What Does a Day-of Coordinator Do?
What does a day-of coordinator do? They run the day you already planned. The blocks they hold, the four things they do not, and what you hand over.
A day-of coordinator runs the wedding day you have already planned. They hold the run sheet, brief each supplier as they arrive, keep the night moving to the times on the page, and take the calls so the two of you do not have to. What they do not do is plan the wedding, and the handover between those two jobs is a document rather than a conversation.
What a day-of coordinator does on the day
The job is holding a chain of timed moments in front of people who each see only their own part of it.
The afternoon reception in the PlannedBy run sheet template is twenty rows between the couple walking in at 6:00 PM and the sheet closing at 11:15 PM. Speeches at 7:00 PM, three speakers at five minutes each with the MC holding the clock. Mains at 7:30 PM, with 45 minutes allowed from the first plate landing to the last one cleared. Cake at 8:30 PM, the floor open from 9:15 PM until 10:45 PM, send-off at 11:00 PM.
Every one of those is a handover between two suppliers who are not standing next to each other, and on the day you are being photographed.
| Moment | What holding it looks like |
|---|---|
| Suppliers arriving | Meeting each one, pointing at the rows that concern them |
| 7:00 PM, speeches | Closing each speaker out at five minutes so the kitchen is not waiting |
| 7:30 PM, mains | Telling the caterer the room is seated and the speeches are done |
| 8:30 PM, cake | Finding both sets of parents before the knife comes out |
| 10:45 PM, last drinks | Warning the bar and the band in the same minute |
| 11:15 PM, pack-down | Still being there once the couple have gone |
Speeches are the block that decides the rest of the night. Bridebook's Australian edition recommends keeping the whole speech segment under 40 minutes and says it usually wraps up inside 20 to 30.3 The shipped sheet is blunter, saying that three unwatched speeches become a 45 minute block and a cold main.
Why the job runs longer than any supplier's shift
The run sheet covers more hours than any single person working the wedding.
A wedding split across two venues runs 6:45 AM to 11:00 PM on the shipped sheet, sixty-two rows including an eighteen-row stretch in the middle when nothing is scheduled and everybody still needs to know where to be. A morning wedding runs 5:45 AM to 4:00 PM. Australian wedding photographers put standard on-the-day coverage at eight hours, sometimes stretching to ten.1 The ceremony everyone builds the day around takes 15 to 30 minutes.2
The two-venue day against a photographer's eight hours.
The job also outlasts the send-off. The afternoon sheet carries one row after it, pack-down at 11:15 PM, and on the morning sheet the couple leave at 3:30 PM with the venue not clear until 4:00 PM.
What is left on the sheet after the couple leave.
Hand over a day that is already timed Put your ceremony time into the run sheet generator and it places the day around it, with a column for each supplier. Then hand the link to whoever is running it.
What a day-of coordinator does not do
There is no standard scope for this service in Australia, so the only definition that binds is the one written into your contract. Four things are worth naming in it, because they are the four couples most often assume are included.
Choosing and booking your suppliers. By the time a day-of coordinator starts, the contracts are signed and the money is committed. Who you booked is a fact they work around.
Setting the times. The ceremony time decides the shape of everything else, and it is usually locked when the venue is booked.
The paperwork. Your notice of intended marriage has to reach your celebrant not earlier than 18 months and not later than one month before the wedding.4 That deadline stays with you and your celebrant.
Writing the run sheet from nothing. Some coordinators build it with you beforehand and charge for that time; others expect a finished document and will tidy it. Ask which, in writing, before you pay anything.
Where the handover actually happens
The handover is the run sheet, and it works when it carries three things: a real clock time on every row, a column per supplier so nobody is reading someone else's job, and the decisions a stranger cannot make for you.
The shipped template is built as nine columns, a primary sheet everyone reads plus one each for the photographer, videographer, hair and makeup, celebrant, florist, caterer, DJ or band and transport, and a row reaches a supplier only when that supplier's column has something in it.
The third part is the one that gets left out. Who walks with whom down the aisle, who must not be seated together, what happens if it rains at 4:00 PM. A coordinator can run any day you give them, and they cannot guess a decision nobody has made yet.
Common questions
Is a day-of coordinator the same as a wedding planner? No. A planner works with you across the engagement, on suppliers, budget and design, and a day-of coordinator picks the day up at the end of that work. The titles get used loosely, so ask which weeks are covered rather than which word is used.
Do we still need a run sheet if we hire one? Yes, because the run sheet is the thing being handed over. Without one, the first weeks go on rebuilding a document that already existed in your heads.
Can our MC or a family member do it instead? For one block, yes. The shipped sheet already hands the MC the clock during speeches. Across a sixteen-hour day, a guest who is also in the photographs is being asked to work at your wedding, so decide that on purpose rather than at 5:00 PM.
Does the venue coordinator already do this? Ask which rows of your run sheet they will hold and where their responsibility stops. A venue's own coordinator is looking after the building, the staff and the kitchen's timings, which sit inside your day without being the whole of it.
What do they need from us the week before? The run sheet with real times on it, supplier names and mobile numbers, the seating plan, the ceremony order, and a list of the calls they can make without ringing you.
What if a coordinator is not in the budget? Name a person for each handover instead: one for supplier arrivals, the MC for the speech block, one for the send-off. Write their names on the sheet, give each of them their own view of it, and build it in the free tools.
What to decide next
Build the run sheet first, then decide what you are hiring. Put your ceremony time into the run sheet generator, read the day back, and correct the rows a derivation cannot know about, like your driveway or your family. Then ask whoever you hire which of the four items above they cover.
The full run sheet template is the version worth handing over, and couples pay for it once rather than monthly. If you are the coordinator rather than the couple, the criteria for judging the software are a separate page.