When I officiated ceremonies, the couple usually had a coordinator. That person, usually a female friend of the couple (not a relative) and I would review the couple’s desired agenda items and choreograph an outline before the rehearsal. At the time of the rehearsal, we’d run through the positions and cues for the entrances/departures, where to stand, when FOB would had off the bride, vocalists, special speakers, verse readers, etc. and she’d be integral to the rehearsal’s running, taking note of any changes agreed upon.
On the day of the wedding, the coordinator was tasked with directing in the bridal party’s entrance with the assigned music. Once everyone was in for the ceremony, her job there was done – but absolutely necessary. Later, she would help usher along the other things that needed to be done – gathering the family for pics, giving guidance to the photog. She would assist the reception emcee with the bridal party list as well.
I always announced at the rehearsal that any last minute decisions would be taken up with me and/or the coordinator, that the couple had at that point given up all their decision making duties. To me it made all the sense in the world. Why call up the bride that morning frantic that you couldn’t find your gauntlets? Give them some peace so they can focus on each other and the guests – not the minor details of the ceremony.
The officiant at my wedding did this and I emulated this for all my weddings.
One further note about the “coordinator”. Sometimes, the venue would provide its own coordinator to the wedding. Mostly to ensure the integrity of the venue itself. Some were more pushy than others. I had to be very diplomatic at times if the provided coordinator didn’t see herself being the timeline director. Then, I’d ask for a friend to step up and take on that role; my wife did it for me several times, too.
The Day Of person is sometimes the planner or one of that team. It can be a relative/friend, but I feel the mom should have some time to enjoy.
Someone has to deal with vendors anyway, not just the menu. They come and need to know where to go or whatever, whether you have flowers for the serving table or special flutes for a toast. But toward the end of planning and contracting, you’re talking about those final details. You ask them what more they need or need to know. Eg, if they need a power outlet, etc.
Then, on the Day, the Day Of person is just like a point man (or woman.)
First, congratulations to @walkinghome and her family. It’s so great to follow these stories through to the wedding day!
As MOG, I’ve just been involved with preliminary discussions about the when and the where, but it looks like my S and FDIL may have found a venue for Labor Day weekend, 2017. Unbelievable that they could find somewhere they loved on what is (in wedding world, apparently) relatively short notice. There’s one more possibility to be checked out, and then we’ll move forward.
Also, something happened over the Thanksgiving weekend we all spent together that just made me smile. Both my S and my FDIL are in their 30’s and have large groups of friends. They also each have two siblings (she has two brothers and my S has a brother and sister). While the siblings may not be as close to them on a day to day basis as some of their friends, they (without any prompting, though I had thought of this) decided to ask their siblings to stand up for them. She will have her brothers as attendants, and my S will have his sister and brother. A little untraditional, but very fitting for our families. I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t been concerned about this, but I love the resolution.
Next up is the guest list - I have tried to be the respectful M/MIL and am waiting to be told how many guests we can invite. The kids have decided to split the numbers 50/50, but both sides have large families and, as I said, they have many friends from all parts of their lives. It’s so not a matter of money - they just want to keep the wedding at a number that is comfortable and manageable for them and I respect that. We will soon see how this hurdle gets navigated!
@runnersmom - We are navigating the guest list minefield right now.
DD is getting married near the future son-in-law’s hometown, which is 600 miles away from DD’s hometown (and 1000+ miles away from where her relatives live.) All this to say, DD will have about 20 family members in attendance, max, and this includes my husband and I. I think MAYBE another 10 people/friends from “my side” may actually make the trek out for the wedding.
On the other hand, our future son-in-law comes from a much larger family. We anticipate that there will be about 60 family members in attendance from his side, which is fine, plus another 40-50 friends of the bride and groom. Again, that’s fine, obviously - it’s their wedding!
If you’re counting, that’s about 140 people to accommodate at the reception.
Here comes the problem: my daughter’s future mother-in-law wants to ask another 60-70 of her friends to the wedding. Apparently, these are friends of the FMIL - not friends of the groom.
My daughter and her fiance would really like to keep the guest list below 150, but that appears to be impossible; barring that, they want to keep the headcount below 175. The problem is, my DD does not want to “confront” her future MIL and her fiance appears reluctant, too. I keep telling D that this is an issue between the groom and the groom’s mother. She doesn’t want to alienate her future in-laws, of course, but neither she nor her fiance want a huge wedding, either…so someone needs to have a heart-to-heart with Mom.
We are early in this process - DD and her fiance are just looking at reception venues now, so they don’t have to make any hard-and-fast decisions yet. Yowza.
My daughter will have four family members at her wedding in September 2017: her mother, father, brother, and aunt. That’s all the family she has.
Her future husband has 12 people in his immediate family (parents, siblings, and siblings’ spouses and children). And on top of that, he has aunts, uncles, and cousins.
I hope they don’t all insist on sitting on the groom’s side. It would look really weird.
I was the de facto Day of Coordinator for S1 and DIL. They had a very DIY wedding celebration (a year after the civil ceremony) with lots of moving pieces. I had pages and pages of spreadsheets, detailed sequencing and diagrams for setting up tables, decorating same, placement of items on the food line, positioning the band, seating for the ceremony, etc. A lot of that is venue-dependent, but I can tell you I knew the location of every electrical plug in the building and had extra extension cords and power strips if needed. (They were.)
DIL had her mom, dad and sister present. The rest of her family lives in the UK.
Scout – is FMIL expecting you to pay for her friends to attend? That would be a big factor in how I felt about extended family friends attending.
@scout59 , perhaps you need to sacrifice your privilege of inviting the friends from your side to the wedding so that the B&G can tell his mother that the guest list is going to be strictly both families plus their own friends.
Either that, or they need to figure our a reasonable allowance of “friend” invites for each set of parents, and let her know how many she has. Perhaps each set of parents gets to invite 10 friends. Or whatever number works overall. Perhaps the MOG would prefer to cut back the number of more distant family invited in order to invite more of her good friends.
But it is the job of the B&G to discuss the guest list with the families. The finances are important too, naturally, as well as the kind of event the B&G want to have. Perhaps naively, I would hope that most people would be reasonable about balancing such things. Are there really that many people who regard a wedding as some kind of tribal battle to the death?
ETA: I was given several tasks by my most highly organized niece at her wedding. Everyone resented me, LOL. The worst was giving out corsages. No one wanted to wear it. I had to plead.
My sister had a day of coordinator. She set out the centerpieces, set out guest book stuff, made sure table settings were correct and I don’t know what else. DD did not have one and I was a bit stressed about who was going to do that little last minute stuff. Luckily we were able to do it the night before since the same caterer was used for both the rehearsal dinner and reception and went ahead and did set up during a down period while we were riving back from the actual rehearsal.
@scout59 now that this MOG is wanting to go outside of the bride and groom’s wishes, it is up to the groom (and maybe his father) to help reign her in.
Did they choose the location so more family on that side could attend?
Is MOG willing to pay for the disproportion of guests? Is there any way to satisfy her social needs by maybe having some kind of a party for the couple and invite these friends she feels so compelled to include.
Our dental hygienist has an only child marrying an only child, and the venue could only hold 200 guests. They had to trim down from 400!
Is MOG going to not be happy if she doesn’t have ‘her way’?
“Boundaries” a book by Henry Cloud.
Do not let this woman spoil the couple’s wedding, and put a kink in relationships!
My nephew had a fancy wedding in Bermuda because that’s where the bride was from. The mother spent a whole year to plan it and hand made a lot of things for the wedding. Someone suggested to them to have a coordinator for the day so they could enjoy the wedding.
In the beginning of the wedding they made an announcement to all the guests to go to this coordinator for anything they needed. Well, my girls were the first takers on that. They asked for bug spread because the wedding was outdoor. The coordinator had one handy.
Maybe the MOG would be content with inviting her friends to a local celebratory party instead of the wedding if someone suggested it to her. She may have expressed this desire before hearing that the B&G wanted a smaller wedding. And some people come from cultures in which huge weddings are the norm. Let’s not condemn her yet!
I hope they don’t all insist on sitting on the groom’s side. It would look really weird. >>
That was what MOG said about DDs wedding. We had 35 or so there from our families, but if everyone had come it would have been 50 - just the bride’s aunts/uncles & cousins/spouses. He had 8 there. People sat wherever, no real sides so it was fine.
Attended recent wedding and reception where most of those present were friends of the bride and her family, plus a few relatives of groom and a few work friends. Folks sat on both sides of the aisle so it looked “normal.” Everyone had a great time as well. I had the pleasure of booking a wedding night hotel room for the bride and groom and driving them to the hotel in our car. Everyone had a great time!
Thanks for all the advice and suggestions! Mostly I was just venting on my daughter’s behalf.
To clarify a few things: I’m not condemning the MOG for wanting to invite all her friends - at least not yet! I’m just hoping that this does not become a big deal, and I do believe that the groom and his father will rein her in if that becomes necessary. D and her fiance have just started scoping out reception venues, and so far they’re not ruling anything out because of size.
And - the groom-to-be needs to start talking with his mother…
The MOG is from the same culture as I am (which is not a big-wedding culture, but thanks to consolation for bringing that up!) Her own daughter - groom’s sister - was married three years ago, and apparently there was a huge disagreement over this same issue between the MOG and her daughter, so much so that the bride and her mother weren’t speaking for much of the engagement. Obviously my D doesn’t want to repeat that fiasco!
I like the idea of an extra “party” for the mother’s friends. As I alluded to, the wedding will be held near the MOG’s current hometown, so there are lots of possibilities. And of course, if the groom’s parents are willing to pay for part of the reception, that would be nice - although D and her fiance would still probably prefer a smaller wedding.
I don’t remember if I said this, but H and I are paying for most (>80%?) of the wedding, and D is chipping in as well. I told D that she could always use budget as an excuse, because it is! And I am more than willing to not invite any friends of my own (since I doubt any will make the long journey out for the wedding anyway) if it would help bolster the argument for a smaller wedding.
I didn’t know they still had a bride’s side and a groom’s side of the church! Well, our side will be pretty roomy, then…
In addition to a destination ceremony for S and D in law in 2017, one of the Ds just got engaged with the date in 2018.
They were talking one of the holiday weekends, either Memorial Day or Labor Day of that year, as folks will be traveling from both coasts to the Midwest and that gives an extra day for visiting. I suggested one off, the weekend before Memorial Day or weekend after Labor Day. The weather would be similar, but air fares lower and venues hopefully less busy. Opinions? Is there something gauche that I don’t know about a ceremony on a holiday weekend? What they are dreaming of sounds potentially beyond my economic reach, as well as theirs, so this will be a process to figure out priorities.
Personally, I love a wedding on a Sunday on a holiday weekend. Saturday as a travel day, Sunday to get ready at my leisure, no worries about staying out too late Sunday night, Monday to travel home. So much less stressful!
My S and FDIL are hoping for 2017 Labor Day weekend for just those reasons. Although travel expenses might be a little higher, the benefits of a holiday weekend would probably outweigh that concern. Right now it looks like the venues they’re considering have either Saturday night or Sunday available that weekend, which totally surprises me only 10 months out.
My daughter’s wedding was on Sunday this pasted Labor Day weekend. The only people that had travel issues, were the school teachers, as they waited until Saturday morning to arrive as they has preplanning on Friday. This was only the two of her bridal party, so they missed the girl’s events on Friday night, but it all worked out. I loved having the three day weekend as did those travel to the wedding.
Everyone had a great time!