Day of Coordination - Really Just the Day?

A few months ago my friend Kathryn from Dream A Little Dream Events wrote this great blog post about Day of Coordination versus Month of Coordination.  You can read the article here.  I remember reading it and agreed with everything thing she wrote.  It would be very difficult for someone to walk in the day of your wedding and know exactly what's going on and all of the details that are involved.


Kathryn mentions this term "Month of Coordination" and mentions the importance of it. According to Kathryn, a month of coordinator "should be meeting with you about month or so before the wedding to go over all your final details, at the final venue walk through and ultimately putting together the final vendor timeline and vendor lists. This is an extremely crucial part to making sure that all weddings go smoothly and that everyone is on the same page. The final venue walk through is one of the most important meetings surrounding a wedding, and I couldn't even imagine walking into a wedding not knowing the venue/vendors/family/couple and thinking that I could pull it all together without a hitch."

As I was reading the blog post I nodded in agreement.  However, a couple of weekends ago I actually experienced the difference between a Day of Coordinator versus a Month of Coordinator.  I'm not going to mention any names but I personally felt that the "DOC" had no idea what was going on.  Granted she knew some of the big things like where certain tables and chairs were going to be set up but there were some other items she had no idea about and asked me and other vendors if we knew the answer.  For example:

• She didn't know where the guest book and programs were or who had them.  One of the groomsmen arrived early at the ceremony so she asked this groomsmen to call and ask around. 
• There were some issues with the microphone.  She was unsure of where it was going to be placed and there should have been more microphones.
• She was unsure of when the guests were arriving via shuttle so she didn't block off some spots in the parking lot in time so the shuttle ended up double parking and making a mess in the parking lot.

And these were just a few things I noticed that I felt that a Month of Coordinator would have known about and some of the issues could have been avoided.  There was a lot of questions being asked and the overall feeling was frantic.  I personally don't enjoy working in that type of environment.

So my advice would be to investigate a little deeper into the services that your DOC provides and make sure it includes all of the details the day involves.  And remember that you get what you pay for.  A month of coordinator spends a great deal of time organizing your details on top of executing all of those details on your wedding date so the cost will be more.  I believe this is the difference between a $500 DOC or a $1200 DOC.

And if you are a planner that offer Day of Coordinator services you may want to consider changing the title so it's not misleading.  You are mostly likely providing services that include more more than just that day so be sure to charge accordingly.

Okay, I'll get off my soap box now.