DOC Details: pliers & bobby pins

So, I'm not sure if this "DOC Details" post is going to be the first of a series of future posts, but it definitely could be! Every time I get asked what my job as a wedding coordinator entails, I can always talk about things like the creation of a timeline, vendor recommendations, coordinating all of the moving pieces on the wedding day, etc. But, I always think that one of the most important parts of coordinating a wedding is how the moments that cannot be predicted are handled.

I could probably do a whole post about one tented wedding where there wasn't enough ice at the bar and there was still an hour left of dancing/partying to go, so I drove around a really small town looking for ice and every place I went to was either closed or ran out of ice already because it was a hot summer day. Long story short.. after I thought all hope was lost of finding ice anywhere, I happened to drive by a restaurant that was open at 10pm with a big ice chest on the sidewalk (it literally said ICE on it in huge letters), and I was able to get the 12 bags that I needed. It was like DOC fate =) But now, you already got the short story, so let's talk about pliers & bobby pins instead.

Pliers & bobby pins?? Well, bobby pins always were part of my day-of emergency kit, but after a wedding last summer, pliers will always be with me as well. Just last Friday, I did a photo recap of Rachel and Steve's wedding here. In addition to the typical DOC duties, here were two examples in just a span of 15 minutes where I stepped in to help: Rachel had a gorgeous dress, but it was also one that had a clasp at the top of the zipper that had a mind of its own. When hooked at the top, the clasp got bent in a way where it was poking Rachel in the back, and digging into her skin! So, I quickly ran down the stairs and asked the site coordinator to see if she had a tool box in the venue office. After she pointed out where it was, I looked through it and thankfully found a pair of pliers. The photo below shows me using the pliers to gently bend the clasp back into place, and also protecting the dress from the dirty pliers by layering some of the plastic that the dress was stored in between the fabric and the metal. No more poking clasp!

Then after the dress was on, the only finishing touch was the hair flower. It was a white football mum, and since Rachel had her hair done off site at a hair salon, there was no hair stylist on hand to help. So instantly the DOC becomes the next best thing to a hair stylist, and I happened to have about 40 varying colors of bobby pins in my pocket (you never know when you'll need to fix falling pieces of hair throughout the day!). The photos below show me securing the flower on Rachel's side-swept curls, and I'm happy to say that the flower stayed put through the entire night!

Photos by Jodye Alcon Photography
Using a pair of pliers or some bobby pins is no big deal, but if I didn't have those tools with me or available to me somehow, these small tasks would be much harder to take care of. There are definitely more stories that I could talk about, but I will save those for another post =)

~Emilie