As lucky as we are to help plan weddings with our clients, we are also fortunate to work with such amazing and talented vendors. The work of a wedding planner on the day of a wedding is multi-faceted. It entails making sure the bride and groom, their wedding party and families are happy, stress-free and in the right place at the right time. We execute the schedule we have developed with each and every vendor in attendance. The help and coordination from the vendors is critical to ensuring the success and flow of the schedule and makes our job that much easier. On Sunday we were lucky to have a team of some of the best wedding vendors in Colorado.
On Sunday we coordinated with our vendors on such items as confirming and assisting with the set up at the venue (St. Julien Hotel & Spa for Joanne and Jake), coordinating the flow and making sure hair & make up are on time for the bride, Mothers and bridesmaids (The Face Lab and Andy Mendoza provided makeup and hair on Sunday). We make sure the band, lighting and decor are being set up on time, see if they require assistance loading in, sound checking or need additional equipment (Soul X, ceremony musicians & lighting from Starkey Productions). We confirm the load in and set up of all flowers including bouquets, boutonnieres, ceremony & reception flowers and sometimes assist with the set up of aspects such as the huppah or pinning flowers on the family (The European Flower Shop constructed an incredible huppah for Joanne & Jake’s wedding). We confirm rental deliveries and set up such as linens, glassware and other decor.
We ensured a table and platters are available for the baker when they delivered cupcakes (Tee and Cakes provided lovely cupcakes with super cute flags made by Alli at BirdDog Press). We also help coordinate the bride & groom to see each other for the first time for photos (or not see each other if they are waiting until the ceremony!) and assemble the wedding party and family in the right place at the right time for photographs prior to and after the ceremony. The photography for Joanne & Jake was by the multi-talented (*see my note in the next blog post) Katie Thurmes from Jenna Walker Photographers, one of our favorite wedding photographers.
We set up place cards, guest book, or favors at each place setting. On Sunday Kristina from The European Flower Shop provided wheat grass for the place card display. Our assistant coordinator, Gabbie, was working with Kristina on the set up on the display and it wasn’t coming out the way we had envisioned. So we changed our vision and came up with a completely different idea that incorporated the wheat grass but also some other flowers from the wedding to create a lovely display. We make sure details like this are not overlooked and are executed it the way the bride envisions, if not better!
We also ensure every vendor gets to eat dinner and coordinate when it would be best for this to happen in the evening schedule. We coordinate the entire evening from lining up the wedding party for the ceremony, to cuing the musicians to play, to the timing of the cocktail hour, welcome speech and toasts, cake cutting, first dance and parents dances, and making sure each vendor (photographer, videographer and band) knows what’s going on during the process. During the whole evening we check in periodically with the bride & groom to make sure all is well with them and they are happy (this includes making sure they have a drink of their choice in their hand).
Other things we helped with behind the scenes on Sunday were providing a lint brush to the groom’s father for his suit, pinning the groom’s boutonniere, providing a steamer for the wedding party to use in the hospitality suite, putting the aisle runner in place, carrying a very large backcountry ski pack down for the ketubah signing, handling post-ceremony shoes for the Joanne, the mothers and bridesmaids, making sure the best man had the rings, protecting the ketubah after it was signed and taking it to the bridal suite, as well as taking gifts and cards up to the suite for the evening. We also transported a candle, that was supposed to stay lite for 24 hours, from the ceremony to a safe place. The aisle runner that arrived on Sunday was not the length we had ordered so we called and within 30 minutes of the start of the ceremony we had a new aisle runner in place from the rental company. And more…
Other things we do on the day of the wedding are work with the venue on making a weather call if the ceremony and/or reception are scheduled to be outdoors, coordinate transportation for wedding guests, the bride and groom and/or wedding party if the ceremony venue is different from the reception, coordinate payments and/or tips to vendors, provide garment tape to a desperate bridesmaid, assemble a new corsage if one is missing, make runs to the liquor store if we run out of alcohol and advocate on behalf of our clients’ with vendors if something is awry…and anything and everything to ensure the day runs smoothly!
Katie from jenna walker photography on the job! photography by Calluna Events & Jenna Walker Photography.
Thanks for reading!
xo
xo
Calluna Events
Colorado Wedding Planner
