Susan and Will

This was one of the busiest weddings I have ever coordinated. The b&g hired me for "day of" services. The bride is very organized and had every detail planned. She just needed someone to make it all come together. And for those of you who have ever planned a wedding before, whether it is yours or someone else's, you know that not everything goes as planned. Susan decided to use my services for set-up and take-down at the reception as well. It was held at The University Club, which is a beautiful facility located on the top of Rudder Tower on the Texas A&M campus. It has large floor to ceiling windows which give a great view of Aggieland! My staff and I arrived at 2:45 on Friday to decorate. The flowers, which had been arranged by Susan, Will's mom and some friends, arrived at the same time. They were beautiful!! There were close to a hundred vases of flowers. Party-time Rentals supplied the dance floor, table toppers and sashes for the chairs. Our set-up and decorating took a little longer than anticipated for several reasons which were out of our control. However, the final product was beautiful. The ceremony took place at St. Thomas Episcopal Church on George Bush Drive. It is a church that has been around this community for many years. The service was very formal and edifying to the Lord. Their photographers were a husband/wife (and now baby) team from Fidelis Studio. Their names are Tim and Kristen Douglass. They are so efficient, yet comfortable and relaxed. I enjoyed working with them. Music was provided by Attic Productions. This crowd was easy to please and had a wonderful time dancing to a good mixture of country, '80's and '90's. (do I dare say oldies?) The cake was beautiful and delicious from Jaqulyn at Fabulous Fare.
Probably the biggest glitch for this wedding happened at the very end of the reception. Will and Susan wanted to leave down the big staircase outside which starts from the second floor of Rudder Tower. At 10:00, I went down to the second floor to make sure that the door leading to the outside was indeed unlocked. The guests were to light sparklers and light the way as the couple left down the stairs. The door was unlocked- check. So I went back upstairs to tell the DJ to give the crowd instructions to start heading down to the second floor. My assistant, Erin, and I gathered up the sparklers, lighters, buckets of water to put out the sparklers, and headed down to the second floor. There, we found the door locked- the exact one that was unlocked 10 minutes before... There was no time to run back upstairs to tell the DJ because at that moment, we realized that all the sparklers were "bundled" and had to be seperated to give to individuals. In the meantime, guests began to come to the second floor, as instructed, and I had to run up there to tell them to come to the first floor. It was all a bit confusing, but alas, everyone found us on the first floor and we lined them up in two lines to send off the newlyweds. I went back up to the top of the tower (the 11th floor) to get Will and Susan and tell them that they couldn't go down the stairs. They left to the glow of sparklers and then it was time to finish taking all the decorations down. There was smoke from the sparklers going inside the first floor of the tower, and so I closed the door leading to the inside to avoid setting off the smoke alarm. Big mistake. The doors were set up so that you can open them from the inside going out, but not from the outside going in. We flagged down a custodian who let us in, and after that, take-down was pretty uneventful. The groom's mom did a great job gathering a bunch of folks to take all the flowers and other decorations back downstairs and load them in vehicles. They had everything cleared within 15 minutes. However, when the last guest left, we found one more decoration that was to go back to the bride, and Erin took it downstairs, only to get locked out again... Of course, it was more chaotic from our end. I think the guests and family had a wonderful time and didn't notice the hiccups. The bride and groom were able to enjoy their special day and didn't have to worry with all the details. That's why they hired me- the wedding planner.