Wedding Coordinator VS. Wedding Planner: Key Differences
On the hunt for wedding professionals who will effortlessly bring together your big day but you’re not sure what the difference between a wedding planner and a wedding coordinator is? Not sure which one you need for one of the most special days of your life? You’re not alone, unless you’re in the industry, how could you know?
We’ll give you the short answer and then dive a little deeper to break it down so you know all you need to know!
Wedding Planners are with you long term and will help organize and even design your event, while Wedding Coordinators, otherwise known as Day-of-Wedding-Coordinators, will be there typically a month out with their main responsibility being on your wedding day, coordinating wedding vendors, timeline, and more.
So which one is right for you? Well, let’s take a closer look at the most basic offerings each service provides so you know which one will best fit your wedding needs.
What Do Wedding Planners Do?
Wedding planners are in some aspects like contractors, they will sit down with you and find out what your needs are and create a plan that fits your unique wedding vision. So keep in mind, while wedding planners have general baseline responsibilities, expectations and packages can be custom-curated for you!
Here is what you can expect your wedding planner to offer you when you sit down for your consultation:
1.Wedding Budget Management
Your initial meeting with a wedding planner should always include budget discussion. First and foremost, a wedding planner needs to know their clients budget, first to determine whether they can afford the planner as well as to ascertain the scale of the wedding they are potentially being hired on to manage and plan. Additional fees might be added for larger weddings as they require more staff and planning—i.e. more hours put into the event.
From there, if you and the planner are a good fit and you decide to book and work together, the first thing your wedding planner should do is find out your main wedding day priorities and vision. Once priorities and vision are fully understood, a budget can be put together with each respective vendor allotted their portion of the budget.
“Your wedding planner will help you skip the things you don’t need to get the things that are non-negotiables to you! ”
This is key. If you are absolutely set on having a live wedding band but spent too much on your wedding dress, DJ, or some other wedding detail, you probably won’t get that wedding band you were dreaming of. This is where wedding budgets come into play and wedding planners help keep you on track!
2. Finding, Booking, and Managing Wedding Vendors
This is one of the most important ones on the list! Every bride who has planned their own wedding knows the stress of having to find vendors for every little detail of their wedding—its just not fun. At least, not fun for non-wedding professionals! Wedding planners will likely (if established in the industry) a preferred vendor list that they work with regularly and can pull from. This is excellent for couples as these vendors are trusted wedding professionals that are in some respects like a coworkers for your wedding planner. You can relax knowing that they are probably a top-notch candidate for your big day.
On top of this, established wedding planners with preferred vendors will more often than not be able to get discounts as vendors are more likely to work with them and are eager to gain their clients because your wedding planner has a good reputation! So, depending on the couple and their preferences—if you’re wanting a relaxed hands-off experience, your planner can do all the booking, payments, and negotiations for you!
Lastly, on the day of your wedding, your wedding planner will manage every vendor on site. From the decor team (if its not done through them), bartenders, DJ, photographer, and beyond. Their job on your wedding day is to manage and run your wedding like a well oiled machine.
3. Wedding Design
Wedding design can look different for every planner and couple. Not every wedding planner offers in-house decor and some couples want to collect all of their own decor and have someone set it up.
One thing that you can expect, however, is your wedding planner should work with you to create a design deck. A design deck takes a mood board a step further by bringing tangibles to the table. Expect things like fabric color swatches, wedding photos from pinterest, and magazine clippings, the wedding planner should be able to capture the feeling and essence of your wedding vision and put it on paper!
Why create a design deck if you’re a couple designing everything yourself? One reason is to help bring your vision to life so you have something to reference at all times so you don’t get off track!
The other reason a design deck is so important is—Your wedding planner will give this to every vendor to ensure everything is fluid and cohesive. If your planner is a designer but not the supplier, they will go through a rental company or wedding design company that will create a plan based on the design deck your planner created and that you approved!
4. Wedding Day Timeline
On your wedding day, there are so so many important details. Tiny details. Huge details. The wedding timeline will cover not just the flow of events, but the list of who is who in the zoo. Who is bringing what, what time is alcohol arriving, who is bringing ice and at what time? When will the cake be dropped off? When does hair and makeup NEED to be done? So many other little details that most couples wont even consider.
Your wedding planner will take care of this for you. A wedding timeline meeting typically takes two hours to complete and is absolutely essential to executing a flawless stress free wedding!
5. Day of Wedding Coordination
While coordinators are not wedding planners, wedding planners are both! A wedding planner will be there on the day of your wedding from start to finish (depending on how much time is discussed prior with the couple), orchestrating everything! So to break it down, wedding planners manage your planning process and make. it. happen. while coordinators are with you for a brief period of time.
Lets take a look at coordinators now and see what they have to offer.
What Do Wedding Coordinators Do?
You may be tired of hearing me say this by now, but truly, every wedding planner and coordinator is different so nothing comes in a cookie-cutter answer! Some wedding coordinators show up on the day of and that’s it. Others will work with you a month out. Some two weeks out. This means the scope of work is entirely dependent on the wedding coordinator you are booking!
Most professional, established wedding coordinators do not offer anything less than one month out. Why? Imagine showing up to a wedding you had no hand in helping bring together, you know nobody and know nothing about the timeline until the day-of but you’re expected to execute everything smoothly? This is not the best practice for a stress-free wedding.
This is why we, as coordinators at Alyssia Lee & Co. offering month of planning only. We sit down with you and create your timeline together and communicate with the wedding venue and vendors to ensure every detail is completely taken care of before the big day. Month-of + planners means the wedding planner can execute with confidence, be a part of the rehearsal, know who the vendors are, and more.
So the short answer—coordinators execute on the day of: vendors, timelines, exits, etc. wedding coordinators do not plan details out with you, help design, or book vendors. They are there on the day of or month of only so you can focus on your important day and not the caterer who is late or the fact that someone forgot to bring ice!
These are the key differences between a wedding planner and a wedding coordinator, so now you can press on in your wedding planner or wedding coordinator shopping endeavors with confidence! Once you’ve decided on which one is right for you, head over to our blog on 10 Questions to Ask Your Potential Wedding Planner Before You Book so once you get your consultation scheduled you can book the wedding professional for YOU!
