Sometimes in wedding planning you get to make a simple, obvious decision. If you are in Southern California, that simple, obvious decision is hiring Pop the Champagne Events to be your Day-of Coordinator. To start, Pop the Champagne’s prices start at 0 (yes, you read that right) and Allie Shane, the founder, is an APW reader to the core. She says:
This is going to sound dramatic but APW—its readers, the staff, and most of all the couples we have worked with—is the heart of Pop the Champagne. I started reading APW while I was planning my own wedding and it helped me to form my ideas of how I wanted my day to go and how weddings should be. Then, when I started my business, I got the most (and best) clients from the community. But it wasn’t just getting the business that was important—APW couples helped me to fine tune Pop the Champagne into what it is today.
And what Pop the Champagne is today is a kick-ass business devoted exclusively to day-of coordination, focused solely on making your day go more smoothly, at a price you can afford.
Here are just a few of the new services offered by Pop the Champagne, lots of which are focused on supporting your DIY elements, your unusual and totally rad venue, and your creative-but-unusual catering setup. In Allie’s own words:
We started a program called “Share the Love” to recycle wedding decor. We see a lot of the same trends and know that our clients are all about saving a buck, so the program allows newlyweds to donate or sell their decor to other Pop the Champagne couples who are still planning. We also now provide day-of service staff. We work on a lot of weddings with “non-traditional” catering—food trucks, drop offs, tacos—and realized the need for affordable, cool, hard working service staff to fill in the gap where these caterers drop off. Staff that will pull double duty and help move chairs from the ceremony to the reception or pick up your cake from the bakery on their way in because they are Pop the Champagne staff—not just normal servers. And since we manage the staff, that’s just one less thing our clients have to worry about.
So let’s talk about that price point, because clearly there’s an upsell in there somewhere, right? (NOPE.) For weddings with one venue and 150 or fewer guests (aka a ton of APW weddings), the charge is 0. For more than 150 guests and/or two venues the price goes up to 50 (and includes an assistant coordinator). All Pop the Champagne packages include:
- Unlimited hours on the day of the wedding.
- Rehearsal coordination.
- One in person meeting 4–6 weeks prior to the wedding to create a timeline and go over details.
- Vendor confirmation the week of the wedding.
- Unlimited emails. Because you want to stay sane.
Pop the Champagne promises they’ll never try to up-sell you on something you don’t want or need, but if it turns out you need some extra meetings or help, that’s all available for a simple $40 an hour. Period. And all APW couples receive $50 off if they book the month of February, just for being so awesome. So clearly you should do that.
While they may be super affordable, Pop the Champagne Events is also a hundred percent legit and a hundred percent professional. Allie explains:
By creating a larger team and servicing more and more clients, we have been able to keep our pricing affordable (and my goal is to keep it that way). I truly believe that every wedding needs a DOC. In fact, the more bootstrapped your wedding is, the more I believe you need a DOC. That said, while we take our jobs seriously, we also like to remind you that this is A PARTY! We’ll be the first ones to tell you to stop—no you don’t need favors. Yes, go with the easier centerpiece. No, of course you don’t have to toss the bouquet. Our job is to make sure things run smoothly but also to make sure the couple is having a great time—this is the biggest party you’ll probably ever have. Enjoy it!
We have been focused solely on Day-of Coordination for over a year now, and that has proved to fill a huge gap in the Southern California wedding world. In 2014 alone we did almost seventy weddings—that means we have a lot of experience with different venues, vendors, cultures, traditions—and well, we’ve seen a lot of shit. We are troubleshooting masters and really do know how to make your day run like a well-oiled matrimonial machine. Our team is badass, and we will do whatever it takes to make sure your day is as perfect as possible. If you were to pop in on one of our coordinators at a wedding you might find us climbing ladders, busing dishes, stepping in as emcee, being a make-shift florist, iPod DJ… whatever it takes.
Our job can be hard and stressful—we usually work twelve to fourteen hour days on our feet; we get dirty and sweaty; we get yelled at by crazy mothers-in-law—but we also get to be there for the best day ever, and that is so gratifying. At the end of the night we get hugged and kissed by not only our clients, but their moms, grandparents and the wedding party. “OMG. We couldn’t have done this without you.” That’s all we care about at the end of the day.
Having worked nearly a hundred weddings during my tenure as a wedding photographer, I can’t sing the praises of an amazing day-of coordinator loudly enough. (They’re like fairy godmothers.) And as someone who was broke during wedding planning (and therefore tried to stage manage her own wedding), I couldn’t be more delighted to have a bonafide affordable wedding coordinating option in one of the most expensive wedding markets in the country. So if you’ve been thinking you might want a day-of coordinator (and if you can afford one, they’re worth their weight in gold), then check out Southern California’s Pop the Champagne Events. Because APW values combined with affordable prices is the holy grail of wedding planning, and one should never look a gift horse in the mouth.
Pop the Champagne is offering APW readers a $50 discount on Day-of coordination when you book in February. Contact them and make it happen right here.
