Hi all,

Today, I want to talk about managing your time and also delegating work to other people in your team.

I did not mention this before, but I am doing an internship with a company where the space is rented for all sorts of events. My job there is to make sure that all of the vendors coming in and out adhere to the rules of the company, and I also help coordinate throughout the event.

Last weekend, I worked with them for a wedding. As you all know, weddings are a very special event in someone’s life, so everything needs to be as perfect as possible. What I witness through out the process of setting up for the ceremony and during the event in general made me think that some vendors really need to organize themselves better and learn to delegate work to their team. This is also a learning experience for me and you.

In this case, the vendor that was falling behind schedule was the caterer. The catering manager for this particular event seemed to look a little anxious and nervous because she was way behind schedule and the ceremony was about to start–most of the guests were already there, including the bride and groom. I noticed that her team of waiters looked a little bit too relaxed. So, what does this tell you? The catering manager was trying to get done as much as she could while her team were taking their time to set up the tables and chairs, which let me tell you, they did not set up the chairs for the ceremony. I will explain this better: we are talking about 100 and some guests, a reception area with about 10 tables and a couple of high tops, and the balcony area where the ceremony was going to take place. Also, take into consideration that they didn’t even have to put the plates, silverware, and napkins on the tables–only two glasses and a small vase with a flower. It looked lovely! I don’t want to make it sound like it was not. At the end it was a lovely wedding, but as detailed oriented that I am, I would have changed a few things.

Although, the catering manager pulled it off, my advice is that as a vendor or planner, you should always try your best to be prepared as much as possible (one of the sauces the bride had requested specifically was not there) and also, you should not try to do so much yourself because you will burn yourself out and things are not going to get done. This is when delegating work to others becomes handy. That is why you have a team. We, as a leader, should learn to delegate work. I have problems with this myself, honestly–I always try to do too many things myself because I want them in a certain way, but if you teach your team to work with you, everything should flow better.

Fortunately, the bride and groom didn’t seem to notice much about what was going on, except the fact that the sauce was missing, which is one of the reasons of getting a planner–as a planner you should not forget things like that! The client and guests should never know what is going wrong behind the scenes. And I just want to point out that the bride and groom did not get a planner–they communicated with each vendor separately.

So, what can you take from this long post?? Always be prepared for the expected and unexpected, learn to delegate work to your team, and be as positive as possible! 🙂

Things will always come up and something is always bound to go wrong, but one should always be prepared to either avoid these things or to be ready to fix it when it happens.

I hope you find my article helpful and until next time!

With love,
Natalie