I was a wedding planner this weekend

...and I only made a couple mistakes! Ryan, however, saved the day a couple times. We're good for each other.

Two friends from church were married on Saturday, and I was the coordinator for the day. Many times I was told, 'you should do this for a living! You're so good!!' and I had never done this before! I thought, it's probably more fun this way than getting paid for it. Since I've been in plenty of weddings, I have enough opinions about what works and what doesn't work and what thoughtful things should be in place, so I was able to offer helpful suggestions, many of which were taken and implemented.

Upon walking into the church on the wedding day, the bride's father told me the bride's brother was lost and not there yet. It was about an hour till show time at 1pm. He had time.

"We have a problem". This occurred about 50 minutes before the wedding was to start. It came from one of the bridesmaids who said that a groomsman received a white vest and a white tie, not black. Only the groom was to have white. I quickly arranged to have Ryan make a run to the tux shop which was fortunately about 10 minutes away. He left and came back with the black tie and vest in no time. We can NOT have a groomsman dressed like the groom! That was save #1 for Ryan.

The bride's lost brother ended up arriving at 12:57 and was putting his tie on at 12:59 as I walked him down the hall, explaining what to do to seat the bride's mother. He hadn't been at the rehearsal and was clueless for what to do. We walked around the corner and there were at least 12 guests waiting to be seated...so the wedding would start a few minutes late. Readers, please arrive at weddings on time (ie early). Please and thank you. The brother was filled in and ready to go.

Minutes later, I nearly led the bride out into the hallway when the groom was just feet away! Fortunately, someone else stopped her and hid the groom. Whew. I can't be on top of EVERYTHING, can I?? However, the actual processional went very smoothly, which we worked on several times the night before with the timing of the music.

Following the ceremony, we organized for pictures. I had the bride's list ready to go and we started executing. I straightened bridesmaids necklaces, gave them facial blotting sheets (love those), got bottled water, and fixed the grooms too-long shirt sleeves. One less heroic thing I did was spill iced coffee from my travel mug on the purse belonging to the groom's mother. I held it while she was in a photo, and when I stooped to pick up her fallen wedding program...trickle trickle went the coffee onto her fabric, ivory purse. Blast. Embarrassment followed. I sent the purse off with Ryan to see if he could clean it some. Minutes later, relief came as Ryan returned with the purse, spotless. Save #2 for Ryan.

The rest was pretty uneventful. Save #3 for Ryan came after we departed from the church, and he remembered that we left the tuxes at the church. We had volunteered to return them to the tux shop. It sure would help if we had them in our possession! Back to the church we went...

I had a blast that day even though I didn't get to snap a single photo! My husband sure rocks.

Some of thoughts regarding the logistics of weddings:

• Have bottles of water ready for the wedding party right after the ceremony.
  
• Instruct the bridesmaids (and bride) to carry their bouquets low at their hips and not up tight at their waist
• Get the larger group pictures out of the way, especially with family who are only needed for one or two shots. Let them move along after that.
• Have someone do what I did to give cues and be a go-to person.
• Avoid going to the bride and groom for questions or problems on the wedding day. Go to the coordinator, best man or maid of honor.
• Make a list of formal photographs desired and give it to your photographer and coordinator.
• Cover all the details you can at the rehearsal and Bride, have as much worked out as you can before the rehearsal.