Bridezilla Events

Maegan Both was an extremely helpful, calm, and flexible day-of coordinator. She was willing to meet with us multiple times to discuss planning details, and she took care of so much the day of the wedding. From setting up the reception to directing vendors, guests, and the wedding party, the peace of mind Maegan provided was well worth her fee.

MAEGAN SAVED THE DAY! I am a relatively organized person and thought planning a wedding would be easy as pie. Where the heck did I get that idea!?! Between working full time and coordinating everything I had an emotional breakdown. My husband-to-be couldn't stand seeing me like that and finally recommended hiring a coordinator. This was three weeks before the wedding! I called Maegan to explain my situation (between sobs) and she worked out a game plan with me right away. By the end of the week she had taken control of everything on my plate that was wedding-related and I felt like I could finally breathe again. A wedding should be a joyous occasion and Maegan made that possible for us. Our wedding was everything we had hoped for. My only regret is that we didn't hire Maegan from the beginning since she is so wonderful!!!

I regret hiring her. No doubt about it. I was somewhat worried when she told me she had never done the site before, but I thought that a detail oriented go-getter would make use of all information available on the extensive website, make certain she was up on the restrictions of the site, and WRITE everything down at our planning meetings. Boy, was I wrong. A few examples follow.

Having coordinated (weeks in advance) a walk through of the site (a vendor dress rehearsal with my caterer, my florist, the Lakewold site person, and my day-of-coordinator) at 10AM, I receive a call at 9:15 AM as I am walking out the door that the coordinator needs to cancel because she is sick and has a doctor's appointment. But, as she brightly assures me, "it'll be OK" and she doesn't need to be there or see the site, because she'll just talk to me about it the following week. Instead of calling all the other vendors herself to cancel with them, she asks me to call. My caterer expresses concern that with the complexity of my wedding, my coordinator won't be there at the walk through. I try to call the coordinator back. She then calls me and says that she CAN make the walk through. I have to call the vendors back and tell them to come, and then get in the car and drive the forty five minutes to the site, where of course everything starts late. During the walk through, my coordinator demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of the planned day's events, such that the caterer has to take charge and lead the walk through. The caterer, florist, and site supervisor ask appropriate questions regarding placement, timing etc. However, when questions come up regarding coordination for the day, such as where do the lion dancers check in, when do certain vendors arrive, etc, the coordinator's stock is answer is, we'll work something out. I can see the glances that my other vendors are exchanging with each other. At our planning meetings, she constantly asks questions that she has been told the answer to at previous meetings, she disregards my concerns that the decorations are not going to fit in her car until a few days before the wedding when she actually sees the pile of decorations herself, I am forced to send her a formal email expressing my concerns regarding her knowledge of the plan, she never takes over the contracts as she is supposed to do, and finally, the day of the wedding, I constantly have to ask my DH for the time, find the coordinator, and tell her to start this or that event, particularly the sparkler send off because she didn't remember/write down that everyone had to be out of the site by 10PM and cleanup done by 10:30PM. I didn't get to relax for a moment.

So sorry for this rather long post, and as a new business owner I realize that everyone has to start somewhere, but I also realize that RELIABILITY, RESPONSIBILITY, and ATTENTION TO DETAILS are essential, especially if you are relatively inexperienced..

BY FAR, the best money we spent on our entire wedding. Maegan (who I started referring to as God in the middle of the reception) was fantastic. I'm very anal and obsessive about everything (especially my wedding) and Maegan was the only person I trusted enough to just take over for me that day. She never slowed down all day and she had a solution for EVERYTHING! And you have to love her headset! Just like the Wedding Planner :)
Here are a few examples: Erik's great grandma hit her leg during pictures and was bleeding a lot and Maegan had a first aid kit...the bow on my bouquet ribbon was WAY too big but Maegan cut it off and secured the remainder of the ribbon on the bouquet perfectly...my sister stepped on my train (and ripped the underside) just as we were heading up to the church to walk down the aisle and Maegan fixed it in no time...My train broke again during pictures at Seattle U after the ceremony so I called Maegan from the town car and she met me outside to fix it again before entering the reception. At the beginning of the reception Erik had his little "stabbinbg" incident and he started freaking out (he's a little dramatic!) and the first thing out of his mouth was "someone just find Maegan now". Naturally, she fixed him up immediately. THEN one of Erik's friends picked me up while dancing and broke my bustle. Of course Maegan made a bustle using safety pins. It looked fabulous (no one would ever have known the original bustle broke) even though Maegan and I referred to it as the "ghetto bustle". Our bartenders were awful so Maegan and her assistant ended up pouring the champagne toasts for 250 people...and she also wrote quite the follow-up letter to the bartending company explaining all the problems we had. She also had a card and champagne waiting for us in the town car at the church, and had boxes of food and cake waiting for us in the town car at the end of the night to take to the hotel.
I know I've missed a million other things that she did for us that day but I can't stress enough that she was the reason our day went so smoothly. She was incredibly professional and prepared for everything. My bridesmaids had a hay-day going through the "emergency kit" she brought with her too! After the wedding we talked about everything Maegan had done and I can only speculate about what would have happened without her there. I was much less stressed that day thanks to her and my dad can't say enough good things about her. He said she would have been worth at least twice what she charged.

Maegan Both does a fabulous job of creating a seamless flow of events during weddings. She is wonderful to work as I have had the chance to work with her as a fellow wedding vendor. I highly recommend taking the time to contact her if you need assistance with your wedding day vision!