What is the difference between a Wedding Planner, Wedding Stylist and Wedding Coordinator
Once you start planning your wedding you quickly start to hear these words – Wedding Planner, Wedding Stylist and Wedding Day Coordination. We often hear couples confuse and interchange the terms so we thought we help explain what exactly each role-plays in your wedding.
Wedding Planner
A Wedding Planner is a responsible for planning the logistical elements that bring your wedding to life. Your Wedding planner will assist you with your budget creation and management as well as venue selection, supplier procurement and management, wedding day timelines, seating arrangements, and so on. They can also act as a trusted advisor on everything wedding related and a shoulder to lean on. At Couture Wedding Planning you get all 3 elements Wedding planning, Wedding Styling and wedding Day Coordination as part of your Full Wedding Planning Package. A Wedding Planner is often responsible for organising the following elements for your wedding:
Ceremony Venue
Reception Venue
Wedding Invitations and Save the Dates
Make Up and Hair
Photographers
Videographers
Transport
Celebrant
Ceremony Music
Entertainment such as a Live Band or DJ
Cakes
Photobooth
Wedding Stylist
A Wedding Stylist is responsible for the overall visual aesthetic of the wedding and how the wedding looks and feels. A Wedding Stylist curates all the wedding design elements for the day and creates a personal style guide as part of their service. At Couture Wedding Planning we offer a Wedding Styling Package perfect for couples who have organised a lot of the elements above but would love help with the Curating and Design a day that reflects their style and personality. Stylists will often source the following elements:
Flowers – we work closely with your florist to bring you concept to life
Décor Hire such as centrepieces
Specialist Dance floors
Luxury Linens
Specialised Cutlery
Signature Charger plates
Furniture Elements
Special Glassware
Candles, Votive and Candles Sticks
Lighting
Stationary Elements such as welcome signs, seating plans, menus, place cards
Wedding Coordinator
A Wedding Coordinator is not deeply involved with planning of the day – they are often hired by couple who would like to plan their own wedding but would like to have a professional look after their day. This way the couple can have a magical and stress free day knowing all the intricate details are being looked after. At Couture Wedding Planning we offer an advisory service as part of our coordination package so that if the couple needs help during their wedding planning they can email us and we can help point them in the right direction. We will start to meet with our couples and their key suppliers about 3 months out from the wedding such as your venue, photographer and florist and then develop a detailed wedding day timeline which is used to run your wedding day.
A Wedding Day Coordinator will be involved in the following elements:
Finalize the last minute details such as your seating plan
Create your wedding day timeline
Communicate this timeline to your suppliers so they know exactly where and when they should be on the wedding day
They ensure the ceremony and reception venues are set up exactly as discussed on the lead up to the wedding.
Main point of contact on the wedding day so we can address any of your concerns and find solutions to any challenges that may occur.
But be aware that wedding coordinators/day-of-coordinators are very different from a venue coordinator.
A Venue Coordinators or Venue Event manager is hired by the venue to ensure your wedding follows the rules and regulations of the space. They may help with your reception timeline but will most likely not help you with the wedding set-up or sourcing any of your suppliers. Most importantly, a venue coordinator works for the venue; their job is to answer your questions about the venue and assist you with your venue layout. They are someone you may contact if you need extra reassurance about the details of your wedding venue; however, their loyalty is to the venue. Their job does not include all the other details that go into planning your wedding. In summary, Venue Coordinators help you with the following
Venue Floor plan
Venue Banquet or Event Order (a document used to communicate all your wedding details to their staff)
Reception Timeline (this timeline will not be as comprehensive as the one you develop with your planner as it will not include any of the morning timings such as when your hair and makeup artists arrive etc.
Menu Tasting and Selection
They may suggest a list of the preferred suppliers but will not contact any of these suppliers for you or obtain quotes from these suppliers for your this is what your wedding planner and stylist will do.
Often Venues will claim they have included your personal wedding planner in their package but please note this is merely a venue coordinator who will not provide a detailed service as your Wedding Planner would
Photos by Siempre Weddings and GM Photographics