Success Story: Planner vs. Venue

Apr 29, 2013 | Day-of Coordinating, wedding planning, Weddings

It all looks as if it is going smoothly. Only the planner knows for sure. Courtesy of sprungphoto.com.

Once in a while I have to toot my own horn.  I have a story for you that is interesting and also answers that age-old question, “Why should I hire a wedding planner or coordinator?”

I worked on a wedding last year that was excessively well planned.  The bride is, herself, an event planner and had everything organized down to the last detail.  Someone with less experience than she had might have concluded that between her exceptional planning and the professional staff at the venue, everything would go smoothly.  Maybe sometimes that is the case, but not here.

I won’t name the venue–to protect the guilty–but let’s just say that it is a medium-size place that is accustomed to large events.  It’s the kind of place one might reasonably expect to know what it is doing when there is a large wedding on site.

Both the bride and I had expressed to them how important it was to set a sound level on their equipment for the recorded recessional music.  I began asking the venue staff to set up the sound equipment soon after I arrived.  Thirty minutes before the ceremony, the catering manager was still trying to set up his own equipment, and clearly didn’t quite understand how it functioned.  I did manage to set a sound level before the guests were seated, but only barely.

Things went well for a while.  The ceremony went off without a hitch, and the guests moved to the next room while the venue staff, the florists, and I turned the room over for the reception.  Once the meal began, though, it became clear that the venue was under-staffed.  No one poured wine at the head table, and it was hard to find a server.  Not only that, but the venue manager disappeared.  I simply didn’t see him after a certain time.

That meant that I became the point person for everything, even things I couldn’t possibly know.  But that’s all right:  I can find things out when I need to.  I spent the rest of the wedding day answering questions and solving problems that should have fallen to the venue staff.  The guests never knew anything  was awry; even the bridal couple never knew.  Only the bride’s mother and I were making sure that everyone else had a happy time.

The moral of the story is this:  Good planning is very important, but no one can foresee everything.  If you want your wedding day to go as planned, it is also important to have someone who is your advocate on hand to solve problems and smooth over difficulties.