purple wedding at peterloon estate cincinnati — Photograph by: **Odessa James Photo**

We guide you. We advocate for you. We take care of you.

Those are the overall general things that we do as planners and coordinators that are reasons people book us in the first place. From the basics of helping you find the perfect venue and building your team of vendors to designing your dream wedding aesthetic to finalizing all your details and executing a flawless wedding day, that’s what all planners do - that you can see.

What you don’t always see or even hear about are the crazy stories of the fires we put out or solutions we come up with when, inevitably, things go less than perfect. And let’s be honest, weddings are LIVE and run by HUMANS so there will definitely be something wrong that happens. We will just fix it before you know it happened. Are you ready for some fun stories?

My favorite quote from a father of the bride:

What do people do who don’t have a Karen?

Click below to watch a video from one of our favorite spring weddings <3

The Crooked Floral Hoop

This is probably one of my favorite stories to tell. I don’t think I even got a chance to tell our sweet couple about it but it all started with the bride really wanting a floral hoop over her dance floor in her gorgeous white tent. It was a beautiful day in August and as we finished setting up the table details under the tent, the floral team completed the icing on the cake: the floral hoop. It looked perfect and colorful hanging above the dance floor. They checked everything was set and ready and left. They drove the 2 hours+ home to where their shop is based (as this was kind of a destination wedding in a smaller town).

Less than 2 hours later, I was inside setting some things up for the cocktail hour when one of my assistants came to me and said, “We have a problem. A big gust of wind came through the tent and knocked some of the florals off the hoop so now it’s lopsided.” I looked at her, unalarmed, and asked, “Well how bad is it?” She told me, “It’s not GOOD!” Haha. So I entered the tent from the side where all guests would enter. From this vantage point, you look straight down the 32’ long kings table that dead ends into the center of the dance floor and sure enough, there it was! Our floral hoop taking a deep tilt to the right, swaying in the breeze, totally not being cute.

We retrieved a ladder and one of our team members worked to fix the tilt by adding the florals that had fallen to the ground back on. However, even after she put those pieces back, I stood back in disbelief. It was still crazy crooked. We needed to tie something up there that had enough weight on it to fix the tilt. What was our solution?! Silly enough - we wired up and hid two spoons on the hoop, wrapping them up so it they wouldn’t move and/or be seen. We stood at the back of the tent and it looked perfect, as if nothing had happened. No one ever knew (except us and the venue owner). So our bride got her perfect dance floor centerpiece and no one had a clue. But the question we had in our head after that debacle was:

What would they have done if we weren’t here??

The Bride Who Just Wanted Out

Another favorite story of mine was not a big problem to solve but an issue resolved quickly and quietly that definitely made me feel more connected to the sweet bride afterward. We had a gorgeous HOT day for a wedding in May. The temperature was 95 degrees and there was very minimal cloud coverage for a tented wedding on a farm. The first look and wedding party portraits started mid afternoon and thank goodness we planned for water stations and lemonade prior to the ceremony for the guests. It became sweltering out right around ceremony time.

Luckily the couple kept it short and sweet with a twenty minute program and the I Do’s. Then, all the guests made their way to the shade of the big oak tree and one of the barns to sip cocktails, water and have some quick bites. Our team was keeping guests out of the tent while the photographers captured details. Then, one of the caterers came over and said, “Are you the wedding planner? The bride is looking for you and wants you to bring scissors to the back barn.”

Immediately, I’m thinking, ‘What in the world?’ So I grab the scissors out of our emergency kit and find our bride, hiding out in the back barn by herself. “What’s wrong? Are you OK?” She started laughing which didn’t really put me at ease but she took a deep breath and simply said, “I am so hot! Please cut the underlayer off of my dress.” She meant that petticoat layer that made her dress’ skirt more full. I asked her if she was sure at which she replied, “Yes please!” So there I was, on my knees, underneath my brides dress, in a barn, snipping around her waist as she spun in a circle, holding her skirt over my head. After she stepped out of the offending layer of fabric, I balled it up and asked what she wanted to do with it. Without a word, she took it out of my hands and threw it in the trash can. “I feel like I can breathe!” Then she proceeded to dance the night away, smiling ear to ear. I’ll never forget her or that moment.

Whose Cake Is This?

Back when I first started doing weddings on my own, almost 16 years ago, the story of the Air Force Cake will always stay with me and justify why I ask so many questions when we are doing Wedding Management (60 days prior and wedding day coordination).

In the middle of set up, about 2 hours prior to the first guest arriving for a big military wedding in Florida, one of my assistants said that the cake team had dropped off the cake and left. I wondered why they didn’t check in with me, it’s common practice to check in with the planner when dropping off the cake to make sure it is in the right place and if there is a topper, etc. So I went over to see the cake and sitting there was a four tier, plain, white cake with a sweet little cake topper with their initials on top.

Because we ask all the details at final meetings and throughout conversations with our clients, we knew this was wrong. Their cake was supposed to be white, yes, but it was supposed to have navy blue ribbon wrapped around the bottom of each tier (for the Air Force). Apparently they had told the venue coordinator they had dropped off but she didn’t know what it was supposed to look like (side note: it is not the venue coordinators job to know the cake details). I immediately got on the phone and called the baker, insisting they come back and fix the cake. We had 45 minutes before the bride would arrive to see the room and the cake was missing the most meaningful detail of the design. They came back, and put the ribbons around each of the four tiers. Twenty minutes later, our sweet bride arrived and fawned over how beautiful her cake was. While I was sitting in the corner, breathing a sigh of relief that we fixed it in time.

We knew what was expected and meaningful to the couple because part of our job as the wedding coordinator was to know every little design detail, even if we didn’t plan the whole wedding for you. We ask questions to make sure we understand what you’ve planned and what you envision.