You know I need someone...

I've been wrestling with the idea of hiring a day-of/month-of coordinator, or just tackling the day-of details with a little help from my friends and family. In a perfect world, I would love for someone to take charge of the day, oversee the time line, account for all the details, and work towards our style/design vision. It's no problem for us to set up contracts and figure out the overall style, but I just want someone to execute wedding day details without me even mentioning them. I would not want to burden any of my family or friends to take charge of organizing the guest book, putting together centerpieces and table numbers before the reception, or making sure everyone receives something from the candy buffet. Although there have been some volunteers, which I am quite thankful for. And yes I can assign different tasks to different people, but I just want them to enjoy themselves without worry. So the coordinator conundrum still dances around my head. Do I or don't I hire one? What makes this decision even tougher is that we had accounted for a coordinator in our budget, but the price we estimated is only a fraction of the prices we have been quoted.

To assist in the decision making process, listing pros and cons to organize my thoughts on the subject was necessary.

A coordinator would easily help in handling:

• the day's time line for vendors and the bridal party
• a final checklist of all the details
• collaboration between all of our vendors for a smooth day
• set up escort card table, guest book, lay out candy buffet favors, arrange centerpieces
• each guests' questions
• guest traffic towards the photo booth
• organization of all vendor contracts
  
• the flow of the reception
  
• also, they do this for a living making them experts
  

Ease the pressure of:

• thinking about what comes next on our wedding day schedule
• hoping the vendors arrive on time and everything is set up before the reception
• worrying our family and friends are working too hard an not able to enjoy the day
• quirky requests from guests

There are things we can do on our own:

• create menu and table numbers
• put together escort cards, alphabetize
• book vendors
  

I'm giving myself a few weeks to make this decision. I have a few coordinators whose style I love and would really enjoy the opportunity to work with. It may mean tweaking the budget a bit, cutting down somewhere else, but I think it will be definitely worth it to have someone facilitate a smoothly run day.

Did you have, or are you planning to have, a coordinator? Do you recommend we have one? Have you worked with awesome LA or SB coordinators?

Blog title is from lyrics by the Beatles