But SHOULD You Skip a Day-of Wedding Coordinator | Wedding Q&A

Well, hello lovely humans and welcome to Engage, a wedding planning podcast for the modern day couple. I'm your host, Jamie Wolfer, and I truly believe that wedding planning does not need to be complicated or time consuming. I kind of picture these episodes like jumping on a quick phone call with your wedding planner. You get your answers and you go on your merry way. Because sometimes not all of us have an hour to dedicate to listening to super long podcasts or super long intros. So without further ado, let's just jump right on into it. Today's episode is going to admittedly be a little bit all over the place. You see, every single month I sit down with the people over in the master plan course and answer your questions in Lifetime. So if you find yourself struggling and really need to sit down and speak with a real life wedding planner, I would love to be a part of your wedding planning journey. Join us over in the Master plan today to get your questions answered. Until then, take a listen. My family does not drink, but my fiance's family does. If a venue has a beverage minimum, should this include non alcoholic and mocktails? I don't know. I think it depends per venue. You should probably ask your venue this specifically because drink minimums, from what I understand is just alcoholic and usually na. NA means non alcoholic. NA and mocktail mocktails might be included in that. But nabev, water, iced tea, lemonade, usually it's just like, ah, yeah, of course we'll have it ready. So that could vary per venue. So either take a look at your proposal or talk to them directly. Sitting here listening to a podcast is all fine and dandy, right? But sometimes you need an actual person to be asking some of these questions to and you may be sitting there going, you know what, Jamie? Actually, yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. I would love to be able to ask you these questions. Guess what? You need to join the master plan. You've heard me talk about it, but do you know why I love it so much? You get over 10 lessons that walk you through planning your wedding with videos and spreadsheets and other detailed resources along the way. Join me and my virtual clients over in the master plan and get all your wedding planning questions answered. Literally thousands of couples have gone on this journey with me and I'd love for you to be next. Check it out@wolferandco.com tmp that's wolferenco.com tmp Listen, wedding budgets suck. They're just like the actual worst. And the hardest part for me is that weddings are not cookie cutter. They're not one size fits all. And I think it's important to make sure that you're budgeting according to your priorities. Build a budget that works with your vision and you'll be on the path to planning a wedding that you really want. So if you want my recommendations for making your perfect budget for you and your partner, head on over to wedding priorities dot com. I am currently going through the steps outlined in the master plan. Oh, bravo. Good job. I understand that having help on the actual day is crucial, so I've been looking into getting quotes from day of coordinators. However, many of them are quoting prices in the thousands, mainly offering services for the month of the wedding. Since I'm already doing most of the setup work myself, I'm wondering how I can find a day of coordinator who fits within my budget without overspending, considering the efforts I've put into the preparations. First of all, we, I train wedding planners. I do something exactly like this once a month with a whole separate course training wedding planners on how to run their businesses and how to be bomb wedding planners. So we're going to drop the link for them into the chat. If you are looking for someone for day of coordination, secondly, day of coordination and month of coordination are synonymous. It's all, it's all. It's the same exact thing. You will not see. You should not see a wedding planner or wedding coordinator. Just show up on your wedding day and go, okay, I'm ready. No, you need to have a meeting with them a couple weeks in advance. So the terminology, I get that a lot of people use them interchangeably and that can be really obnoxious. Especially if you're like, I don't know what this means. What I can tell you is I would keep hunting because you still want month of coordination. That doesn't mean that they do all of the work for you. A month out, two months out. That means they start to gather information from you. You have a meeting a month out. So for me, I usually meet with my couples for a month of coordination about six weeks in advance. So I'm like, all right, I got this big giant document. Give me all your details. I'm going to talk you through them and ask all the questions. I need to get to know your event. I need to get to know what's important to you. And then, excuse me, I will usually write the timeline, send it to them, be like, how does it look? That's usually about the four week mark. Then at about the two week mark, I send out that timeline to all of the vendors. Hey, I'm the coordinator. I will be there for the big day. Let me know if you have any questions. I take over communication, so it's not like I spend a month planning your event. I just pace it out well enough in advance in case I have questions for you that I need you to go ahead and answer. Right? Or I need you to figure those out. And I don't want to do that on the day of your event. I have to get to know you and what you want first. So that's why it's often called month of coordination. My guess is you're probably looking for someone who's quite a bit newer. So I would say, look at our union network. They have to go through six months of training with me minimum to even be listed on this. Um, and also look in local Facebook groups. Be very clear about your budget. Hey, I'm looking for a day of coordinator. They might be like, I'm a month of coordinator. Please remember that. Those are, like, super, super synonymous. Okay? You still want. You need those earlier meetings. You never want a coordinator to just show up and be like, I got this. No, they don't. No, they don't. Do you have any idea how organized you'd have to be to pull all of that? You're still planning your whole event. You're still putting so much effort into it, but it would make sense to still have that earlier meeting. So if you go into a Facebook group, hey, I've got a thousand dollars for day of coordination on my wedding day. Anyone down? Anyone available to do this? Can I. And watch all of the offers come in. This is why I like Facebook groups. It's like a reverse Google, right? Because Google's great, except for people pay to be at the top and they don't lead with their pricing. Facebook groups. Facebook groups are like one of my favorite online tools for wedding planning, because you can go in there and be like, here's my budget. Here's the day. Who's available? And just watch as the offers come trickling in. We've got a great Facebook group. It's huge. It's like 60,000 people. So you can jump in there, Someone might know someone in your area, or you can go to a local specific Facebook group. And I know that I'm involved here in Central Texas. There's like, there's Austin brides group. There's a Dallas brides group. There's all these different bridegroups that are very specific to the area. So you can define vendors A lot more easily and oftentimes there's vendors in there as well, so I'd recommend doing that. All right. Our ceremony will have two unity rituals during the ceremony. Tree planting, I think, and definitely broom jumping. How do I manage the flow rhythm with these both? Well, if I'm correct, the broom jumping happens towards the very end, right? So just have them in two separate types. If you want to have your officiant explain what's happening, you totally can. The tree planting makes sense and the broom jumping, probably culturally for most people, will make sense as well. So just have them separately. Tree planting would happen earlier. Broom is right before you walk down the aisle. Correct. Correct me if I'm wrong. Maria. That's easy. I love that. I love that you're doing both of those. And if you want to figure out how to plan the perfect wedding ceremony, I've got a video for that. Also, if you guys ever have video suggestions or things you want help with like a full video donut, let me know. I love what I do. I like to make the videos, especially ones that you guys need. Oh, now it'd probably be a good time to mention perfect wedding timeline if you'd like to have the perfect wedding timeline, especially for your ceremony and make sure it flows really well. Okay. Valerie said, my fiance and I are more introverted and don't feel the need to do an all day occasion with a late night party scene. We were looking into a brunch wedding to simplify our day and cut costs. Can you share any insight you have on doing a non traditional morning slash brunch wedding? Do you have any considerations we should keep in mind? We're not huge into dancing but still want a first dance, a father daughter dance, and a mother son dance for the morning slash brunch wedding. How can we work this into our day? Would there be an awkward transition in the timeline for cutting the day short without an all night dance party? How does the day of timeline change for the brunch wedding in the master plan? Okay, start with the first question. Considerations Getting ready time. What time are you getting up? Hair and makeup. How many people need to get ready? I ideally probably not be awake at 4am so we're going to want to pace hair and makeup accordingly. This might mean that you bring in extra artists, extra hair, makeup artists and hairstylists to get the job done. Depending on how many people you have, I want you well rested. I want to make sure you're not showing up with bags under you guys. So talk to your getting ready Team and make sure that's, that's ready to go for you also. Anything else you should keep in mind? No, I, I think dancing will be super easy to incorporate, especially if I would recommend us. Okay. Flow of a We've got ceremony, cocktail hour. You're doing photos. Then we get ready for reception. Grand entrance, you go straight to food. Here's a situation where I think you could actually pull off those three dances first if you'd like. Toast. Yeah, we could do toast. Wait, what am I talking about? We do toast after dinner anyways. So you could do the first dance. Father, daughter and mother, son. And then go straight into the meal. Right. And then everyone eats. You can have your toast happen afterwards. And then I would just play jazzy cocktail hour style music and let everybody mingle. It's going to feel very relaxed, it's going to feel very fun. And in fact, it's so awkward to dance in the middle of the day. One of my biggest tips, if you want a packed lit dance floor, is for it to be the least lit dance floor. If the lights are upright, no one wants to dance. They want to feel like no one could see. They want to be shrouded in mystery as they shake them hips. Okay, so you're already setting up a great, a great opportunity here to not encourage dancing. Because if they're, if the lights are too bright in a venue, I automatically know the dance floor is not going to be as packed. It's just not going to happen. People need the like the cocoon type feeling of the darkness, like move their hips around. I don't know what I'm doing. Why am I doing this? You see what I'm saying? That's why nightclubs are pitch black with like a really aggressive strobe light. So as far as the timeline goes, it's probably not going to change much of anything. You're still going to want the pacing for photography, you're still going to want that pacing for the meal. But instead of having the dance time afterwards, you're going to have mingling time and it's probably going to be a bit shorter. Usually we recommend about two and a half hours for the dance floor. Hour and a half to maybe three tops. So you're probably gonna spend an hour and a half talking with your guests and it's gonna be great and it's gonna be casual, maybe two. And then you could even do like a quiet granite set. Doesn't have to be like a big hullabaloo. I think you are setting yourself up for Success with a great event here, Valerie. I'm not too worried about the timing of anything. The only thing I would switch is maybe the dancing and talk to your hair and makeup artists. And let me see. Also, I still think you should get a dj. If it's in the budget, I think you should still try to make that work because you're going to still want those perfunctory dances to sound good. You're still going to want toast to sound good, and you're still going to want music to sound good, even if it's not dance floor music. We have decided to simplify our bridal party to just a maid of honor and best man. How can we incorporate our best friends in other ways? What might need to change? If the bridal party is minimal, not much needs to change. It's just going to be a shorter walk down the aisle. Not as many people are going to come down. I'm not quite sure what you mean by how can we incorporate our best friends in other ways? Like friends that are not in the wedding party. How can they be incorporated? I would spend intentional time with them. You can still get ready with them even if they're not in their wedding. In your wedding party, you can still have mimosas with them in the morning. You still eat with them, you can still hang out with them. Bring your makeup, bring your hair stuff. Come get ready with me. No pressure, but I'd love to see you there. That's honestly what I would do. And then if it were me, I would really want to get on the dance floor with them because I really like dancing at events. Only if it's dark. Though we do have a way to help select your wedding party if you're kind of on the fence for some people. So we'll toss that in the chat for you. And then there's how to pick your bridal party and then wedding party myths. We'll talk. We'll drop those in as well. Okay, I am going to jump on over here because I know there was a couple of questions over here. Now we've got about eight minutes left. I'll do my best to answer these if there's any more that come in. We might stay a little bit over because I did start three minutes late. So I will honor that time for sure. But let me know if there's more follow up questions and then I'll do my closing. My closing argument, AKA end of call announcements at the very end. My fiance's parents are divorced, remarried, but still hate each other's Guts. We love this for you. In an event where they're going to be in the same room, our DJ asked how they will be coming out during the reception. Would his mom come out with a stepdad and dad with his stepmom? Or. Or should we have them all come out together? Announced? Also, my mom isn't with anyone, so maybe she can be a middle person as a buffer. Just trying our best to make this not awkward. Don't have them come out like. No. Most events we don't announce the family for the grand entrance for the reception. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We've already had to deal with this hullabaloo walking down the aisle for the ceremony. Okay. We don't need any more. We don't make more drama. So unless you meant for the ceremony, which please feel free to correct me, don't just skip it all together. And ideally avoid that. That'd be great. If you're like, no, I still like the idea, then yes, I would put your mom in the middle of the buffer with someone to escort her. It could be a brother, uncle, grandfather, or you know, it doesn't have to be a dude in your life. It could be somebody else, but so your mom doesn't have to be like, hi, single queen. Thank you so much for calling more attention to that. Love this. For me, I would say skip it if you don't feel like skipping it. Yes, you could use your mom as a buffer, but give her an escort. The same escort ideally that she will have going down the aisle. Unless she's walking with you. Okay. I am 36 years old with a 19 year old daughter and a 17 year old son from a previous relationship a long, long time ago. But this is my first marriage. I did the single mom thing for a long time. My fiance and I have been together for nearly five years and have a sweet two year old together. My fiance and children get along well, but as the kids are young adults and aren't mushy as usual, I aren't as mushy as I am. And none of them are huge fans of the spotlight. They don't want to do any extra dances, me and my son, my fiancee and my daughter, etc. And it seems like sand pouring or candlelighting is a bit too much for them as they don't see this as a family. As they don't see this as a family joining like I do. Am I wrong for wanting to have something symbolic for my family during the wedding? Do I need to let go of the idea that my family is becoming one. Oh, okay. So these are separate questions. So, Chris, can I just squeeze you just. You love Nugget. I'm so sorry, because it feels like. Can we all just, like, get along for, like, one second? Can you just do this one thing as is your mom? Can we just pretend that the spotlight's, like, not the worst for a minute? Right? Like, that's hard. So I'm really sorry, first of all, because you're like, it's not that much, guys. Sand, like, I'm not asking you to do a jig or to break dance. I would if I were you. If you feel so inclined and so, so comfortable to do so, I would explain why. Be like, hey, y' all may not feel like this is merging as, like, one big thing, but this is my life converging and coming all together. This is symbolic of me uniting all the pieces of my life together. And you are pieces of my life. That's precious and that's important and that's powerful, and I would love to celebrate that. Now, what we have seen is if they're like, no, no spotlight, don't want to do it. We've literally had couples step away from the altar to go do some sort of unification ceremony. So if you got an arch, if you got any sort of greenery, like hedges, if it's outside, you can step back behind something and go do that over there. We've had people be surrounded by family member, and they just like, hover over them and give a blessing or give a prayer, depending on if it's faith based or not, to kind of just surround you for a moment so it doesn't feel like your family members are on display, but I would share your heart first. So you guys might not feel like this is one big happy, you know, unification ceremony, but for me, it is. For me, this feels like a culmination of so many beautiful parts of my life coming together. And I would love to have a moment of that. If you still feel like they're like, I can't do it during the ceremony, then do it after. Take five minutes. Go, just a few of you. And before you start taking photos, be like, hey, can we just have a moment? Can I just even. Even just group hug. We'd all just, like, squeeze each other for a sec. It's like, this is. This is cool. And I really want to celebrate that. I wonder if they don't know how deeply important it feels to you, how much it's like, this is an impactful day, and this is Me bringing everyone together because you're the mom. You've been, you the glue that holds everyone together. Now it feels final. Right now. It feels like we're actually doing it. Does that help? Good. I'm so glad. And if you have more questions on it or you want to follow up, I'm here. We'd love to chat with you further because I get that. And it's hard when you feel like you want some sort of, like, public unification, and they're like, no. So find a way to communicate your wants and needs. Let them know that this is not just like a we're a big family now, but it's you, like, honor the glue. I am the glue. Just have a moment with me. We're gonna honor the glue. Okay. All right. Annelise said, how can I mitigate tensions where some people who are really protective me have to be around someone. My mother, who has done a lot of damage, feels like a bit of a powder keg, and I'm nervous they will blow up at her. Her boyfriend is actually nice, so I don't want him to get a bad impression of our side of the family. My plan so far was to try to keep her as her busy with some tasks when we're setting up the hall so she doesn't have to ask a lot of questions. Interact much. Okay. Don't try to control too much around you. I don't want you hyper focused on this. So let's set up a plan ahead of time. Which I understand this is why you're asking this question. But I just want you to remember, at the end of the day, you can't manage all of the emotions of the people around you. And if something happens, it's not your responsibility and it's not your fault. It's not because you did not fill her calendar enough for the day. It's not because you did not give her enough tasks. It's because there's tension, there's emotion there. And it is not your job to mitigate that, to control the flow of that energy, to make sure that everyone is occupied enough that the tension doesn't come to the surface. I see you want to do the pre work. I'm totally aware of that. I just want you to start doing the emotional work now of letting yourself off the hook of being responsible for her behavior and for the family members behavior. So now that we have that hold on to that, keep replaying that in your head. It's not your responsibility to control their behavior. Okay? Now, as far as mitigating tensions. There's a couple ways that you can do this. Body buffers. We've talked about it a couple times already tonight. Having people in place. Should your mom start to get near people, then not. Not a body buffer for you, but your mom. Or maybe it's conversation you have with your mom's boyfriend. Hey, just FYI, like, there is some tension here, and you might want to just kind of watch out for mom. You might not feel comfortable doing that. You will probably know the person that you can talk to in a situation like this. Maybe a neutral party, maybe someone who's just not as involved. Maybe someone who's heavily involved, just not as opinionated as everybody else that can help to watch this person for you. As far as giving your mom a bunch of tasks, at a certain point, she's gonna have to sit neat. At a certain point, she's going to probably be on the dance floor or mingling with people. Those are the times that you can't give her a task. So, yes, getting ready, sure. But what do you do when getting ready is over? What do you do when it's, like, casual, everybody hangs out time? What do you do then? So that's where I want you to hold. That's where I want you to hold on. That's where I want you to have that body buffer in place, ready to kind of jump in. Another layer that you can go into that is have a conversation with your mom. These suck. These suck. These suck. These suck. These suck. These suck. And no one goes, yay. That sounds so great. I would love to go have an emotional conversation with my mother and tell her to not interact with people. No one wants to do that. No one wants to go to the other families to be like family members and just be like, please, just don't. Don't talk to her, please. Can we just, like, not today. Not today. And I'm happy to report that most of the time, family drama does not occur on wedding days. Most of the time, people are mature enough to just not stir the pot on wedding days. They're like, it's outside of me. I. It's not about me. I'm just gonna let this be its own thing. But occasionally we do see these people who are like, everything's about me. I serve main character energy, whether people want me to or not. So the deepest layer. Have conversations with people beforehand. Set expectations for behavior. Set expectations for how you want them to act, how you want them to communicate. Next step up from that, have a body buffer available. Because, yes, giving her Tasks, again, is great, but those are during the non interactive times. That doesn't really help. So what do we do in the interactive times and how do we kind of avoid that? What do we do in those situations? So is there anyone that can jump in and help you out with that at least? I'm really sorry that that's something that you're battling and I'm really sorry that like, you are just kind of feeling the slow build and it's going to kind of feel like just this like ever present cloud on your day and you're, you're going to keep batting it away and batting it away and batting it away. Like, I'm not dealing with it. I'm not dealing with it. I'm not dealing with it. So as much as you can process through it now and put those safeguards in place and have someone available to like jump in and you know that you can trust them and you know that you could trust them to handle this. Ideally, we'll make sure that cloud just stays further and further away every time you're like, nope, I'm not dealing with it. Nope, I'm not dealing with it. Okay. I have a family friend who is acting as my wedding planner because she loved planning her wedding and she has been a godsend. Is there anything I should send her to help her out? Yes. In the final module, you will get everything that you would need to pass that out. Right. It gives you how to go through a rehearsal. In fact, like I talked to talk through how to do rehearsal so you can have her watch this. That should help tremendously. And it tells you all the things that you need to put together. As if you don't have a wedding planner at all whatsoever. No coordinator, no planner. That module is your best friend. You can have all that prepared and pass that off to her. Okay, Marlene. All right, we got this. One last question. Thank you for transferring that over, Rebecca. I super appreciate it. So we're gonna go through this one last story, one last question, and then I'm do our closing announcements. And if there's anything else, please feel free to drop that in there. My parents are divorced and have been for almost a decade. I'm not close to my dad's side of the family. 20 people, and I'm debating not inviting all of them to our August 2024 wedding. I believe the main reason for this is that I do want my mom to be comfortable at her wedding. And the fact that they have haven't cared to check in on how we were doing these past 10 years. That's hard. I feel guilty because two years ago I went to my cousin's wedding. Dad's side. And I feel I should reciprocate, although we are not close at all. Also, the same cousin was the one who triggered the divorce years ago by secretly doing a DNA test on a grown half brother of mine and revealed it to everyone at a family party. Wait, What? I'd lived 25 years at that time not interacting with his half brother and have no interest in doing so now that we are adults, because I have no idea who he is. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Marlene, what the heck? Don't invite him. Sorry. Nope, you don't need to. Etiquette says you don't have to either, by the way, if it's within the last 18 months, that's when you'd consider it. But it's been two years. It's fine. You don't have to invite them. Also, this cousin. Why? This is the kind of person where, you know, when I was like, I give main character energy all the time. That's this person. No, go ahead. You're right. Thank you so much. I really needed to hear that. And yeah, that's the story. Yeah. No, you're off the hook on that one. Etiquette wise, no, you're good. Socially, emotionally. Emotionally, family wise, no, it's like, what a potter. Right? Thank you. Yes, of course. Oh, my gosh. Well, I'm glad we got that squashed real quick. Oh, Emily said. I'm so sorry. I hope you guys have a great wedding day. You guys, I love you so very much. I do. I feel honored that you're, like, willing to bring this stuff to me and willing to share it with this group. You guys, what an intense and emotional and beautiful call to have together. Thank you for trusting me with this. I hope some of this helped. Boundaries are so important, and wedding planning brings out the need for them like any. Like nothing else. Sorry. Weddings and having babies, if you choose to do that. Oh, you'll set up boundaries real quick with having babies, or you'll realize that you need to set them up real quick with having babies. This is like a practice run. The first time you spent this amount of money, first time you've had this amount of stress, first time you've planned something of this magnitude with your partner, like, this is a lot. Give yourself grace, Figure out where you need to set up boundaries, have check ins with each other. Remember, you picked your favorite person like you found them, and that at the end of the day is the most important part of this. Not a big, glorious wedding. I love weddings. I love them so much. But the most important part is this relationship. And that's what we need to protect. That's what we need to take care of. That's what we need to pour into. And so sometimes that means supporting them even when we don't like their parents. Or sometimes that means asking them to support you even when they don't like your parents. Sometimes that means, hey, just for today, can we shush on this? Right? And we'll keep building into each other, and we'll keep loving on each other. And at the same time, we'll figure out how to place these boundaries together. Oh, thank you so much, Jamie. I have tears in my eyes. A family prayer. That was it. That's what I needed. Thank you. You are so welcome. I love family prayers when, like, the couple's there and everyone just, like, surrounds them. So cute. I'm not saying I cry every time. Most, I cry every time. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and as. As I'm speaking deeply emotionally. And now I'm, like, ready for closing announcements. Next live monthly call will be Wednesday, July 17th at 4pm Pacific Standard Time. If you need a timeline and you want something more detailed than we have the master plan, literally, it's the perfect wedding timeline. It's what we call it Perfect wedding timeline dot com. You should probably check that out. It's way better than the one I built in here, and it's way more functional, and I just didn't know this tech existed. So partnering with them to make this a reality for you guys on the cheap. Cheap is nuts. Also, if you don't send me your photos. Sorry for yelling. You. If you don't send me your photos, that's make me really sad. So we have a place where you can send them in to be featured. Turn our blogs down for the moment. But I. I still look at all of them, and it makes me feel like you guys are real people. Speaking of which, if you ever want to send your save the date or your wedding invitation, if you have a spare one lying around, send it to me. I receive so many wedding invitations, and I keep them even, like the hoarder that I am. Which is so funny because a long time ago, I talked about how a lot of people throw invitations in the trash, and most people do. I just don't happen to be one of them. So if you'd like to send me one, please do. If I didn't get to your question. That's. I think I got to post some of them but if there any reason I didn't. We do have a virtual assistant that is live at any time. You can find this feature on the banner in the master plan. You can use forums to talk with each other. Love that about this. And if you have enjoyed the master plan at all, I am terrible at selling it. I really am. So if you feel like leaving a review, whether that's a Google review or a video review that also makes me cry, that's fine. If you feel like seeing me weep openly, let's do that. Okay. Just send in reviews on either of those links. You guys, thank you so much for being here. I am so proud of you for trying to navigate these emotional things now. I'm so proud of you for like trying to get this situated now before it gets big, before it gets crazy, before it's your wedding day. Let's get as much of this solved as we can. That's within our power. Let your sbs, let your no be know you put up those boundaries and then you shake your tail feather. Or don't if you're having a brunch wedding and don't on your wedding day. And enjoy celebrating with your husband wife. Enjoy being there. I love you so much. Thank you so much for being here and I'll see you in the next call. All right, guys, bye. If you are struggling with wedding planning and you have questions and you just need someone to listen and to chat with, come join us in the master plan community over@themasterplanwed.com I would love to have you in there. Thanks so much for listening if you haven't done so already. Thank you. Subscribe, Jump on over to wherever you're listening to this podcast and leave a five star review so we can let the podcast people know that Jamie knows what she's talking about sometimes. And until next time, bye guys.