Just to name a few!

We are constantly putting out fires and dealing with brand new unexpected situations at every wedding we coordinate. I asked our coordinators about some of their recent weddings and they shared some emergencies of all types that they were able to assist with. One of our biggest compliments from couples is that they didn’t even know said emergency was happening until after the wedding! It is our goal to smooth things out for you so you can remain worry free on the wedding day. Keep reading to hear some of our war stories!

“Neighbor called the cops on a backyard wedding. I talked to them and we just turned the music down to a suitable level.” – Monica

“I had a bride hate her wedding cake like an hour before the ceremony! She didn’t want this to be the cake she would see in her photos when they did the cake cutting.  So I literally scraped all the frosting on it and basically made it brand new and added florals on top. Definitely more what she wanted than the original!” – Maggie

 “Bartender got drunk and punched the brides uncle. I called the cops and got him to leave.” – Monica

“The caterer realized that they forgot one of the meat options for the buffet. They had planned to do a two sided self service buffet. To control portions and make sure there was enough mean for everyone, I asked the caterer to man the buffet station and serve guests. I filled in their role of dismissing tables and doing some bussing so that they could focus on serving. We pivoted the timeline to account for the extra service time needed, and everyone got to eat!” – Emily

A bride told me that her florist was going to have extra florals to put in the bud vases all along her reception tables. Keep in mind there are probably 6 long tables that have about 6 bud vases per table. The florist did her drop off and didn’t have any extra floral. I ran to trader joes and meijer to grab some fresh greenery and some baby breaths to fill the bud vases. Did this all before the ceremony so I was able to coordinate that and be ready for reception. – Maggie

My bride had red wine spilled on her while she was on the dance floor. I mean the front of her dress was just covered. I saw her walking towards me and I immediately ran to the bathroom with her. Red wine is tricky because you do not want to smudge or rub it more into the dress. I had a spray called “messy mouths” that worked great on the stain but the holy grail of a product was “Chateau Spill; red wine stain remover”. It was hands down the best product to use during that time. You just had to wet the dress a little bit and begin spraying! The stain was literally going away right before our eyes. It was crazy!! It definitely saved the night and the bride went back onto the dance floor without a worry!! But of course still sent it to the dry cleaners the next day ha! – Maggie

“The bride’s florist dropped off all their décor a couple days before the wedding. At the rehearsal dinner I was able to quickly peak in at the flowers dropped off. It was to my understanding (and the brides) the flowers for the center pieces were trimmed and arranged to be placed in vases on each table, nope! Thankfully I saw this the night before and was able to account for playing florist ahead of time. It took me a little over an hour (and a lot of patience) to trim and arrange flowers for 20 tables. Also, the florist was suppose to leave a mount for the floral arrangement to hang on the couples arch. They didn’t and I sadly wasn’t prepared with zip ties large enough, so I had to think quickly of how to place their beautiful, yet giant arrangement! I ended up being able to center it nicely on top of the arch. (Thank God the arch was strong enough to hold it!)” – Shaely

“Bride’s dress strap snapped right as the dance floor opened, luckily I had my sewing kit handy and we stitched her up and she was back out there before the song was even over!” – Monica

“Outdoor wedding and under the head table chairs was a mud pit from rain the night before. Went to home depo and bought 40ft of carpet runner to save the wedding party from getting full of mud!” – Monica

“We had a bride’s dress rip 30 minutes before the ceremony. Luckily I had a sewing kit and know how to do some simple sewing. We took care of it and had her down the aisle on time.” – Abgail

“I had my second bride of the summer without desserts 48 hours before her wedding. Her mom had confirmed with Meijer, spoken to the head baker, had invoices and receipts, and had paid. The bakery called the bride’s mom on Sunday to ask when she was picking her desserts up. Thursday rolled around – Meijer claimed no receipts, invoices, or order. They refused to work with us or return our calls. We had a new order in at a different bakery within 25 minutes of finding this out with both cupcakes AND cake…all during the height of graduation open house cupcake season.” – Haley

“Grooms dad had too much to drink and wanted to make a speech but the couple did not want him to so I had to talk him down and babysit him so he didn’t grab the mic.” – Monica

“The wedding cake was damaged on the way to the venue. We used the cake knife to smooth out the icing and then pivoted the plan of where to put the cake so that the back side would be hiding instead of exposed” – Emily

“The DJ randomly left the venue 5 minutes before ceremony began… It was a very hot summer day and bridal party was lined up and ready to walk down the aisle. The groom told me the hold up was a microphone problem. During this conversation, the DJ walks past us towards the parking lot. Finding that kind of odd, I followed him to see what was happening. I get to the parking lot and the DJ is waving to me as he drives away. I immediately pulled the venue worker aside and told him what was going on and called the owner of the company. He couldn’t get ahold of his employee as it turns out, he left his phone and all of his belongings at the venue. The owner immediately got a sub who could not get to the venue for another hour, but was only filling in until the owner himself arrived (who drove 2.5 hours). For ceremony, a friend of the bride volunteered their speaker for ceremony music and we had the venue handled cocktail hour. Timeline was definitely behind due to this, but the sub came and took over for a bit until the owner arrived. We had the bride and groom move forward with all of their speeches and dancing for the evening. At the end of the evening, I did have to put out a small fire as the original DJ came back to the property as we were tearing down. Emotions were high and a parent confronted him, and things got a bit heated. But, we got security involved and removed him from the premises. Overall, we all bounced back as vendors and were able to give the bride and groom a fun evening and a day they will never forget!” – Quincy

“My couple rented out a bunch of décor from a company. We had moved these beautiful glass lanterns from the aisle way for the ceremony to a pathway for their reception. Their wedding was outdoors in June and that night Michigan had issued a severe wind storm. I was watching the weather pretty intently during dinner service and quickly started bringing the lanterns inside a storage area so they would not get damaged. (And so the couple wasn’t charged IF they were damaged.) Well I’m glad I moved them! Not even 15 minutes after, the wild wind storm with a light hail/rain mix came in and while it thankfully passed quickly, it definitely would have taken out most, if not all of the lanterns!” – Shaely

“Couple didn’t realize that the 50 battery operated lanterns they got for decor didn’t come with batteries in them! Went to Kroger and got all lanterns filled and on before ceremony time!” – Monica

The Dj ran out of tape to secure all of their cords to the ground in a high traffic area. Thankfully I was equipped with plenty of black tape for them to use to ensure guests didn’t trip! – Shaely

A bridesmaid spilled their drink on their dress and the brides moments before going down the aisle. I was able to help quickly remove the coloring from the drink with a tide stick, while using my fan (yay hot summer weddings) to dry the spot as well. – Shaely

Just before their ceremony, the bride realized she not only wanted a mint, but also had something in her teeth. I had both a mint and a flosser ready to get for her in my bag. She was very grateful! – Shaely

“Everything that could have gone wrong did. We literally had to go with plan D for their ceremony. They had to move their wedding location due to covid restrictions. They were planning on having an outdoor ceremony, but it was down pouring rain, and thunder-storming all day (we even tornado warnings too.) So the ceremony had to be moved inside the tent. 30 minutes before the ceremony the venue managers came up to me and told me we had to move the ceremony inside the club to the reception space. There was another round of bad storms headed our way, and the tent was held up by steel beams which, with it lightning, was a safety concern to everyone to say the least.  I had to be the one to break the bad news to the bride, and she burst into tears. Besides the weather, there was decor that was left back home in Milwaukee, and just a bunch of little things that had happened throughout the day. When I told the bride the bad news about having to use the reception space for the ceremony, I remember her saying to me, “all I wanted was an aisle to walk down.” That made my heart sink. The venue staff, and my assistant and I were scrambling, and running around in the rain moving their arbor and other decor inside. My mom and I went inside to move some guest tables around to try to create an aisle for the bride and groom and the rest of the wedding party to walk down because I knew that was important to her. Despite everything that happened, the bride came up to me at the end of the night and gave me a huge hug and said thank you! She said everything that was thrown our way that day I handled with grace, and that it truly ended up being the perfect day!” – Emma

“We had an outdoor ceremony on the dock of a large country club. The bar inside the club opened shortly after the ceremony began. While the officiant was speaking, loud house music started coming from the bar. My assistant and I ran around the club to find the manager and get the music turned off as quickly as possible!” – Emily

“Bride and groom supplied their own drinks but forgot to get water! Went to Kroger and bought 10 cases and had only half a case left at the end of the night.” – Monica

“The venue had a few unused cocktail tables sitting right by the front of the stage basically right in front of where the couples ceremony would be. I asked someone who worked there if we would be able to move the tables out of the way. (Details matter!) We were able to and I’m so glad! The photographers even came up to me and thanked me for moving them. It made their job easier and it made it so they were able to get wide shots during the ceremony.” – Shaely

The couple wanted to do a venue reveal prior to all of the guests entering the space. They had an offsite cocktail hour but guests were arriving back to the venue early and the couple was running a little late from their offsite wedding party photos. Guests were entering the space and helping themselves to the bar. Once the couple arrived, I let them know of the situation and they said they still wanted to do a room reveal. So I escorted about 40 guests out of the space so they were able to have that special moment! – Molly

There was a miscommunication about who was in charge of cutting the couples cake. The caterers were not paid for that service and the venue was not allowed to handle any food. Thankfully, I keep a cake knife and server in my emergency kit and was able to cut and plate the cake for all of the guests! – Molly

“The DJ forgot a tablecloth while setting up so I ran back home and grabbed an extra tablecloth that I used for my wedding. 

My couple forgot their cake knife and server so I went out to the store to get one.

The shuttle bus was late so I coordinated with the groomsmen to drive one of their cars over to the church. The car was left in the parking lot so towards the end of the night my assistant and I drove the one groomsman over to the church to get his car back. 

My bride got a red stain on her dress so I quickly went to my emergency kit to grab a tide pen and her dress looked brand new right before her first dance. 

After the ceremony, I went to go bustle my bride’s dress but there was a button missing so I took a bunch of safety pins and made a new bustle. 

The park venue was too small to fit the DJ’s equipment so I came up with a plan to move the DJ underneath the tent outside using a long extension cord from my emergency kit. It also down-poured that day so my assistant and I quickly moved the decorated picnic tables underneath the tent until it stopped raining. 

The bartenders ran out of some ginger beer needed for the speciality drink so I went to the store to pick up a few cases. They also ran out of cups so I grabbed those too! 

I picked up a late-night snack that didn’t come with utensils or napkins so I went out to the store and brought some back. 

I was playing music off my bride’s phone for her ceremony and over the speaker, her ring notification started going off so I quickly silenced her notifications in time for her to walk down the aisle.  

My bride didn’t order enough tablecloths from the rental company so I called the catering company and asked if they could bring theirs and it all worked out.” – Megan

Need a coordinator to handle your wedding day emergencies?

These stories are accompanied by countless times we have had to pivot decor due to missing or broken elements, adjust timelines based on changing situations, run last minute errands for needed items, or manage a rouge vendor. Long story short: You need a wedding coordinator. What are you waiting for?!

We would be happy to help. You can visit our website to find out more about our coordination services and meet our team. Don’t leave your wedding day with regrets, hire a coordinator instead!