Meet the wedding coordinator

Siobhan Craven-Robins is a wedding coordinator prepared to take the reins and turn your wedding day into a stress-free occasion.

A wedding planner will not only relieve some of the stress involved in planning your nuptials, but he or she can also make your big day as glamorous as any A-list event.

- Search: Wedding planning

What's the best thing about being a wedding planner?

The variety - no two days are the same; no two weddings, no two couples are the same. I love the creativity of the job. I wouldn't like to do a job where I sat behind a desk and didn't talk to anyone all day, so dealing with lots of different people is great. Each day is varied but will involve client, site or vendor meetings. I try to allow two days a week in my office purely for administration.

What advice would you give to people looking for a wedding coordinator?

You should look for letters and statements from previous clients and photos from weddings they have coordinated in the past. It's also about rapport, you need to get on with each other. I try to make it a fun, relaxed experience for my clients.

What advice would you give to people planning their own wedding?

Go on friends' recommendations, so if somebody had good photographs or a great caterer, etc, go with them - otherwise you just don't know what you are getting. Do a thorough research job when planning your wedding to get a good idea of what is out there.

How much does a wedding cost currently?

The average cost of a wedding nowadays is meant to be about £21,000, but in London it can be more like £32,000 upwards.

Is it more common to use a wedding coordinator nowadays?

I've been doing this for such a long time - it's 10 years this year - but I have noticed there are more wedding coordinators out there now.

Have you noticed any trends in weddings recently, or anything that people are asking for a lot at the moment?

A lot of people are organising their weddings out of London at the moment. Also, most weddings tend to be a three- or four-day event, with an informal dinner on the Friday, the wedding on the Saturday and maybe a brunch or lunch on the Sunday. I think it's because people want to spend more time with their friends and family. It all goes by so quickly otherwise.

What sort of things do you do as a wedding coordinator, and what does the job involve?

The couple normally come to me with not too many ideas of what they want. The first thing we decide on is the location - we find a list of suitable venues and then I will send them a list with an overview of each location and the couples will decide on a venue. We then sit down and have a brainstorm and I get an idea of what the couple is like and we work on everything from photos and timing of the day to wording on the invitations. So it's a mixture of organisation and creativity.

Have you been asked to organise anything unusual for a wedding?

A couple once asked to be 'magicked' into the reception in a puff of smoke, so I arranged for a magician from the Inner Magic Circle to make it happen. One couple asked for Swiss Guards to stand at the entrance to their marquee. I had a feeling the Vatican weren't too keen on lending out the actual guards so I got actors to dress up as the guards instead.

Have you experienced many disasters?

There are always so many things that can go wrong. I always make two plans - one for good and one for bad weather. On one occasion, a couple went abroad and picked their location. There were two rooms in their chosen location - one they liked and one they hated. Ten days before the wedding the general manager rang me to tell me they had to refurbish their room and knock down a wall! Instead of panicking the couple, I arranged for a production team to rebuild the wall on the day of the wedding so their plans weren't spoiled.

Another time there was a pile-up on the motorway with the photographer and some of the guests stuck in it, so I just pushed back on all the times. The key is not to panic, which is much easier when you are looking at the wedding objectively rather than subjectively.

Once I had a Boxing Day wedding where the wedding car disappeared when it was due to be brought round to the church. It turned out the car was stuck in mud. We couldn't get it out because the sound of the car revving could be heard in the church. Luckily we found an identical car in a garage just in time.

How did you get into planning weddings?

I started off doing events organising, but decided to move into wedding coordination after I planned my own wedding. I did eight months of market research. I only use people I know so I had to check all the potential suppliers out.

Have you had weddings at any interesting locations?

I organise weddings in London and the South East, so it could be anything from the glamour of Claridges in London to somewhere quirky like Lympne Castle in Kent.

Which celebrities have you organised weddings for?

Joan Collins, Barbara Windsor, Greg Kinnear, Ronni Ancona.

If you could organise a celebrity wedding, who would it be for?

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. I think it would be a very intimate affair. I'd also love to do a royal wedding. They don't hire coordinators - it's all organised in-house. It would be a real challenge to organise a wedding while adhering to all the protocol required for a royal occasion.