The five suppliers who need to talk to each other, and never do

Every supplier on your list is planning a great version of their own job. Almost none of them are talking to each other, because nobody has asked them to and none of them have your full schedule.

Five conversations decide whether the day runs. If nobody is having them, they are yours.

1. Photographer and celebrant

Where can the photographer stand, when can they move, and is the signing staged for the camera or done facing away from it? A celebrant who positions the couple with their backs to the light produces a ceremony gallery of silhouettes. Two minutes of conversation prevents it.

Also: is the ceremony unplugged? If the celebrant does not announce it, the aisle shot has six phones in it.

2. Florist and lighting

Anything hanging has to go up before the room is dressed, and lighting rigs and floral installations compete for the same ceiling points. Whoever goes second finds out there is nowhere left to hang from.

Order matters: rigging, then lighting, then florals, then tables. Get that wrong and somebody is dismantling finished work.

3. Band or DJ and the venue

Power, decibel limits, stage size and where the power comes from. A five-piece band needs considerably more than a single power point, and a venue with a limiter will cut the sound mid-set if nobody has agreed a level in advance.

This conversation should happen at the site visit, in person, with both parties. Not over email in the final week.

4. Caterer and whoever runs the room

Service timing against the run sheet: when do plates land, how long is each course, when does the kitchen need the speeches to stop. A kitchen holding mains for a speech that went long will serve compromised food, and they will be blamed for it.

The caterer needs the run sheet a fortnight out, and needs to be allowed to push back on it.

5. Everyone and the bump-in schedule

One document, sent to all suppliers, listing who arrives when, which entrance they use, how long they have, and who to call on site. This single page prevents more problems than any other thing in planning, and it is the thing most frequently missing.

Who makes these calls

Somebody has to, and the venue coordinator will not — those suppliers are not theirs. If you are running it yourself, put a fortnight aside for exactly this and make the calls by phone, not email.

It is unglamorous work. It is also most of what separates an event that runs from one that is constantly recovering.