Destination Wedding Without a WC?

adpham21 · October 2011

Hello Everyone!

I was just curious to know how many brides are planning or have planned a Hawaii wedding long-distance without the help of a wedding coordinator? And what your experience has been like? I'm getting married in June 2012 on Oahu and have been pretty much doing everything from the mainland without a WC. What makes it a little tougher is that it's going to include a Catholic ceremony in a church. It's been a challenge but it doesn't mean it can't be done! We currently live in the Midwest but the fiance and his family are from Oahu so they've been scouting out places and vendors for us. I've already got the church and reception site booked, now it's just getting the details finalized! I'm still looking for a videographer and florist. Any insight or suggestions are much appreciated.

jtoly · October 2011

Congrats! I booked a wedding coordinator who also does the ceremony and my package included the flowers, pictures, and limo ride. We aren't having a reception so everything was fairly easy for me except the trust part. I have a hard time trusting people, esp those I dont know, but I guess I have no choice Good luck on all your planning, I'm sure you'll get lots of great insight from your FI's family!

WinstonsGirl · October 2011

We don't technically have a WC, but we've booked a package through our hotel, and it pretty much included everything. The hotel banquet coordinator has been helping with the "planning" what little there is. So if we want stuff on the tables, we can give them to her the day before and she'll put them out, but she's not technically a WC. Things have been great so far

kaesha · October 2011

I didn't have a WC! You just need to be organized and detail centric, but it's totally doable.

destiny1108 · October 2011

I couldn't have imagined planned our wedding without our WC. There were so many things that came up that we would not have considered. We only had to worry about getting ready and showing up on the wedding day and allowing our family and friends to do the same. They offered to help, but we didn't want them to "work" on the wedding day, especially since they spent so much money on travel just to be there. if you are at the church who is going to set-up your reception?

adpham21 · October 2011

destiny1108: Those are all really great points. For my wedding, the catering manager at the reception venue said that they will handle the setup including any favors or things that we are having delivered. They also gave me a checklist of pretty much everything I would need for the reception. That has taken a lot of stress off of me as there are details I wouldn't have thought about.

destiny1108 · October 2011

adpham21: That's great that they'll do the set-up, when we did site visits, most venues just told us they would do favors, but wouldn't be responsible for reception table, scrapbooking table, etc. and didn't help us make our wedding day timeline.

kimmykupcakes · October 2011

I don't have a WC and haven't had any problems, at all. It's been pretty easy.

Tanq&Tonic · October 2011

Yep, I would say definitely doable. WCs add the most value when you want to be fully hands off and don't care about any of the details. They can book all of your vendors and you stay carefree. For example, Brea still doesn't know who her florist was for her wedding. Her WC handled it all and a gorgeous bouquet showed up.

I had a WC but didn't really use her. I got hyper picky and handpicked almost all of my own vendors. Our venue required insurance coverage and that was the primary benefit of having her. I did farm out some of the tasks I wasn't picky about (marriage license appointment, chairs, etc). She also did help on the day of with some decorating, but our tent&linen company and our catering manager also did a lot. I think we could have been just fine without her.

sparklegirl84 · October 2011

I didnt have one & the planning went fine. A DOC would have been nice cuz i was a bit stressed but i was too cheap to hire a pro. I have oahu vendor reviews in my bio.

AKWinterBride · October 2011

You can definitely do it without a coordinator, but I didn't want the stress on my wedding day of worrying about anything. I showed up, got pretty, and watched the magic happen - I wouldn't change a single thing!

breaness · October 2011

Like Tanq said, I don't even know who did my flowers! Ha! I just said that I wanted white orchids in it and, "Oh, I don't know, purple and oranges are nice colors" and BAM! Beautiful purple and orange bouquet with white orchids! I said I wanted a white orchid lei, the coordinator said he could do a maile lei with purple orchids for Steve, I said "What about white?" He said great idea, and again... it just happened.

I don't know, maybe it's a little crazy that I was so hands off, but everything turned out so perfectly I wouldn't do it any differently if I had to do it again.

WIth our AHR I did everything myself and OMG the bridezilla came out. Well, not really, but I was a big ball of freaking stress when my mom showed up late to the venue to get set up and had left the cupcake stands that we bought at home. All sorts of things just didn't turn out quite right and it was MY job to worry about it, even though I had less than 20 minutes before guests would start arriving and I needed to get into my corset-back wedding dress.

Luckily, the people at the hotel were great and did a nice job of improvising when needed (like the cupcake display)... but I am SO glad I didn't have to worry about details on the wedding day. I was calm, cool, and collected on that day and didn't freak out about a thing. I was just happy.

adpham21 · October 2011

It's been great reading everyone's experiences! I think it really does depend on each person and what they want to do. It's been going pretty well so far for me since I have a pretty good idea of what I want. The wedding day itself might be a different story but I just have to remember that at the end of the day no matter what happens, I'll be married to my best friend. Hopefully I can keep my cool if something doesn't go as planned lol!

lorena224 · October 2011

I absolutely think you can plan and book everything without the help of a coordinator. But for me it has been so easy not having to worry about a lot of the details that I wouldn't have it any other way. I also didn't want me or my guests to have to worry about anything. I just want to show up ready to go.

Good luck!

Destination Wedding Without a WC?

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