Wedding planner has attention to detail

“I tell people that we don’t wear headsets and don’t steal husbands,” she said with a chuckle. “There’s no pretension, it’s not glamorous, and I’ve never had a $200 updo at someone else’s wedding.”

Shaw got her event planning start organizing corporate events, and did that for years, but in 2001 decided to apply her talents to weddings and related events. In 2002 she created her company, Attention to Detail, to help couples coordinate their wedding day.

“Most events are pretty dry – with weddings I get the chance to really be creative,” she said. “There’s a myth that brides are really tough to work with, but brides are really grateful and great to work with.”

From selecting vendors to handle the photography, catering, cake, location, ceremony and music and wedding-day coordination to etiquette advice and consultation, Shaw offers her couples complete service from beginning to end – and sometimes beyond.

“It’s weddings and social (planning), and we just added invitations – shower, wedding and then baby showers and christenings – so we help couples with that,” Shaw said. “We offer venue searches – I have couples from California, Georgia, New York, who either went to school here” or are natives and moved.

Shaw’s planning and consulting services cover Rhode Island and Massachusetts’ southern counties, metro areas and North Shore. There are about 250 venues she can choose from in that area, and Shaw often calls one of more than 100 different vendors she has in her repertoire for weddings.

“Another myth is that wedding coordinators are an additional fee, but the vendors work for me for a discount,” she said. “It makes it a lot easier if I can bring in my own people. It can be an extra expense, but if you hire me to find vendors, each one offers discounts that sometimes equal my fee.”

Shaw said couples should budget 5 percent to 10 percent of their budget if they hire her; she doesn’t take a percentage of the total but it usually works out to being the same figure.

On the day of the wedding, Shaw handles all of what she calls day-of coordination – making sure vendors arrive and deliver items on time and at the right locations. The bride and groom also get an hourly schedule of how the day will unfold, which also goes to the vendors – Shaw said it’s something her clients really like.

She also brings with her a makeup kit and an “emergency kit” of last-minute items and fix-its: wipes, hand towels, soap, etc., and all vendor contracts – just in case.

When asked if brides and grooms really need a wedding coordinator when there’s a willing family member, Shaw said, “A lot of times they have the bridesmaids do it, but I’m going to be under the table putting a matchbook under it if it’s crooked.”

At one wedding in Chinatown in Boston, guests were signing a silk tapestry as a guest book; Shaw made sure it was steamed. She has been known to run up a hill, in a dress and heels, carrying a cocktail table to a site. She’ll run across the street from a hotel where a couple is staying the day of the wedding to get them sandwiches; she’s even called around to see if she can book a Cinderella carriage.

“I tell younger girls that in order to do this, you have to be physically fit,” she said. “You have to either have a good memory or take notes on everything. You have to be organized. You have to be personable, have a strong work ethic. You have to be basically willing to do anything, within reason.

“I kind of feel like with every couple, it’s the one time they can be super demanding – they can do anything,” she added. “I’ll do anything for them – it’s their day.”

Budgets are another issue that Shaw deals with regularly – the smallest budget so far was $10,000; the largest was $60,000. One couple had a budget of $15,000 for a guest list of 150 – pretty restricted when you realize that the average American wedding costs about $25,000. Some couples decide to have a small backyard wedding and reception; others want to book glamorous Newport mansions.

“People ask me if I like what I’m doing, and say that the high-end brides must be tough, but they allow me to be more creative and do more because their budgets are a little bigger,” she said. “With a small budget, it forces you to be creative, and the lower ones are a little more fun – they’re usually a smaller crowd, more casual, but every wedding is different. I think the hardest thing sometimes (for couples) is getting everything in the budget, but that’s the best thing about being a coordinator – you can fill in the gaps.”

For Shaw, the day-of details and coordinating are the most fun – and most work and most stressful. “You get to see the fruition of everything,” she said.

As for the level of involvement, that depends on the bride, she said. Some handle the vendors themselves, and other brides call her once a week to voice concerns, questions or even familial complaints.

“I never tell a bride she has to do it ‘this way,’” she said. “It’s their day and I’m just here to help them out.”

Shaw said her first wedding as a professional was her most memorable – the wedding was at the groom’s family farm in Sherborn, Mass. Guests had cocktails in the barn, and the reception was held under a large tent. The bride had pumpkins and apple basket centerpieces and guests paid the band to continue playing after the reception.

The most outlandish request came from a bride whose husband was a rabid Batman fan – “I want the Batmobile for my wedding,” is what the bride told Shaw. “You call around – there are, I think, three in the country but they’re solely owned – but it usually costs more than they can budget for.”