Being a wedding and special event planner, I am often told “you must really have had an elaborate wedding.”   The truth is, at the time we got married, I was a front desk clerk at Holiday Inn Waikiki and my husband was a waiter Captain’s Table and I didn’t have a clue about planning a wedding as I had never been to one.

So what did I do?    I actually used a wedding planning service for our simple wedding which was held in front of a waterfall with a luncheon reception held under the pavillion that was conveniently located on-site.      My father-in-law used to have a flower shop so he arranged for all flowers including my catalaya bouquet , the maile lei and best man and maid of honor flowers.   As he was the first in his family to get married, we really had no clue about having centerpieces, music, toasts, first dance, money dance, etc. but were guided by our planner and our bridal party.

It’s interesting how things work out in life, back then I would never have imagined that I would would have my own event planning business and helping our brides create their special day.

As a professional event planner, one of the things that I know best is that it takes everyone to put on a great event.    We also know that there are many facets to the event which are happening simultaneously which requires each vendor and their support staff on site to ensure things are done on time, especially with short set-up windows.    Our role is to help our clients get  the vendors that best suit their needs, style and budget.      Hawaii Weddings and Events is not exclusive to any venue or vendor for the sole reason that we are providing recommendations based on what is in the client’s best interest and not our own.

The term “coordinator” has always been very loosely interpreted, so if you come across this term from a “non-coordination” company, you will want to spell out exactly what is included so that your needs are covered.   For example, hotel’s have catering coordinators, their role is to coordinate the food and beverage details and floor plan for their venue, they will not determine which color flowers would best compliment your bridal party attire or contact each vendor to check availability prior to giving you  their name.

When meeting your potential vendor and if they start making it sound like they are the “coordinator” that is going to handle everything for you, these are just but a few questions to ask them:

• Are they helping you create an overall event budget?
• Are they going to help you with event design for your event and check out sample linens from a variety of vendors to find the one that matches your needs the best?
• Are they double checking your flower order to ensure you ordered leis for your lei presentation or remembered to add on another centerpiece because you have one more table?
• Are they going to make sure that your photographer captures all of the special moments and special touches that you’ve worked so hard to prepare?
• Are they going to create your detailed wedding day timeline that incorporates all elements of the wedding day from the time the rental company arrives to who takes home the extra beverages at the end of the evening and give you ideas on how to personalize your event?
• Are they going to dictate which vendors that you use?
• Are they going to conduct your wedding rehearsal and help queue your processional and musicians?
• Are they going to prepare your floor plan for off-premise events?
• Are they bringing an emergency bag that has all of the “little” things such as safety pins, nail polish, duct tape, shoe glue, etc. that may be needed?

As a certified professional planner, I know how many years it took me to work myself up the ranks when I was in the hotel industry and more than one try just to have the opportunity to get into catering and event planning.   I also know how many more years  it took me to gain the experience and knowledge in order to earn the designations of Certified Professional Catering Executive (NACE) and Certified Meeting Planner (CMP).   As there is only one chance to get each event right, I continue to oversee our coordination team’s progress to ensure that they have covered all needs and through experience we know how much staff we need to have on site to make things happen.

I can understand how someone that is not in our industry may not consider these things and that is why we offer non-paid internships for them to have the opportunity to learn and gain experience.    I can’t understand  when vendors within our industry try to be the “one stop shop” and add coordination and other services to their list and don’t have the qualifications or skill set which will end up impacting someone’s event.

At the end of the day, no matter who you decide upon, we want every Hawaii wedding to be a memorable experience for you and your guests…..when reflecting back on your day it should bring a bit of sunshine and a song to your heart.

No matter what you do in life, you should be respectful of another person’s time.      I had the opportunity to hang out after our National Association of Catering Executives (NACE) meeting the other evening with some event professionals and one of the topics of  our discussion was how much time was wasted due to clients’ arriving late or worse yet, not at all.

Many don’t realize that in addition to 60 minute meeting time that we are allocating for you, we also have travel time to get to the location (which in my case ranges from 30-45 minutes) and as we arrive early to ensure we are on time, that’s easily another 15 minutes, plus the drive back.     So a one hour meeting time, in truth is taking between 2 hours and 15 minutes to 2 hours and 45 minutes of time out of our day.  Many clients associate delayed responses with “island time”  but our ability to get back to you in a timely manner (other than when we have events of course) is adversely impacted by each meeting that starts late.

I’ve also had a few clients that were purposely going to start their ceremony late.     There are several reasons why you should always start your ceremony on time.  First of all, you should respect the time of those guests that did arrive on time to attend your special day.    Secondly, often times ministers do have another wedding to attend to and they schedule their time based on your ceremony start time.    As a coordinator, i know from experience that starting on time sets the pace for the entire day, if you start on time, the day is relaxed, it is when things are running late that the stress factor sets in.