We understand! Planning your wedding is hard. This is probably the first time you have planned something this large, with this many moving pieces and to be frank, this expensive. You want to know that you have made all the right decisions and spent your hard earned money well. So you hire a wedding day manager (day of coordinator, planner, wedding manager, etc.) to help with the stress and to ensure your hard earned money and all your tough decisions play out perfectly. How do you know you’ve put your trust in the right person? Take a look at 4 things you should expect from your wedding day manager.
Involvement
Your wedding day manager should be involved before the week of or day of your wedding. While not a full or partial planner, they are still responsible for knowing your vendors, venue and your vision for your wedding day which they can’t reasonably do if they don’t get involved sometime between 2 and 3 months prior.
We are passively involved from the moment you sign our contract - gathering documents, reviewing contracts, offering referrals and being available to answer questions. We become actively involved 6-8 weeks prior to your wedding - working on your timeline, floorpan, reaching out to your vendors gathering needed day of information and working with you to put all the little details together.
Availability
Like any business your wedding day manager may have office hours and may have even limited communication based on the package that you purchased with them. Totally understandable, we have them too! However, their availability to you should not be completely cut off until a certain date passes. Not being available to you before a certain date means that they have to go into potential crisis management mode and play catch up, plus they can’t advise you on decisions that may have consequences that you are unaware of.
We want to know all about your wedding! Talk to us as much as you would like!! We are available to answer questions during our business hours via email starting the day you sign your contract. We want to know what is going, what you are thinking and how your wedding day vision is evolving. Knowledge is power and we want all the information!
Communicative
This one should go without saying, but your wedding day manager should communicate with you on a semi regular basis, from the time you contract until your wedding day (monthly communication at a minimum) just to check in and make sure everything is still proceeding on schedule. What shouldn’t happen is that you send them some money and then not hear from them until your official “start work date” occurs.
We talk to you about how often you want to hear from us. If you want us to check in every couple of months, we will. If you want monthly check-in’s we’re happy to do that as well. Our open door policy truly encourages you to reach out to us as well!
Friendliness (and TBH controlling, too)
Your wedding day will be one of the most emotional days of your life. You will experience high highs and low lows. You need a friendly face around and you also need to know they are in control of the entire day. Your wedding day manager should be friendly but in control at all times. At no point in the time leading up to your wedding should you feel like a burden, like you aren’t important or that they aren’t in control.
One of the reasons we like to talk face to face before you hire us is so you can get to know who we are as people. What you see is truly what you get. We want to ensure that we click and that you trust us absolutely. On your wedding day we are your cheerleader, your advocate, your director and yes, occasionally your bouncer.
If at any point in your planning process you don’t feel that your wedding day manager is fulfilling your expectations, have a sit down chat with them. You need them to be in your corner every single step of the way.
Haven’t hired someone yet? Reach out and schedule a FREE consultation so we can get to know each other, let’s see if we click!