Q & A with a Real “Month-of” Coordination Bride!

At Altar Ego Weddings our services range from “month-of” coordination to full-service wedding planning.  When clients first get engaged, many of them are unfamiliar with the idea that you can hire a wedding planner without us planning everything.  There are plenty of brides who love the idea of doing their own legwork and just receiving vendor recommendations and guidance from a professional planner along the way.  Our clients have access to us from the moment they book.  They can ask us anything they’d like and we are happy to give advice.  Then 30 days before the wedding, we meet at the venue and hammer out their ceremony seating diagram and detailed wedding day timeline.  We thought it would be fun to interview one of our real “month-of” coordination clients to see how her wedding planning experience went.

Meet Kelly!  She and Reed were married at Mercury Hall in Austin in early April 2017.  We loved working with Kelly and officially called her our “perfect month-of coordination bride!”  Take a look at our interview with her to get insight on her thought process during her planning.  Thanks Christina Carroll Photography for beautiful images!

1. How long was your engagement? We got engaged on March 12, 2016 and our wedding was on April 7, 2017.
    
2. What was your number one priority during wedding planning? My number on priority was keeping it simple, stress-free, and making sure everyone had a great time at our wedding! There were a lot of traditions we didn’t do (bouquet/garter toss, big wedding party, rehearsal dinner, etc.). We wanted our event to reflect us and be as simple and fun as possible.
    
3. What was your biggest concern or worry? Our biggest concern was budget. Though we didn’t have a set number in mind on what we want to spend, we were just very mindful of what we felt was an important thing to spend our money on vs. something we didn’t put much value in. Weddings are expensive no matter what way you do it, so we accepted that early on and just made sure whatever we were committing to was really want we wanted and was worth the expense. 
    
4. How soon after your engagement did you book Altar Ego Weddings? Altar Ego was the first thing I booked! We took a few months after our engagement before we got serious about wedding planning. I believe it was in June when I booked Altar Ego – three months after our engagement. My co-worker recommended Altar Ego and when we started our venue search (first thing we did) I wanted to get a planner on-board to help steer us in the right direction when it came to venue details and contracts. 
    
5. How soon after you booked your venue did you hire us? We booked our venue within a few days of hiring Altar Ego. We had narrowed our venue choices down to just a couple and hired Altar Ego before signing a venue contract so that we could ask a few questions and get some advice before making a decision.
    
6. How did you hear about us? A co-worker of mine recommended Altar Ego. Their wedding was around the time we got engaged. She had nothing but good things to say about Altar Ego. She said it was worth every single penny and the smartest decision she made in her wedding planning process. This co-worker of mine and I are both extremely detail oriented and process driven, and when she said Altar Ego operated the same way – I knew it was the right choice!
    
7. Before you were engaged, did you know what “month-of coordination” was? Sort of! I knew there was such a thing as day of coordinators but I did not really understand the extent of what services came along with that. I had always thought of possibly asking a friend to be a day of coordinator. However, once I started to understand what all goes in to day-of and month-of coordination, as well as all of the additional benefits of having a coordinator available for questions and recommendations throughout the process – I knew it was a must.
    
8. Why did you decide you needed “month-of coordination?” It was so incredibly important for my now husband and I to be completely stress free on our wedding day. So much planning, thought, money, time, goes in to planning this event, and it’s the most important event of your life. I wanted it to be perfect and stress free! That is exactly what we got – zero stress. 
    
9. Why did you elect not to hire us to do full-service wedding planning?  Did you prefer to do the legwork yourself and enjoy the details during the process?  Was the price out of your budget? I felt that I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted the style of our wedding to be (thank you Pinterest!). I had already thought about colors and the general vibe I was going for so I felt I didn’t necessarily need the extra services. I will say it was A LOT of work reaching out to vendors, speaking with them about your ideas in order to get a proposal, reviewing contracts, making decisions, deciding on the decor elements and layout, managing RSVPs, etc. I am a very detail oriented person – master of list making – which helped keep me organized throughout this process. If you are not someone who loves the details and can be that organized, hiring a planner for full-service services is probably they way to go. Looking back on it I might have considered hiring Altar Ego for more services. It was a lot of work, but at the end of it the wedding ended up being exactly what I wanted and it was satisfying to know that it was the end result of many months of hard work!
    
10. Did you find our vendor recommendations helpful?  Did you use vendors we suggested? YES! Almost every vendor used was recommended by Altar Ego. That was one of the things that was a huge time saver for me. I could ask for a recommended vendor for anything and I was provided with a list of 4-5 options at varying budget levels. I pretty much stuck with the recommended vendors and only reached out to those provided to me by Altar Ego. It was also extremely comforting knowing that all of these vendors have worked together before – all knew Altar Ego and vice versa. I imagine it makes Altar Ego’s job a lot easier as well. Every vendor we chose delivered five stars worth of service. We were so pleased with each vendor – zero complaints after the wedding.
     
11. What did you most enjoy about our services? I most enjoyed the peace of mind that Altar Ego had it covered. You even managed to make my Mom stress-free which is a hard thing to do! I didn’t have to worry about anything leading up to the wedding, the day before, and day of the wedding. I was able to sit back, relax, have the best time of my life, and enjoy every moment of months and months of planning.
12. Do you feel that we allowed you to be stress-free both leading up to the wedding and on the wedding day? Absolutely! I had zero stress. I can’t tell you how many of my vendors, family, friends told me throughout our wedding day how stress free and relaxed I seemed. They were all spot on!

Thank you Kelly and Reed for allowing us to be a part of your wedding day.  Clients like you are a joy to serve!  We appreciate you taking the time to response to our questions and help us educate future clients.  To see more of this bright and colorful wedding, visit our gallery page!

And thanks to the vendor team that made Kelly and Reed’s wedding go seamlessly:  
Mercury Hall | Christina Carroll Photography | Moonlit Weddings | Sixpence Floral | Vanilla Orchid Catering | Quacks Bakery
Amy’s Ice Creams | Altared Weddings | Premiere Events | Urban Betty | Limos of Austin

Do you want a stress-free wedding planning experience?  Contact us today!