Decoding Venue Roles: Who Really Does What (And Why It Matters)

Not all "venue coordinators" are created equal—and assuming they are can derail your entire event. In this episode, COO Krisy Thomas sits down with Master Certified Wedding Planner and Certified Educator Nikki Rodgers to pull back the curtain on how venue teams actually operate, so you can stop guessing and start collaborating with confidence.

Nikki breaks down the four core roles you're likely to encounter—from the owner who sold the date to the banquet captain directing service—and explains how responsibilities shift between contract signing and day-of execution. Through real-world examples, you'll discover why assumptions cause chaos: the venue that provides tables but won't set them, the dry-hire space where the coordinator handles electrical emergencies, and the neighboring property with completely opposite policies.

You'll learn the exact questions to ask the moment you're hired, including "Who will be my primary contact during planning?" and "Who is on a radio on event day?" Nikki and Krisy share their proven handoff strategy: send your working timeline early, reconfirm with the on-site lead the week before, and loop in owners when operations like pressure washing or rental staging might impact your schedule.

If you've ever built a detailed timeline only to discover the venue created their own, or arrived on event day to find no one planned to set chairs, this conversation gives you the playbook to prevent double work and last-minute scrambles. You'll also discover how to navigate venues with in-house catering versus outside caterers, when to defer to the banquet captain's service pacing, and how small, thoughtful gestures—like thanking staff in front of the couple and leaving authentic reviews—transform single events into lasting partnerships.

Ready to master these essential skills and elevate your planning expertise? Join the ranks of the industry's most respected professionals by earning your certification through CWP Society. Our comprehensive training equips you with proven strategies, professional protocols, and the confidence to handle any venue relationship with grace. Become a Certified Wedding Planner and join a community committed to excellence. Learn more at CWPSociety.com.

www.cwpsociety.com | info@cwpsociety.com | IG: @cwpsociety | FB: @cwpsociety

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to the Wedding Planner Society Podcast, brought to you by the CWP Society.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Planner Society Podcast, brought to you by the CWP Society, the world's leading certification program and the largest community of certified wedding professionals and planners. I am Chrissy Thomas, the COO of the CWP Society, and today we're diving into one of the most commonly misunderstood parts of a wedding day coordination, the venue team. Not every venue coordinator has the same role, and knowing who you're working with can make or break the planning process. Joining me today is the always insightful Nikki Rogers, who is a master certified wedding planner and a certified educator who's going to be breaking down the different types of venue roles that you may encounter, how responsibilities shift throughout the planning process, and what planners can do to collaborate more effectively with each of them. Welcome back, Nikki. As always, I'm so excited to have you on, especially when we're talking about all things venue. Because from our previous episodes, if you guys have tuned in, Nikki has worked them all. Basically, she is working in hotels, private venues, and now she is in the role of being that as a certified wedding planner. So, Nikki, when we say venue coordinator, that can actually mean a lot of different things. Can you walk us through some of the most common types of venue roles and what makes them distinct? What makes them different?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

When we say venue coordinator, there are so many different ones as you mentioned. So I'm going to touch on a few that I have personal experience with. Perfect. So owner operated is one option for venue coordinator, truly. Your owner of a venue could be more hands-on. They could be setting up the initial meetings. They could even be the one handling those meetings and initially conversating with you about pricing, showing you around the space and everything like that. A sales manager is another one. They will generally report back to the owner. They probably have some sales goals, but they're your primary contact throughout your wedding planning experience in most cases, if there is a sales manager. Their job is to not only walk you through everything for the venue, show you around the space, solidify the contract with you, and be your main point of contact through planning. Another option that you could have experience with, truly, is the event manager. For an event manager, I find that they tend to be more hands-on the month of or even just the day of or that final week of the wedding. Those are someone who comes in, usually on the day of when the sales manager is getting ready to head out for the night, they'll talk to the sales manager about how things are going throughout the wedding, and then they'll take over that evening. There's also a banquet captain. Usually every venue, especially if they have any sort of food and beverage, is going to have a banquet captain on site. Your banquet captain is generally the one doing most of the talking to the kitchen. Um, again, if there's catering on site, they're also coordinating throughout the day, the evening, and the cleanup. Oftentimes your sales manager and event manager don't stay through cleanup. That's usually where your banquet captain is there. So there are so many different moving parts within venue coordinator that can be there.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

What I love about all of this, Nikki, and you mentioned this at the very beginning was, you know, this is based off of what I have experienced. And I'm glad that you mentioned that because each venue does things so differently. And each title can possibly mean something different based off of what that venue is, you know, based off of how that venue operates. They could have what they call an event manager, but that event manager may be a bit more of what you described as a sales manager. It's going to be so different based off of each venue. However, I do think as a planner, we need to know which type who we are dealing with. So what do you suggest as planners? How can we tell maybe early in the process which type of venue contact we're working with? And I think I know your answer to this, but I would love to elaborate on it.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

You probably do, because it's one of the things I say every single time we're recording podcasts together. But reach out to the venue initially and ask, who am I working with throughout this planning process? Who will be on site the day of? If you're there for strike, who's going to be handling that and who can I get together with before we go out or before we leave for the evening? I personally, again in my business, we like to do a checkout. So we check out with, you know, the venue, we check out with the couple, we check out with everybody who's there that day that we are responsible.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

And a lot of venues actually require some sort of checkout for not just us as planners, but for all of the wedding pros. And I suppose we think about those more like private venues where there isn't in-house catering insight. So there's going to be a checkout for the catering crew, making sure they left the kitchen in the exact clean way that they found it. So again, it all really does boil down to communication. And as planners, we have to make sure that we are asking the right questions and not making assumptions based off of what we know this venue role typically is. We still need to confirm it again, like you said, in confirming early. I love that you always mentioned that, Nikki. You the very beginning of the process, the moment you're hired, you are reaching out to that venue to make sure that you know what their role is and how you guys can better work together. And that kind of ties into my next question for you, Nikki, because I feel like there's a lot of assumptions that we as planners make. What are some misconceptions that planners and even couples often have about venue coordinators and their role?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Definitely. I think that's a great question. Honestly, I find that, you know, a venue coordinator's role because it can vary so much, and they can be so many different entities within the venue that you might assume that they are going to be cutting the cake, for example. You know, again, whether they have in-house catering or not, that just might be an assumption that you make. You want to not assume anything in those point in those positions. You know, finding out that the venue coordinator is really just on site for any spills to help clean up or checking, you know, restrooms, things like that, where it might not be the most glorious. And, you know, actually, one that just happened with uh a venue that we were working at last month. The DJ was doing sound check and his outlet stopped working. Guess who had to go handle that? The venue coordinator, because that's why they're on site. She was not there to help set linen, she was not there to help make sure that the food was getting ready. That is um a non-catering venue. So they have outside catering companies come in for that particular venue. She was able to kind of drop what she was in the middle of because it wasn't anything that is technically her responsibility, and she was able to go handle the electrical issue that came up with the cater, uh, with the uh DJ. It was actually catering and DJ. They were plugged into the same one.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Exactly. And again, Nikki, to piggyback off what she mentioned, it is also different. And I'll give you an example of two venues that I work at that are literally down the street from one another. We can walk from one venue to the next. The venue manager's role at the one particular venue, they handle the table and chair setup. They are there to unlock the doors. There it's we're doing a room flip, they're there to help with the room flip, make sure the toilet paper is soft, all the things like that. But there it includes setting up tables and chairs of their items. Whereas the venue down the street, even though they provide tables and chairs, they actually don't do setup. So again, it's that assumption that as planners, we have to make sure that we are not doing, like you mentioned, asking those right questions. Because let's say that just because they're down the street, if I was like, oh, well, this venue sets up their tables and chairs, and this menu must set up their tables and chairs, and I get their own wedding day, and the tables and chairs are not set up. So again, having to ask all of those appropriate questions.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Yeah, that would not be a fun surprise to find the day of if you didn't ask ahead of time.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Yep, exactly. And since we're talking a lot about communication, what are maybe a few red flags or even communication gaps that you've seen that can cause confusion between the planner and the venue team? And and how do you think those could have been prevented? And even Nikki, if this comes from you when in your role of being a venue, any red flags or communications issues that you maybe ran into with the planners who work at your venues.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

A lot of times that did happen, honestly. And it again, exactly like you said, it always boiled down to that communication factor. If the planner wasn't telling me when I was a venue coordinator, some of the things that they are handling or that they are in charge of or responsible for, we did find each other kind of stepping on each other's toes or trying to vie for the same thing, right? If you want to hold the doors open for them to walk in for their announcements, or the DJ wants to, just tell the venue coordinator, hey, this moment is important to me. Do you mind if I do this? Something as simple as that, which could end up leading to hard feelings in the long run, truthfully. I think that would make such a big difference to people because they now know where you're at. They can meet you where you're at. You can meet them where they're at. No one is trying to do double the work. Yeah. There's so much work to do on wedding day for everybody, and there's plenty to go around for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Exactly. And it kind of reminds me too, Nicky, of a client I have for 2026. It's a venue that I've never worked at before. But part of their packages did include what they called a venue coordinator, but it was in fact more of the role of that of a wedding coordinator, where in their package it included making the timeline, um, coordinating the day. And obviously, this couple hired me to do that. So we were able to talk to them and kind of negotiate her package where she's like, I've got Chrissy for this. And it's already been a beautiful relationship. We're scheduling our first initial walkthrough. And she's like, What do you need from me to make this meeting go more efficiently for you? Just let me know. So, versus her, you know, trying to take over what I've already been paid to do. But again, it's the wording is what threw me off because if I had assumed venue coordinator, that just admit, oh, she's there to make sure that the venue's running properly, doors are unlocked, if we run into any electrical issues like you did, that that she'd be there for that. But if I didn't really dig deep and read what their package actually offered and realized, oh, their venue coordinator is in fact more of a wedding coordinator, or they have a package where that a wedding coordinator can be presented. I could have walked in, you know, the eight-week out meeting and been like, what do you mean you have a timeline? I've already made a timeline. Again, like you said, doing double the work. And again, it all boils down to communication. If you want anything from our podcast episodes with Nikki, communication with your venue team is where it's at. It's what's needed. But I do want to talk about, let's say, kind of what you mentioned earlier when we talked about the different roles of venues. If a venue has a hands-off event staff or bakedwith manager or event manager close to the event day, what are some of the best practices that we as planners can make to make sure that transition is really seamless? If they've been hands-off throughout the planning process but come in the week of, how can we ease that transition to make sure that we're able to work together for our couples?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

It's one of those things where I would probably again set up a meeting with them or a quick phone call. I would send them the copy of the timeline much before the week of, of course. But the week of, maybe touch face with them, give them a quick call, say, hey, I just want to make sure, you know, I know you're coming into this this week. We've been working together for a while, and I want to make sure this day is seamless for both of our couple. So let's chat about this timeline. Are we good with everything? Do you see anything that might affect the way you, as the venue, need to handle a particular um part of the day? You know, just is there something that you see right off the bat that maybe your sales manager or owner didn't see? Perhaps they're not as hands-on the day of. So they might glance at your timeline, go, yep, looks great. But this person is the one who's actually on site that day. Yeah. That being said, that might be something where, you know, they're looking through it and go, oh, you know what? This actually needs to change slightly. And here's how we could change that. So we're working together. And it just really becomes such a great event when you have that piece in there.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

I'm so glad you mentioned that. I something similar happened to me last week with the wedding that I had, where my point of contact was the event manager. I can't remember, I don't know exactly what a role is. It's a brand new venue, so they're still trying to figure out the kinks of that. But I also got the contact information for the owner because he was involved in some of the communication as well, not near as much as my venue manager, but I wanted to make sure that he was aware of some of the timing for the things, particularly with the setup. And I was so glad that I looped him in because he had mentioned something along the lines they were going to pressure wash. And I was like, Well, it's a private estate wedding, setup's actually gonna be starting earlier. We got we got this approved from the event manager, and he was like, Oh, she didn't let me know we're gonna have to pressure wash earlier to to accommodate the fact that the rental company is coming a little bit earlier. So again, I was very glad that I took, I always listened to Nikki here and I communicated with everyone involved, but that's a similar situation that could have happened. He wasn't heavily involved during the planning process, but he was gonna be there that week to make sure the venue was looking good. And because she didn't relay that information over to him with the timeline, he wasn't prepared for the rentals to come as early as they did, even though she gave us permission. But as the planner, being that I'm over communicate, he knew well in advance of, oh, you know, thank you for giving me that heads up. I was planning on pressure washing on Friday. Now we'll make sure that it's done by Thursday, you know. So that's why communication is important. And if you know there's multiple people involved, go ahead and get multiple people's contact information and keeping them in the know and in the loop.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Yeah, it definitely doesn't hurt to have more people, you know, know the plan. And like you said, it wasn't even on purpose. They just she doesn't know when the owner is getting the place pressure washed, you know, things like that come up where the owner sees that this needs to be done and instinctively they're just gonna do it. It's their property, they want to make it look the best for, you know, the client's big day as well, because it's a reflection of their space. So it's not that anyone did anything incorrectly, they just don't know each other's plans all the time.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

So, Nikki, how can planners continue to build that strong and respectful partnerships with venues long term?

SPEAKER_00 15:00

There's definitely a lot of great ways that I've found over my years. As a venue coordinator, it was always nice when someone would pop by, you know, and just say hi. Sometimes if they're in the area, maybe they'll pop by with, you know, I've had people bring things, you know, little sandwich trays or cookie trays, things like that. It's just that slight thought of, oh, they went out of their way to come say hi to us. And that might not be your style, and that's okay. Honestly, just checking in on them, knowing that it's the weekend, it's busy season in your neck of the woods, and wherever that is that you're listening from, it might be one of those things where you're just sending them a quick email, hey, thinking about you. Hope all of your weddings and events this week or weekend have gone great. Um, let's set up a coffee date sometime. Or, you know, I've got some clients who I'm thinking of bringing by. Or if you know that they recently went through a remodel, maybe taking the time to go there, see the remodel, see how much they've improved the space that just happened at one near us, where I did actually intentionally, you know, contact them, reach out to them. How was the remodel? How was the first wedding after it? And can I set up time to go see it? Because it is exciting to see a big refresh. They've spent a lot of time, a lot of money on it. And, you know, just those little moments that you can fill in with how you thought of them, it can go such a long way.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

It really can't. It's just an appreciation, and especially for the venues that you love working at, the venues that have that A plus staff and team that keeps you in the loop where you work so well together, those are the venues I want to showcase my appreciation to. So, again, a little thoughtful, you know, like you said, coffee, sandwich trays. I love that idea because that's going to cover the whole staff typically of just showcasing your appreciation. And even if that's not within your budget, just a simple email of thinking about you during busy season, just want to let you know I appreciate you on day up, showcasing your appreciation, saying thank you when they do things. That those little things go a long way, and it doesn't happen as often as it needs to, unfortunately. Saying thank you in the moment for the things that they're doing. Um, if they're going above and beyond for your client, mentioning that to the client of like, man, they pulled the strings for us to have this space. They've been so wonderful to work with. All that's going to do is just make sure making sure that you guys have this phenomenal relationship. And that's what this is. That all this is, it's a beautiful partnership, but it's also a relationship. And how you treat people truly does mean something. Whether their role is that of an owner, operator, catering manager, banquet staff, whatever that is, when you treat people with kindness and respect, it's all it does is create this beautiful, wonderful relationship. And that benefits us, it benefits them, and most importantly, it benefits our couples.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Definitely. And even a quick review. We're always asking our couples for reviews. We can review each other as wedding professionals. Couples see that, you know, and I just think it's a nice touch. We leave reviews for some of the really great, you know, wedding vendors that we work for. Again, you have to check with your company. If you're not the owner, you want to make sure your company allows for reviewing other companies. Some do, some don't. However, if you're allowed to, it's a really nice thing that we can do for each other, not only to help boost our reviews, but also so other couples can see how well we all work together.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yes, exactly, exactly. Thank you so much, Nikki. Again, always such great insight. I hope every episode people will walk away with the fact that, oh, communication is everything. Communication is everything. So, but today's conversation really highlights how understanding the venue roles can completely transform the way planners approach communication and coordination on a wedding day. Now, if you are ready to elevate your planning skills and gain a deeper understanding of every facet of the industry, it's time to take the next step. Get certified through the Certified Wedding Planner Society. Becoming a certified wedding planner gives you the knowledge, the credibility, and the confidence to handle every wedding with professionalism and ease. Visit cwpssociety.com to start your certification journey today. Thank you for tuning in to the Wedding Planner Society podcast. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, keep communicating, and keep leaving our industry with excellence. Thank you so much, Nikki. Thank you.