Wedding Coordinator – What to Consider When Choosing One

A wedding coordinator is KEY. You can choose to get a full coordination (meaning ALL supplier bookings will be coursed through your coordinator), semi coordination (typically this means you’d book the venue on your own) and on-the-day coordination. In my case, I chose semi coordination because I felt I wanted the coordinator to be with me every step of the way, and just understand my thought process already. It just felt like things might fall through the cracks if I got an on-the-day coordinator only. Also, I was hoping that the coordinator would help recommend and vet suppliers (especially for the minor ones) so that would be less work for us.

But honestly, if you’re a Type A personality like me, I suspect you’d still want to vet the suppliers yourself! So for example, our coordinator was the one who recommended the following suppliers to me, and I’d say they were hit or miss:

• Wedding Dress: This was SUPER SUPER fail. As in the supplier ran away with my money and just went AWOL. Of course, this isn’t my coordinator’s fault because it’s not like she intentionally introduced me to a scammer, and in fact, she had used him many times prior. But still, it did leave a sour taste in my mouth. Also, before he ran away with my money, he did come to my house for measurements and fittings. And the quality was just atrocious. The sizes were all off, and the designs were bad. So overall, very disappointing, especially because it was just so so so difficult to work with him leading up to him going AWOL (aka he kept rescheduling the fittings etc). At many instances, I really wanted to just cut ties with him, but the thought of all the downpayment (50% already paid) going down the drain stayed my hand. So perhaps him going AWOL was a blessing in disguise, as it forced me to find a new designer that I felt much more comfortable with.
• Lechon: In fairness, we really took a leap of faith for the lechon because we didn’t know any Tagaytay suppliers. Thankfully, Deevos Cebu Lechon was super good and we were super happy with them! Our coordinator also handled all the transactions so there was zero headache here. Review for the lechon can be found here: Tagaytay Wedding Food Reviews – Lechon, Pizza, Cake, Cocktail Bar, Crew Meal
• Quintet: The Masterpiece Ensemble was also referred to us by the coordinator, and initially (during the ceremony and the dinner), we found them just alright. Not bad, but nothing extraordinary either. But man, they really killed it during the afterparty! So overall, we were quite happy with them. Quintet detailed review can be found here: Wedding Lights & Sounds + Quintet Band Reviews
• Guest Souvenirs: We wanted to give succulents to our guests and just assigned the coordinator to look for one. We were overall happy with Apong Hardin. Again, coordinator handled this transaction end-to-end.
• Cocktail Bar: Grabe, our coordinator really really hard sold this cocktail bar to us. So again, leap of faith, and crashed and burned. We were really annoyed because the cocktail bar didn’t open DURING THE COCKTAILS. They only served coffee, but we had explicitly mentioned that they should serve cocktails all throughout, EVEN if the program was going on. Instead, our guests complained that the cocktail bar was always closed. Even worse, there were complaints that the drinks were so diluted, which was rather embarrassing. Thankfully, we had also brought our own alcohol, a mix of whisky, wine and beer, so the guests just got their own bottles and poured themselves their own drinks. Huge regret for us. We should’ve just eschewed the cocktail bar and just left bottles of alcohol for each table instead. It would’ve saved us money too!

Also, my biggest advice when choosing a coordinator, don’t go for the big coordinator groups (aka they have Team A/B/C). But if you do, always make sure you get the owner herself as your coordinator. But overall, I wouldn’t advise it, even if you get the owner! Why? Because their attention will be divided! Better to go with a one-team coordinator, because her name is on the line, so you know she will give you her full attention. What you don’t want to happen is – you’re telling your coordinator all your thoughts and reminders, but you have this sense of doubt on whether or not she’s fully capturing your requests.