I was reading a post about someone's inept wedding coordinator. I'm so sorry for anyone who has to deal with such frustration on their wedding day. But I have to say that it made me glad my husband and I didn't invest too much money in fancy wedding vendors. We had no professional wedding planner (I was the primary wedding planner) or day-of-coordinator. However, I asked my mom for help with the reception decorations, and she did a beautiful job (and saved me a lot of headaches). Our only day-of coordinators were my husband's sister and best man, who handed out tips to vendors and had copies of our schedule and vendor contact info in case something went awry (nothing did).
Our florist wouldn't deliver flowers because our total bill was less than $1,000. So my dad picked up the bouquets, etc., and that worked out fine. We hired a local restaurant to do the catering (which was much cheaper than going with a full-catering service), and the restaurant's two employees did an impressive job of setting out the food and waiting on tables (something I wasn't even expecting them to do). My brother was our DJ, and he played exactly what we wanted without delivering any obnoxious DJ banter. The ceremony coordinators were the church sacristan and the priest. My makeup-artist/hairstylist was a woman I found at the Estee Lauder counter in Nordstrom who was trying to build up her freelance business, and she charged me a lot less than any area salons would have.
The only areas where we really splurged were the cake, the dress, and the photograher. I would definitely advise future brides to hire a good, professional photographer--do your homework, check reviews, and interview potential candidates. We briefly considered relying on a family friend to take all photographs, and I am SO glad we hired a professional instead (many photos taken by our family and friends were grainy or had lighting problems).