I am a wedding designer, planner and day of coordinator as well as photographer. It's confusing to people, as Danny Straolzini of TSP dj.com said he had never met a Planner / Photographer before. It's true I do both, but not together. If I plan a wedding I don't shoot it. I shot 4 weddings so far this summer and coordinated 2 weddings and am Co planning one. I will shoot for fun, for any bride, for free, the weddings I am day of coordinator or planner for, but I don't take shots lists. I shoot what I can when I can if I am the coordinator or planner. Any shots that come out of it for me or the bridal party are icing and it's a perk I offer. Shooting is a whole different stress than planning, coordination. Both are LIVE Broadway shows and hard in their own unique ways. I was grateful not to be the shooter on a couple of weddings and really happy not to be the planner coordinator on the others. It's been working out really nice. If there is one mistake I made on this wedding, I find that most people don't know the difference between wedding designer, event planner and coordinator. I probably should be laying that out to the mothers fathers and self appointed cheifs. Even though the bride is in charge and she's the one I work with and answer to, there is usually one who wants to be in charge as well and they usually have an agenda about my job description and what I should be doing. I am so grateful I had this wedding because now I am working on the descriptions as handouts. I understand that no one would really know the differences anyway and why would they for the most part, they are only marring once, so unless they are in the business they wouldn't know what the difference between a designer, coordinator and planner is. A very short discription follows. The designer is the concept person. Imagination and an artistic point of view with a strong grasp in the elements of design is required, as well as how to entertain on a grand scale. The planner chooses vendors, negotiates contracts, sets up the timeline, choreographs the event (so the crowd isn't board to tears and are having fun and refreshments) and makes plans and implements them from tiny details to the big stuff. Day of coordinator makes sure that all those elements come together the two dasy of the wedding. Most brides willing to do most of the work and on a budget will bring in a day of coordinator keeping the design and planning aspects to themselves. I think any bride doing the planning / designing should probably consult and a seasoned designer / planner so they don’t run into vendor and venue nightmares and attain knowledge in entertaining a 100 + people. Seating charts, mailings, programs, favors, delegation, timimg, ecetera....... I was booked for 2 days of wedding coordination at the Country Club in Lake Almanor for a couple that did all of their own design and planning (nicce job too)...My job, jump in and coordinate their vendors, implement their agenda, make sure the set up and details go their way for the day of. The package I created for day of coordination is 2 meetings prior, unlimited phone and email access, on site day of. I usually set up 2 meeting for this, and I had 4 meetings including rehearsal day of and 15 calls and 25 emails. I was on site from 1 30 pm to 11:44 (this is a time I always notice because in Cop talk, my husband is a deputy Sheriff 11 44 means dead body). What I learned from this wedding was, create a description and full definitions of Designer, Planner, Coordinator and pass them out to the folks that have an agenda for how it should go, mothers, fathers, self appointed cheifs etcetera…. Definitions of the wedding planner and thoughts.