire wedding and banquet is in place but would also need to guarantee that everything would run smoothly as the couple would want it to be.

Well, there’s actually no such thing as a “Day-of-Wedding Coordinator”. But think about it, if an assigned coordinator arrived on your wedding day and only to begin grasping the whole system within a certain time frame such as communicating with a certain someone, handling the decorations, getting familiar with the procedures, etc., it could get rather frustrating. Therefore having a “Day-of-Wedding Coordinator” a few months before your wedding could save him/her and yourself enough time for planning so everything would be much easier for the coordinator to organize on your big day even when a problem rises.

In other words, your wedding planner also serves as your “Day-of-Wedding Coordinator”. Though they may sound different they are actually inseparable in their jobs. A “Day-of-Wedding Coordinator” is basically an extra term used to explain its purpose in the wedding industry for the public.
To save you time and money, it’s always a good idea to hire a wedding planner as soon as possible. Also, to assure you that everything would go well with the planning a wedding planner could definitely be a great listener who would understand your needs and would develop a good relationship with you.

So why hasn't it been used widespread on the market with its amazing qualities? Could there be speculations or concerns? Here I’ll try to analyze thoroughly to answer some of the questions you might have raised.

1) A wedding planner is available only to people who are better-off.
To some people, hiring a wedding planner would usually mean paying a big chunk of money for an extravagant wedding so hiring one is not necessary for much smaller weddings. What people would usually misunderstand is that wedding planners are not there solely for financial purposes, but they are there to help you in putting everything together and to go according to your plan. What they want to do is to help you filter some of the information you acquired and to efficiently arrange your dream wedding. Furthermore, based on wedding expenses calculated from most proposals a wedding planner usually costs only 7-15% of your overall wedding costs depending on how big of your wedding is, so when you think about it the spending is pretty reasonable.

2) My bridesmaids and groomsmen could be my helpers and besides, I could always ask my families and friends to arrange my wedding.
Usually, most couples would have their families and friends to assist them in their weddings and would probably invite more bridesmaids and groomsmen for additional help. I can’t agree that it is suitable for every one because when you think about it, it’s absolutely not easy to plan a wedding and the pressure is definitely on especially for those who are not professional wedding planners. You can’t expect too much from them but you couldn’t get that picture of your dream wedding off your mind. So how will you convince yourself that there’s going to be a dream wedding while considering the abilities of your family and friends? You have just added more stress upon yourself and guess who would be taking care of everything on your wedding day when things don’t work out? You! Also, don’t forget that they are your wedding guests too so for them to enjoy the entire wedding it’s important to hire someone, a professional wedding planner, who could do the job right.

Finally, when you plan on getting married the first thing that comes to your mind should be hiring a wedding planner or a “Day-of-Wedding Coordinator”; not about paying extra expenses. So don’t hesitate because hiring a wedding planner will be the best decision you are going to make!

3) I don’t need to hire a wedding planner since various banquet halls offer wedding packages.
Definitely not! What you were right about is that banquet halls or wedding venues do offer wedding packages (a “Matrie’d” of a Western style wedding will be in charge, a typical restaurant manager for an Asian style wedding) however what they truly offer is merely focused on interacting with the guests and simply hosting the banquet. For instance, when the banquet is about to start Matrie’d’s job is to notify the host when the couple arrives at the entrance. What you don’t know is that these packages lean more towards the restaurant’s benefits (They work for the restaurant not you, so it’s not surprising that they don’t plan accordingly for you); they’re also unreliable when preparing for your wedding or coming up with a certain theme. Since each month there are around 20 couples for them to work with, it’s not hard to believe that these wedding packages do not offer more detailed and personal wedding procedures. This is why it’s not difficult to differentiate between the services they offer and a wedding planner offers. So it might probably be wishful thinking that a Matrie’d would stick with you every step of the way.

4) I don’t think I would need a wedding planner if I have a wedding/banquet host.
That’s not true. A host is there only to lead the wedding/banquet and to interact with guests, but that does not mean he/she can replace the wedding planner. For a flawless wedding you should have a wedding planner (responsible for planning and in charge of the wedding day) to look for the perfect person to host your wedding base on your tastes and interests. For that planner to assure everything goes according to plan, it is essential for him/her to make that connection with everyone who is part of the wedding. One of the major duties a wedding planner has is “risk management”, so when things go wrong they would need to immediately come up with a solution. For instance, something could go wrong with the venue booking where another couple might also be having their wedding at the same place, a wedding planner would be there to help you avoid these types of possible risks. So much could happen in a wedding but having a wedding planner can definitely ease your mind.