Averting Disasters One-by-one
At my recent wedding, the weather gods all had us set for a perfect wedding day. Bright blue skies, fluffy white clouds. My bride had envisioned walking down the baby’s breath-lined aisle to her loving groom in her venue’s gorgeous outdoor garden. Well, don’t you know that twenty minutes before the scheduled processional, the skies opened unexpectedly and 75 cushioned chairs were collecting all that liquid sunshine.
As a planner, I remind my brides to think of their guests first. This may be a stray from the norm as most tell brides, “It’s YOUR day”. While that’s true, I reiterate that all of your nearest and dearest adjusted their already over-booked schedules to be here to share in YOUR day and we should be considerate of that fact and see to it that they are always comfortable.
Back to my last wedding at T-minus 20mins… my couple had already had their first look and the offsite pictures went absolutely perfectly thanks to a most fab photographer who can be found on my preferred vendors list (Ask me!). The couple and their bridal party were hanging out in the bridal parlor awaiting me to come line them up for the processional. I don’t even know if they knew it was raining – it was sunshine and rainbows in their little world.
I found the venue coordinator (for a comparative on the difference between a venue coordinator and a wedding planner, stick with my blog posts!) and I was offered a couple of options.
We could move the ceremony into the ballroom where the cocktail hour would be held (a no-go for me)
We could move the ceremony into the ballroom where the reception would be held (yet another no-go for me).
The florist and my crew had spent HOURS setting up the garden ceremony making it exactly per my bride’s vision. We had a debacle - we could not keep guests waiting HOURS to recreate this vision in another location nor could we forego her vision and I refused to whip up something less than her dream ceremony.
What did we do? We checked the weather and saw that we had about 10 minute’s worth of rain left and then, probably about a 20-30 minute window to get the ceremony in. So, I made my decision. With it, I quickly ran to the bridal suite, explained the issue to the bride and groom, made sure they were happily enjoying their almost married life with their besties, and told them to hang out just a few more minutes. They were happy to do so and poured another glass of bubbly.
We summonsed the grounds crew at the venue to be on stand-by and we had a game plan. While the last drops fell, the wonderfully hard-working crew removed the 75 soaking wet chairs and replaced them with 75 dry chairs. We replaced the bubbles on each seat and the ribbon wands along the aisle. I may or may not have been the grounds crews’ favorite person, you decide, but do you know who was a fan – my bride and groom.
The music began to play, the guests were ushered to their dry seats and offered a soft drink to enjoy during the ceremony and the processional started about 24 minutes later than planned.
There are several other little details that had to be decided that day and at most wedding days - what to do when the floral plan the bride had for the certain tables doesn’t fit, what to do to hide the neon green manhole covers in the garden (you have them painted to better match the lawn, of course), how to get 24 people to and from an offsite location for formal portraits while keeping most of them happy, where to locate the cake, how to get in touch with the DJ who is a "tad bit" late, at which number to reach the florist, did the Bentley arrive yet...the list goes on. As I've seen it written before, your Pinterest board doesn't just magically happen while you get hair and make-up done!
All in all, I did not leave the resort that day, yet my step-counter logged over 9 miles walked that day. Now, you tell me, which member of your family or bridal party or helpful cousin is going to do that for you on your wedding day? At minimum, have a day-of coordinator on your perfect day! She will earn every penny, I promise and my feet confirm. And your guests will not be sitting in wet chairs!
For more info on all of my wedding packages and how to be sure your wedding is the
Best Day Ever reach out and let’s grab a coffee together via Zoom and chat about all the other disasters that I can prevent – kidding, well kind of.
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