Our Experience Did Not Match the Coordination We Were Promised
We hired Golden Events for month-of coordination because we had already planned every detail of our wedding.
Th...e services described on Golden Events’ website and discussed during our planning meetings emphasize that couples won’t have to manage vendors, answer constant questions, rely on friends and family to run the wedding, or worry about what’s happening behind the scenes.
We worked incredibly hard to set our coordinator up for success. More than a week before the wedding I emailed a detailed wedding binder that included a minute-by-minute timeline, vendor contact information, décor instructions with photos and diagrams, photography shot lists, family photo groupings, and notes from our walkthroughs.
During multiple planning meetings, we were assured that Golden Events would keep the photographer on schedule, wrangle family members for photos, and cue the timeline throughout the day. Two days ahead of time I asked specifically if she could be next to us the whole time.
Unfortunately, that was not our experience.
Our coordinator arrived when we did, around 10 a.m., but she didn’t greet us or check in with me until 2:30 p.m., about 30 minutes before the ceremony. During that time we had already completed our first look, all wedding party photos, immediate family photos, and much of the busiest part of the day without help.
We had specifically discussed wanting help keeping photography organized and people moving, but no one lined up family members for photos, the wedding party wasn’t being wrangled, and we never received the proactive coordination we had discussed in our planning meetings.
We had also been told that vendors would be contacted before the wedding. To confirm arrival times and other logistics. With the exception of the venue, none of our vendors told us they had ever been contacted by Golden Events.
Friends ended up setting up much of our signage and décor. The entire reason we hired a coordinator was so that our friends wouldn’t have to work on our wedding day.
During the reception it was difficult to locate our coordinator. They were not present for family photos after the ceremony. Guests said they often saw them sitting inside on their phones.
We also discussed setting up lawn games after the photos. We provided information on how to set up with photos, who would help, the list of the 3 games, and where the games would go. After 40 min of cocktail hour my husband and I noticed the games were not set up and took action ourselves.
When there was a significant issue with guests not having any water at their dinner tables 30 minutes into eating and it wasn’t noticed, escalated, or resolved by our coordinator.
To be fair, Golden Events did assist with table settings, setup and teardown, and cueing guests down the aisle for the ceremony.
Our wedding was beautiful, and we’re incredibly grateful to the people who stepped in to make the day successful. However, that success came because our friends filled many of the gaps that we had hired a coordinator to fill.
I truly hope this feedback is taken constructively. I don’t believe there was any ill intent, but I do believe future couples deserve to know that our experience did not match the level of coordination that was represented during the booking process