Three Tips to Help Prepare for When Things Go Wrong on Your Wedding Day

Let’s face it, as much as I believe every wedding should have a dedicated, hired coordinator onsite to execute plans and alleviate stressors for the couple and families involved, I also know that is not a reality for everyone. Wedding planners & coordinators are there to make sure all your décor is placed where you want it, the vendors are on time (within our control) and have their questions answered, and the timeline is flowing (as close to on time as possible anyways). However, we are also there to be a buffer between you, as the couple, and anything going awry. Typically little things WILL go amiss on a wedding day, but I always say my job is done right if I can remedy the situation and you never knew there was even something there to fix. Crisis management is a big part of a planner’s job that usually goes unseen – exactly how it should be. But, if a planner/coordinator is not present on the wedding day there is a good chance you are going to know if there are any mishaps that need to be handled because most likely people are going to come to you asking questions. That’s why I thought it would be important to discuss, if you are in this situation without a hired coordinator present, 3 tips on how to prepare for when things “go wrong” on your wedding day.

1. Stay calm! I say this from experience. If you are calm on the outside, even if your wheels are turning on overdrive inside, it will help everyone else stay calm. 9 times out of 10 ‘freaking out’ at any given situation is not going to make it better or solve problems quicker. It will just elevate your adrenaline and anxiety and often make things worse. Take whatever situation has just been presented to you in stride. Take a deep breath and…
2. Be solution focused. The end goal here is for you and your significant other to walk away married, so if you keep that in the front of your mind and with the attitude that usually there is a solution to any problem then I promise it will make the situation seem much less dire. It tends to work best if you can look at the situation not as “well this sucks, might as well just throw in the towel” but instead as “okay, this is our current reality… my end goal is ‘this’, so how can I take what is now in front of me and best reach that end goal?” This kind of attitude and mentality will help maintain that calm demeanor I mentioned in tip #1 and usually can keep the mind a bit clearer to come up with solutions that are actually pretty dang close to the original plan anyways. Which leads me to the final tip of…
3. Unless this hypothetical mishap is completely catastrophic, your guests likely won’t be impacted and won’t even know that anything had to be deviated from the original set of plans. This is a big thing to remember!! For example: the frame that was holding your seating chart blew over in the wind and broke, so you had to take out the seating chart and tape it up on the door entering the reception hall? Can your guests still read their names and know where to sit? Then they will have no idea that wasn’t the original design. You were supposed to have greenery around the lantern centerpieces, but something happened in shipment and no greenery arrived on the day of your wedding? Your guests likely never saw your Pinterest board, so to them that is the completed centerpiece, and it looks beautiful! Even better, if you are at an outdoor venue, maybe there is a little last-minute foraging you can do to replace that missing greenery. You forgot to put the wine up at the altar for communion before you started the ceremony, so your officiant casually had to tell the best man to go get it right before that part of the program? Well, now one of your wedding party members gets to serve the wine to you as if that was part of the plan all along. I could go on and on about little situations similar to these, but the point is in every one of those hypothetical scenarios you have to think… did it hinder the actual getting married part of the day? No? Then, really, it’s all going to be part of the story you tell your kids or tell at a dinner party years down the road.

Well, there is your crash course in crisis management and some simple tips on the best way to combat the anxiety that will inevitably follow any sentence that starts with “so we have a problem…”. Remember to focus on the end goal for the day and that your guests are not there to look at pretty centerpieces or admire the beautifully designed signs. Although those are lovely details (and you know by now that I am all about the details), they are also icing on the cake. Your guests are there to celebrate the love between you and your soon-to-be spouse. They are there because you can’t imagine marrying your best friend without them there to witness it.

Of course, I have to say it… if after reading this you are understanding a little more why hiring at the very least a wedding day coordinator is so important then be sure to head over to my website and fill out a contact form so we can start chatting through how to best execute your wedding plans! And if you still need a little more convincing head by over to this blog post with 3 very real stories about some major mishaps that happened on others’ wedding days where a coordinator (me) came in very handy. You Need A Wedding Planner: Stories That Prove They Are Magic