Weddingbee boards

I've heard a lot of advice about having a (non-professional!) day-of coordinator to keep the stress down. What responsibilities would that person have? My fiancé and I are doing all the planning ourselves, so I'm wondering how up-to-speed that person wold have to be and if the responsibilities could be shared among several people.

Married ladies, what say you? Did you have someone in charge of coordinating the day-of and how did you let them know what to do?

P.S. I'm not interested in hiring a professional coordinator. Our wedding is two weeks out and we're just not that fancy!

i've asked my aunt to be my mistress of ceremony and she is pyched. i am having her set out the favors, be the point of contact for my vendors, and tell everybody when to walk down the aisle.

my uncle is the master of ceremony and he is bringing the sound system since we are doing the ipod thing, and will make a few announcements into the microphone.

i've delegated most of the design set up to the florist, and am having the grooms buddies switch our chairs over from the ceremony to the reception through the backdoor.

do you have a list of details you could assign to different people? you also have to consider packing up things like the cake cutters and toasting flutes etc. after it's over- i'll ask my aunt to do that for me as well- she's going to be such a lifesaver:)

Okay, so here's my idea of the day's schedule what will need to be done. Let me know what I'm missing!

Morning:

Flowers and reception decor - friends

Afternoon:

Ceremony rehearsal 1 p.m.

Getting-ready time 2 p.m.-ish

Ceremony decor and setup - friends and family

Photos 4 p.m.

WEDDING! 6 p.m.

RECEPTION! - may need master of ceremonies?

 cocktails 6:30 p.m.

 food served 7 p.m.

dancing starts 7:30 p.m.

cake cutting and piñata! ~9 p.m.

more dancing!

ooo that's fun that your doing a pinata! what you should probably do next is make a list of all the jobs that need to distributed to make each thing happen and flow. for example: the cake cutting and pinata

who is going to hang the pinanta?

who is going to announce that this is all going on? the dj?

who is going to serve the cake to the guests? are you at a hall with servers?

it's all the little things like that that we can forget about so easily, but do not want to be handling the day of. i'm a ways out from my date, but want to be sure that everyone knows what needs to be done so there are no suprises and i don't have to end up dealing with it, ya know?

like who is going to make sure all the vendors get paid, who is going to set up my photo booth area and set out the guest book? just make a list of everything you can think of and make sure somebody is doing it other than you!!

if you have a married couple that you're both close to i think it's nice to ask someone to be your master/mistress of ceremony so they can put out any fires that come up. i know my aunt and uncle were really touched we asked them and we're planning to pay for their hotel room the night after the rehearsal dinner to thank them.

I know that the idea of having a coordinator is to save you the stress of doing things on the wedding day, but what on earth would I do all day if I didn't help with any of these things? We're not actually getting married until 6 p.m., and I'm the type of person who is more stressed when I don't have anything to do! Anybody else of like mind?

Wow! I'd never heard of a Mistress of Ceremony. I think this is the perfect job for FI's stepmom. She loves to be in charge AND she'll love the title!

Mandyrosy, I'm like you about wanting things to do! At first, I planned out much of my day so that I would be doing most everything. As the details got more real (and my FI took a peek at my schedule & said, "Oh no, lady!"), I started delegating. Not totally, though. I'll be spending a few hours in the morning at the reception site getting things together, but then I'm handing it over to friends and family. 

But I'm sure that when I'm around for pictures, I'll be saying "Oh, let me carry that." "I'll take those over there." Etc, etc. I'm not too worried, though. It's my personality to like to do things. And I have backup, so if I feel overwhelmed (read: cranky) I can just hand it off.