Always a Blogsmaid

The MOH Job Description

The Q: I'm a Maid of Honor for my best friend's wedding. I'm not really sure what I should be doing..... Any advice?

The A: Great Question. Your day to day duties will probably vary depending on your bride, her mom's involvement and if she has a planner or not, but you can count on having to do a few critical things:

*Be enthusiastic and supportive, even if you don't really care about stationary or aren't in love with her fiance's family, etc.
*Organize the other 'maids. Be a "team captain" and make sure everyone has ordered their dresses, gotten their shoes, etc.
*Take the lead on her shower/bachelorette. Here in NY, small apartments and high prices usually mean showers are a family affair, but elsewhere its really a bridesmaid only responsibility. However you plan on splitting the costs, take a leadership role and advocate for what you know your friend would like.
* Learn to "do the bustle" at her fitting and then do it on the day of.
*If there is no Day Of coordinator, help her out by confirming details and arrival times with her vendors and keeping their cell numbers on the day of. Be her point person on that day so that no one is stressing her out.
*Don't forget to hold her bouquet and fix her train during the ceremony. If you need to hold his wedding band, don't forget it!
*Try and give the couple a little private time post ceremony by being a little bit of a bridal body guard.

Those are the biggies. Your duties might also include toast making, envelope stuffing, program folding, cake tasting and more. But, if you hit these "biggies" you'll have done a pretty great job.

When you don't have a "me" there.....

The Q:  If I can't afford a planner, should I count on my bridesmaids to help the day run smoothly?

The A:  My knee jerk response is no, but that is like stereotyping,  and ends up being an unfair blanket statement.  In many cases, you can't really count on your bridesmaids, because unlike a day-of planner or a venue coordinator, your bridesmaids have social and personal obligations to you.  A day-of planner is not a bride monitor (though she does do that) she is an event manager, and needs to be paying attention to the needs and actions of your guests, your family members, your vendors, your food service AND even you.  It's hard for a BM to help with your personal needs, say hi to your mutual friends from college AND keep her eye on the time to make sure you cut your cake before the photographers time runs out.   While all the critical parts of your wedding set up are happening, they'll be taking group photos. So, my statement should be clarified to say even with the best intentions, it's not really the same as having a coordinator at your wedding.

So, what can you do if you just don't have it in the budget?  Well, first, if you have an on site coordinator, you should create a timeline of the PREP portion of the day with CONTACT info.  The florist is arriving at X time, the cake at X time, the photo starts and ends at X times. This should have their cell phone numbers on it as well, so that if they aren't there when they said they would be she or he can easily reach them to see what is going wrong. 

You should also create an event timeline with your music provider and food provider and hand that to the venue coordinator as well, just so they can keep track of the event flow/ make sure that all your toasts happen.

If you don't have a venue coordinator, see if you have a very enthusiastic girlfriend who might want to do it, or an aunt that everyone listens to, but either way, take event mangagement duties outside of your bridesmaid's hands.

Contractual Obligations

The Q: When I'm looking over contacts for my location, florist, caterer etc. is there anything I should be looking out for?

The A:  Totally!  Aside from the typical and obvious stuff like your names, the locations, items, insurance provided and start and end times for services, there are still other, less obvious details that you should be sure your contracts include, such as:

1) Illness or Cancellation policy.  Most of the time we select vendors based on their individual work and who they are.  Be sure that your contract has provisions for what you will do should your vendor fall ill and what your back up plan is.  The same for your vendor needing to cancel.

2) Payment and Production schedule.  When dealing with vendors who will still OWE you things after the wedding, like video and photography, be sure that a payment is still due upon receiving your product/ you have a deadline worked in to receive those items. For instance, you will receive proofs within 4 weeks of the wedding at which time the final payment of $600 is due.

3) Rescheduling policy.  It sounds weird, but things happen and sometimes you need to reschedule.  You should ask about the policy and whether or not you'll be penalized for causing them to lose the first date or if you can shift your date over without a penalty.

Who cuts the cake?

The Q:  I know it’s old fashioned, but is it OK to have a friend or relative cut the cake, rather than paying someone to do it? The cake price from our caterer is much too expensive for us, and we’ve found a baker who will make the cake for less than half the cost. However, the caterer would charge a $2/slice cutting fee. They have given us the OK from them to have a relative cut the cake, but I’m wondering about “the rules.” Is this a tacky way to save a buck?

The A: Hmmmm.  The thing is, it's not that I THINK it's tacky per se, it's more that it's HARD to cut cake.  I wish I had photos of the one wedding I did ages ago where the caterer wouldn't cut the cake and Mayra and I had to do it.  It was red velvet cake and it looked like a crime scene by the time we were done.

It's also time consuming, so it will probably take the lucky relative a good half hour.  However, if the $2 pp eats into the savings that you found by going to another baker, than I think you shouldn't be worried about propriety.  You SHOULD be mildly worried about appearances, but likely, no one will notice. :-)

Snack Shack: More Gaps in Ceremony & Reception

The Q:  How do we go about having a 10am wedding, and a 3pm meal? Can we do it and how do we let everyone know that they will have to 'snack' but not pig out between the wedding and reception. We will have snack trays out when our reception doors open, but we don't know when to actually do that part either. We have soooo many out of town family members coming who will want to visit and catch up, and that's our basis to ending the evening early, around 7ish. What's the proper way to do all of this?

The A: Well, I'm assuming that there are logistical reasons dictated by someone other than you that are creating such a large gap between the ceremony end time and the reception start time..... you CAN do anything, and I'm happy to tell you how I would do it if you were my client, but my FIRST suggestion is to consider either moving the ceremony time up (to 12:30 or 1, depending on its length) OR making your very early dinner into a brunch and making it an 11:30 or noon meal.

But, let's assume that's not possible....

I'm confused about WHERE these snacks will be.  If they are at 3PM at the reception venue, I don't think they are doing much good.  I think that you should see about having snack trays out at your ceremony site AFTER the ceremony so that when you have made your exit, you can have a receiving line, take family photos and your guests can mingle, have a coffee and a light snack.   This would work the lobby or receiving area or outdoors, depending on where your ceremony is.   Then on the invitation, I would indicate in the lower right or left corner "Lite refreshments following ceremony"

Your reception card (you MUST have a reception card) would then indicate the actual start time of the meal.  It should say Please join us for Dining and Dancing at XXXXX XXXXX .
This will let your guests know that they a) have a really big gap between the ceremony and reception and b) that they are going to get a full meal later on .  It's then up to them to gauge their food consumption in between!

Please just note and consider that people will have the ability to get back and forth easily between their homes or hotel, the ceremony site and the reception site, because they will definitely want to go, change and refresh and rest in between the two events!

I hope that was helpful....

The Weather Man

The Q: "We are having our wedding on a rooftop and the reception inside on a lower level in a city venue.  We have the option to tent our rooftop, but obviously, I'd rather not since I like the rooftop because of the views, and the tent will add major $$$ to our budget.  When do I realistically need to make this rain call?"

The A: Wow, great question!!!  Well, the truth of the matter is, you probably need to make the call about 2 or 3 days prior.  The Tent company is going to likely tell you that you need to make it sooner, (like a week or so) but see if you can simply put a deposit on it first, and then make the call when you get a day or two out. 

Ultimately, the most important thing is that the rain plan is set to go.I would say that if it looks 40-45% chance of rain or greater, I would make the rain call, particularly if there is not a back up space to have the reception in.  There isn't anything worse than a rained out wedding filled with wet guests! 

While it wouldn't spare you the cost of the tent for the rain, you should check with the tent company and see just WHEN they would start putting up the tent and what your tent options are.  First off, a clear top tent will feel much more airy than a plain white tent.  The other thing is if they are only setting it up that day or the night prior, you might still need to PAY for the tent (since you would have reserved it) but if it seems like the weather has changed, you might be able to make a last minute call about setting it up. 

Best of luck and I hope that the weather is on your side! Remember, your wedding will be wonderful no matter what!