Let’s Get Personal: My First Jump into Wedding Coordination!

This weekend I had the absolute honor of coordinating my first, real wedding. I say “real” because I have had a bit of exposure to wedding planning and coordinating through the awesome styled shoots I have collaborated on over the past year ~ but they do not come close to the excitement, stress, joy and overall emotional [and physical!] roller coaster of coordinating a real wedding!

I had so much fun being introduced into Trey & JD’s inner circle of family and friends and sharing in one of the most important parts of their lives.

As I mentioned on social media this weekend – man was I exhausted on Sunday [the day after the wedding] and promptly exclaimed that ALL couples planning a wedding should have to work one first. It gives you SUCH an appreciation of how hard it really is to be a wedding vendor.

A sneak peak of the centerpieces from the wedding!

I learned SO MUCH this weekend and it has certainly given me so much to think about in terms of possibly getting into wedding planning & coordinating officially/in addition to blogging!

I was so pumped to meet some new vendors and see some of my favorites. Julie of Jewel Hair Design was on site Saturday morning to do Trey’s hair and then I got to meet and work with the awesome Kristi Odom Photography, and her second shooter, Christina, Heather from Morven Park, Fluffy Thoughts brought a stunning wedding cake, and RR Catering worked TIRELESSLY alongside me, the entire reception, answering my every request [and boy did I have requests!] to ensure everything went well.

the bride & i in the photobooth!

If you’ve read my blog for a bit, then you might have seen the post I did a while back on how awesome my husband Andy is. Well, if I thought he was awesome before, I think he is infinitely MORE awesome now after all the help he provided me and supported me with on Saturday. He hung birdhouses, made makeshift table numbers [when only half of the ones the bride made were found], made a picture display, and SO much more – never once did he complain … even in 90+ degree heat. I honestly could not have completed all the coordination tasks on Saturday without Andy.

Finally, I leave you with some lessons learned from coordinating my first wedding!

1. Always pack extra craft paper or a book you don’t mind stealing pages from [I happened to pack one this weekend, and ended up being so thankful I did ~ we couldn’t find all the book table numbers when we were setting up and ended up making a few numbers out of the book pages instead!]

2. Make sure your coordinator or officiant has a detailed overview of your ceremony, prior to the rehearsal [I totally forgot to ask Trey for this ahead of time ~ my fault entirely ~ and it caused the rehearsal to go longer than it probably needed to]

3. Don’t let your mother’s wear high shoes & dance on cobblestone or uneven terrain [the dance floor at the awesome venue was COOL but it wasn’t completely flat, and during the Cupid Shuffle, the mother of the groom took a tumble and actually hurt her wrist ~ and had to go to the ER!]

4. Give yourself more time than you need. [The catering company was a good 45 minutes late in setting up the tables and chairs and it caused Andy & I to have a bit of a rush to get the rest of the decor setup. Luckily we got to the venue earlier than we planned, and it was all done in time – but don’t cut it close on a wedding day!]

I learned even more in my first venture into wedding coordinating, but figure I’ll save further advice for future blog posts.

Until then, thanks for listening to my recap :) I am super excited to see where this takes me!