Planning your wedding with Georgia Hewitt, Hythe Imperial

Senior Wedding Coordinator Georgia Hewitt from Kent Wedding Awards winner Hythe Imperial shares her top tips for planning a stress-free wedding day

What do you wish all couples knew about the work that goes into wedding planning?

The logistics of things - what could sound like an easy fix for the couple could be complex back of house. For example, if couples end up changing plans at the last minute - something like swapping guests around on a table, would mean changing the menu choices around on the operations sheet so that we can make sure each dish is going to the correct person.

What are some of the best ideas or themes you've seen incorporated into a wedding you’ve helped to coordinate?

The best idea I have seen recently would be instead of table numbers, a couple named their tables after cities in Europe they’d visited and on each table, they had a photo of the two of them in front of the a landmark from that city - it was fun for the guests to work out what table they were on.

The best theme I have seen would be a Great Gatsby themed wedding, the ballroom looked absolutely fabulous with ostrich feathers and a 7-tier wedding cake.

What are some of the key questions a couple should ask their wedding planner?

I’d say some key questions would be:

What time do I need to be in my wedding outfit?

Is there any particular format you require information? For example, when it comes to giving the venue information like food allergens, a list of suppliers or details of timings, how would the planner like this to be supplied to them?

What do we need to provide on on the day?

How many family rooms do you have?

When starting to plan a wedding, what information do couples need to come to you with?

It’s always good to know the time and date of the ceremony, how many day guests they’re looking to attend, their budget and also how they envisage their day going.

What's the hardest thing to coordinate when it comes to a wedding day?

The hardest thing to coordinate would be the photos. On a wedding day, plans can always change depending on the weather. As a hotel, we’re lucky in the fact that we have a lot of indoor and outdoor photo opportunities for our wedding couples. However, a couple would’ve run through with their photographer the order of the first photos and plans can always change so, as a team we have to work together to be able to work around their photo times.

What's the best thing to coordinate?

None of it is easy, but if it was easy, we wouldn’t be working to the best of our ability! The best thing to coordinate would be the running of the day; watching everything run smoothly and coming together, working together as a team to create our couples’ dream day. Personally, my favourite thing to coordinate would be collecting our bride from her bridal suite and bringing her down our staircase to get married, getting the bridal party in order, and sending one by one down the aisle. 

Georgia hosts a Wedding Wednesday with prosecco every Wednesday evening from 5pm to 8pm until the 29th of March 2023.

www.hytheimperial.co.uk